Dressed in snakeskin
Mark 15:33. When the sixth hour came, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.
At the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani," that is, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Some of those standing by heard this and said, "Look, he's calling Elijah."
[media=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2O4j1cZIsFc]
Someone ran, soaked a sponge in vinegar, stuck it on a reed and tried to give Him water. He said, "Wait, let's see if Elijah comes to take Him down." But Jesus cried out with a loud voice and gave up the ghost.
Then the veil of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the centurion who stood opposite Him, seeing that He had thus given up the ghost, said, "Truly this Man was the Son of God."
They say that it is not the clothes that make the man, but that a man stripped of his clothes is reduced only to what is corporeal. The spirit is revealed when we cover the body - hence, many decorative liturgical vestments are used in the most ritual activities.
The garments express being clothed with the grace of justification and being exalted above human nature.
For years, when I read the description of Jesus' passion, my attention was drawn to the cruel ceremonial of the torturers who dressed and tore off His clothes. First, they dressed Him in purple and put on a crown of thorns. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple robe and put on his own clothes.
After the crucifixion, they cast lots for Jesus' clothing. And when he finally died on the cross, the veil of the temple was torn like Caiaphas' cloak was torn with scandal. Finally, Joseph of Arimathea wrapped Christ's body in a clean linen shroud and placed it in a rock-hewn tomb.
But before this happened, a crowd of people spread their cloaks under the hooves of the donkey on which Jesus triumphantly entered Jerusalem.
Even earlier, at the very dawn of humanity, when people were losing their paradise intimacy with the Creator, God clothed Adam and Eve in garments of skins. One of the ancient Jewish midrash says that God used the skin of the snake that shed and clothed Adam and Eve with it.
This is only an ancient interpretation, but it has extraordinary intuitive accuracy. Perhaps this attempt to explain what clothing was meant was dictated by the fact that the nakedness of Adam and Eve was called ARUMIM, while the serpent was the most cunning of all creatures and its perversity was called ARUM.
The Bible called clothing made of skins OR, but this word has the same vowels as the previous expressions. These are only associations, but they could have led to such symbolic assumptions for ancient readers of the original.
So when I read about people shedding their garments as Jesus entered the gates of Jerusalem, I associate this scene with the shedding of snake skins - a universal transformation into new shapes of love and the end of existence that makes man similar to the snake that bites with death.
Jesus once also compared himself to a serpent lifted up on a stake, because in Him the victory over sin and death, i.e. over the serpent, was achieved. In many religions, the shedding of the skin by a snake expressed the idea of rebirth in a new form.
When Stephen was stoned, the Jews threw off their clothes at the feet of young Saul so as not to have anything to do with this crime.
In this situation, taking off one's clothes expressed one's relinquishment of guilt. When the snake begins to shed its skin, its eyes cannot see anything, it is blind, and this state can last for three days, it is then as if frozen.
We do not see deliverance, we are blind to the saving process, but it takes place in us thanks to the grace obtained by Jesus on the cross, just when His last clothes were being torn off.
I am sending an additional comment to donors.
At the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani," that is, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Some of those standing by heard this and said, "Look, he's calling Elijah."
[media=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2O4j1cZIsFc]
Someone ran, soaked a sponge in vinegar, stuck it on a reed and tried to give Him water. He said, "Wait, let's see if Elijah comes to take Him down." But Jesus cried out with a loud voice and gave up the ghost.
Then the veil of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the centurion who stood opposite Him, seeing that He had thus given up the ghost, said, "Truly this Man was the Son of God."
They say that it is not the clothes that make the man, but that a man stripped of his clothes is reduced only to what is corporeal. The spirit is revealed when we cover the body - hence, many decorative liturgical vestments are used in the most ritual activities.
The garments express being clothed with the grace of justification and being exalted above human nature.
For years, when I read the description of Jesus' passion, my attention was drawn to the cruel ceremonial of the torturers who dressed and tore off His clothes. First, they dressed Him in purple and put on a crown of thorns. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple robe and put on his own clothes.
After the crucifixion, they cast lots for Jesus' clothing. And when he finally died on the cross, the veil of the temple was torn like Caiaphas' cloak was torn with scandal. Finally, Joseph of Arimathea wrapped Christ's body in a clean linen shroud and placed it in a rock-hewn tomb.
But before this happened, a crowd of people spread their cloaks under the hooves of the donkey on which Jesus triumphantly entered Jerusalem.
Even earlier, at the very dawn of humanity, when people were losing their paradise intimacy with the Creator, God clothed Adam and Eve in garments of skins. One of the ancient Jewish midrash says that God used the skin of the snake that shed and clothed Adam and Eve with it.
This is only an ancient interpretation, but it has extraordinary intuitive accuracy. Perhaps this attempt to explain what clothing was meant was dictated by the fact that the nakedness of Adam and Eve was called ARUMIM, while the serpent was the most cunning of all creatures and its perversity was called ARUM.
The Bible called clothing made of skins OR, but this word has the same vowels as the previous expressions. These are only associations, but they could have led to such symbolic assumptions for ancient readers of the original.
So when I read about people shedding their garments as Jesus entered the gates of Jerusalem, I associate this scene with the shedding of snake skins - a universal transformation into new shapes of love and the end of existence that makes man similar to the snake that bites with death.
Jesus once also compared himself to a serpent lifted up on a stake, because in Him the victory over sin and death, i.e. over the serpent, was achieved. In many religions, the shedding of the skin by a snake expressed the idea of rebirth in a new form.
When Stephen was stoned, the Jews threw off their clothes at the feet of young Saul so as not to have anything to do with this crime.
In this situation, taking off one's clothes expressed one's relinquishment of guilt. When the snake begins to shed its skin, its eyes cannot see anything, it is blind, and this state can last for three days, it is then as if frozen.
We do not see deliverance, we are blind to the saving process, but it takes place in us thanks to the grace obtained by Jesus on the cross, just when His last clothes were being torn off.
I am sending an additional comment to donors.
51-55, F