Crucified criminals had no rights.  Even their clothes did not belong to them.  So, the soldiers took them; it seems to have been accepted as a ‘perk’ of their job.  They divided Jesus’ clothes between them, but the woven wool undergarment was useful and it would have been senseless to cut it into pieces of cloth – so they cast lots to see who would get it, and that man took the garment home.
 
The soldiers might have felt in charge and superior to Jesus.  After all, they had the power and the right to take everything Jesus owned.  But were they really in control of the event?  No.  God had already known about their looting and dishonouring of His Son – 1,000 years previously.  The Holy Spirit inspired King David as he wrote, “They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.” (Psalm 22:16-18), along with many other prophecies about Jesus’ death in that Psalm.  

The soldiers’ actions simply fulfilled the Scriptures, although they had no idea that was what they were doing.  Although they crucified Jesus, Psalm 22:15 says, “ ... you lay me in the dust of death”.  ‘You’, in the Psalm, is Father God.  Isaiah 53:10 says, “Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer ...”  because “... the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).  Father God was in control.  He planned that this act of human savagery inflicted on His Son would be His own sacrifice to atone for the sins of the world.  And He did it because He loves us.  That is awesome.
 
We are often more arrogant and ignorant than we realise.  We may think that we are in control of circumstances and have power to do whatever we like.  But God has always been ahead of us.  He has tracked us since before we were born knowing our characters and even our choices.  The truth is that the Lord knows everything, even the words we are about to speak before we say them (Psalm 39:4).  Yet, we are not robots controlled by an imperial dictator: all our choices are free, like Jesus who freely chose to give everything He had - so that our shame might be covered by His righteousness.  Such powerful truth should cause our hearts to open up in worship and serve Him with eager willingness.