A crown of thorns

An Easter Reflection

Mat 27:27 Then the governor's soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him.

Mat 27:28 They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him,

Mat 27:29 and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. "Hail, king of the Jews!" they said.

Mat 27:30 They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again.

Mat 27:31 After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.

And the King took it all ...

Why didn't he save himself from this?

Why didn't he speak up?

Why did he just stand there and take it all?

Jesus, God incarnate, totally human, totally divine. In the hands of people who wanted him dead. His message of a new kingdom rejected because it spoke too plainly about the ways in which the priests and authorities were getting it wrong.

To make their point, their joke, even more harsh to this man they despised and rejected, they made him a mock king in their eyes, draping a cloak over him, making a crown of thorns. Pressing that crown onto his head, the thorns, cutting into his flesh and creating rivulets of blood.

And the King took it all ...

Isa 53:3 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Isa 53:4 Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.

Jesus, should have been honoured and glorified, should have been revered not beaten, abused, insulted and ridiculed.

"He is a king, lets dress him like one, lets play with him, lets hurt him as we prepare him. How can he be a king, the son of God? Look at him, he can't save himself, there is no power, no might, just a deluded, broken man."

And the King took it all ...

He took it all for me, for me who truly deserves just punishment for my sin. He took it and did it all for me, not because I deserve it what he has done, but because he loves me ...