“And after they had mocked him, they took off the cloak from him, and put on him his own garments, and led him away to crucify him. And going out, they found a man of Cyrene, named Simon: him they forced to take up his cross. And they came to the place that is called Golgotha, which is the place of Calvary. And they gave him wine to drink mingled with gall. And when he had tasted, he would not drink. And after they had crucified him, they divided his garments, casting lots; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying: ‘They divided my garments among them; and upon my vesture they cast lots.’ And they sat and watched him. And they put over his head his cause written: This is Jesus the King of the Jews. Then were crucified with him two thieves: one on the right hand, and one on the left.”
After the crowning of Jesus with thorns, He is removed of the mock garments of a worldly king and instead clothed with His own garments, which is indicative of your removal of all that is fine and lavish in this world: “Adorning themselves not with modesty and sobriety, not with plaited hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly attire, but… with good works” (1 Timothy 2:9-10), and instead being clothed with the garments of Christ, which are His acts of love, virtues, and heavenly wisdom, “And he took his ring from his own hand, and gave it into his hand: and he put upon him a robe of silk” indicating grace, “and put a chain of gold about his neck” (Genesis 41:42), which indicates wisdom, of which there are two kinds, the first is mystical, which is represented by gold and constitutes knowing how loved you are by God, the second is theological, which is represented by silver, thus does the Bridegroom say: “We will make thee chains of gold, inlaid with silver” (Canticle 1:10), and the Psalmist: “You shall be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and the hinder parts of her back with the paleness of gold” (Psalm 67:14), that is, speaking with great wisdom, while hidden in your heart is your deep love of God. Therefore, to clothe yourself with Christ is to take on what is simple and lowly, rather than in the purple and scarlet of kings, both literally and metaphorically: “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh in its concupiscences” (Romans 13:14). He was cast out of the city, that it may not appear that He died for Jerusalem, but for the world, for in God’s presence being thrown out of the temple, it is offered to the world: “But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23), but while God may certainly be found in nature: “The heavens shew forth the glory of God, and the firmament declareth the work of his hands” (Psalm 18:2), it is more so in the sacraments and in the Scriptures: “The voice of my beloved, behold he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping over the hills” (Canticle 2:8), the mountains being the pages of Sacred Scripture, through which His presence leaps, though many can be hard to climb and reach to lofty heights, the hills being the sacraments, which are not lesser in dignity, but are rather more easily accessed, for even the illiterate can climb to the heights of love from the simplicity of reception of the Eucharist: “Man ate the bread of angels: he sent them provisions in abundance” (Psalm 77:25). During the carrying of the cross, Jesus collapses under the gravity of His suffering, and Simon is called to help Jesus carry His cross. “Simon,” as was mentioned in chapter 10, means “obedience,” and he bears the affliction of the cross, but does not carry it to the end, to being crucified with Jesus, and this represents those who may do what they’re told and do many great penances or acts of virtue, but in pride of spirit live to the world in desiring recognition, speaking grandly of their devotions, asceticism, wisdom, and virtues: “And Ezechias rejoiced at their coming, and he showed them the house of his aromatical spices, and the gold and the silver, and divers precious odours, and ointments, and the house of his vessels, and all that he had in his treasures. There was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominions that Ezechias shewed them not” (4 Kings 20:13). Thus, to bear the cross to the end with Jesus is to so bind yourself to His love that you lose yourself in Him, with body and spirit tamed by the calm voice of love: “If any man have ears to hear, let him hear” (Mark 4:23). He is led to Calvary, or Golgotha, a place where criminals were executed, which carries from the previous point; for Jesus even consented to the loss of His good name for the sake of love, the God and Architect of all things counted as a common criminal. He is offered wine mixed with gall, a mixture of herbs and bitter myrrh, which has two meanings: The first is that this was a painkiller, which Jesus refused, knowing that in your gravest suffering such a luxury was absent, with one translation of Psalm 87 saying, “Friend and neighbor you have taken away: my one companion is darkness” (Psalm 87:19), and, to be united to you all the more deeply, accepts His most intense suffering plainly and without alleviation. The second is that, when one suffers from love, wanting only the Beloved and the fulness of His glory: “Shew me thy glory” (Exodus 33:18), all other topics of conversation become bitter and uninteresting, and so when doctrine, represented by the wine, is mixed with the bitterness of sin or untruth, it is refused as repulsive, or as the Psalmist says: “In my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink” (Psalm 68:22), that is, in thirsting for love and the Beloved, what is vain and empty is given instead: “Shun profane and vain babblings: for they grow much towards ungodliness” (2 Timothy 2:16). Jesus is then hung upon the cross, and all that Adam lost through reaching out to the tree is restored in greater abundance in Jesus reaching for the wood of the cross: “And the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning” (Job 42:12), for you do not simply enjoy companionship with God: “They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise at the afternoon air” (Genesis 3:8), but a relationship of spousal love: “My beloved to me, and I to him who feedeth among the lilies” (Canticle 2:16). His hands were pierced with nails that your hands may be free to do what is loving: “My hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers were full of the choicest myrrh” (Canticle 5:5), His arms spread on the broad beam of the cross that you may know the comfort of being held: “His left hand under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me” (Canticle 8:3), His head rests upon the coarse wood of the cross, crowned in thorns, that you may rest your head upon His breast and hear His Heart beat and burn for you: “Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved” (John 13:23), His body is stretched out and hung, covered in scourges, that your body may be a temple: “Your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost” (1 Corinthians 6:19), a pure vessel of devotion and purity, a lily among the thorns of those that use their bodies as objects: “As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters” (Canticle 2:2), and His feet fixed fast in the wood, that you may be free to walk in newness of life, a life of freedom and love. The soldiers then divide His garments, which was only done for the most abject and worthless, which Christ endured that you may never feel that way with Him, but rather that He may lift you into knowing that there is no treasure more precious to Him than you: “For thus saith the Lord of hosts… he that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of my eye” (Zacharias 2:8); “Thou becamest honourable in my eyes, thou art glorious” (Isaias 43:4); “He will rejoice over thee with gladness, [he will renew thee in His love], he will be joyful over thee in praise” (Sophonias 3:17). The accusation over His head was the lone reason for His crucifixion, which was also set up in mockery, and that even in putting Him to death, the Jews could not avoid having Him for their King. Likewise, those in the world that resist His Kingship do not avoid it, but merely set themselves against it, like a rebel within a secure kingdom, whereas to you it is given to eat at the table of the King: “But Miphiboseth,” which means end of shame, “dwelt in Jerusalem: because he ate always of the king’s table: and he was lame of both feet” (2 Kings 9:13). The cross shows His royal dignity, that He is enthroned as the King of Love, doing the greatest act of love human history has ever known, offering Himself as High Priest and victim purely for the sake of your heart: “Give me thy heart” (Proverbs 23:26). Finally, it is said that two thieves were crucified with Him; “All have sinned, and do need the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and thus the thieves represent all of humanity, crucified in the human condition, and where some, in their fallenness, reach out with love to Jesus for one final act of thievery: The heart of God: “’Lord, remember me when thou shalt come into thy kingdom.’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with me in paradise’” (Luke 23:42-43), others will lambast Him, helpless upon their own cross and not uniting it with His: “And one of those robbers ho were hanged blasphemed him, saying: ‘If thou be Christ, save thyself and us’” (Luke 23:39). Or, there can be a second meaning to those crucified with Him, which are those that live strictly: “Every one that striveth for the mastery, refraineth himself from all things… I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection” (1 Corinthians 9:25-27), with those on the right simply seeking to live like Christ in a desire to make Him manifest to the world through them without any blot of their own indulgences: “To whom God would make known the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ, in you the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27); “Without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing” (Ephesians 5:27), whereas those on the left afflict themselves with no eye to love, treating themselves as sacks of meat rather than spouses of God: “For no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, as also Christ doth the church: because we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones” (Ephesians 5:29-30), which can be done either out of imprudence or ignorance, or for human praise, all of which soil any attempt to be saintly: “If I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3).