Ave Explores Series | Faith in Action | Week 3

Your Challenge: Clothe the Naked, Visit the Imprisoned, Bury the Dead

by Mary Pezzulo

Think back to the time when you were most embarrassed and try to remember how you felt: humiliated, exposed, a laughingstock, a spotlight following you, a target on your back? 

Now think back to the time when you were most helpless: Is that when you were also the most embarrassed? Our culture trains us to despise the helpless: You're supposed to be powerful, self-sufficient, self-made.

Christ could have chosen to be Incarnate as any kind of human—a rich man, a warrior, or a movie star. Instead he chose to come as someone who would look helpless in front of the whole world. He would be brutalized and humiliated, stripped naked, and tortured in front of everyone he knew. He would die and have to be buried in a tomb provided by a stranger. Jesus chose to stand with the humiliated and the most helpless.

And he still does.

Christ was with you when you were the most embarrassed and the most helpless. And he is still with you, calling to you, begging for your help, in the helpless and humiliated among us. When you stand up for the humiliated, you’re covering their shame and performing one of the Corporal Works of Mercy—clothing the naked. When you care for the incarcerated and speak up for humane treatment for them, you’re helping Christ the prisoner to carry his cross. When you help to clean up the cemetery and lay flowers by a grave, you are paying respect to Christ in the tomb.

Christ didn't abandon you when you were helpless and humiliated. You can remain close to him by caring for your neighbor.

Mary Pezzulo is a columnist for Patheos and the author of Stumbling into Grace.