24.202 | THE CROWN OF THORNS | Mark 15:16-20 | God’s Word for Today with Pastor Nazario Sinon

God’s Word For Today

God’s Word for Today

22 Aug, 2024

Mark 15:16-20 ESV

THE CROWN OF THORNS

Pilate either allows or orders a battalion of Roman guards to humiliate and torture Jesus. A battalion is a unit of about six hundred soldiers. They clothed him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him. John says the soldiers use a "purple robe" (John 19:2), Mark says a "purple cloak," and Matthew says a "scarlet robe" (Matthew 27:28). It is because of the subjective nature of describing colors. It may be that the soldiers use what they have lying around to substitute for the royal purple robe of a prince.

Certainly, they made fun of Him. They “twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on His head. We don't know what kind of thorn bush makes the crown, but it may mimic the leafy wreath. They put a staff in His right hand and knelt in front of Him and mocked Him. ‘Hail, king of the Jews!’ they said” (Mat 27:29; John 19:2-5). While a crown of thorns would be exceedingly painful, the crown of thorns was more about mockery and humiliation. Here was the “King of the Jews” being beaten, spit upon, and insulted by presumably barbaric Roman soldiers. The crown of thorns was the finalizing of their mockery, taking a symbol of royalty and majesty, a crown, and turning it into something painful and degrading.

Luke explains that Pilate has Jesus beaten and tortured in hopes the pain and humiliation will appease the Sanhedrin and convince them to release Jesus. He hopes this barbarous act will convince the chief priests, elders, and scribes that Jesus is not a threat to their authority over the Jews (Luke 23:22). John, on the other hand, explains that after the soldiers put the crown of thorns and the robe on Jesus, Pilate leads Him out to the crowd (John 19:4–5). Surely, Pilate hopes, the Jewish leaders will agree that a public display of powerless humiliation is enough.

Pilate was burdened with Jesus' refusal to defend Himself, so he appealed to the crowd a final time (John 19:12–15). The Jewish leadership pulls out their trump card, insisting that releasing Jesus would be a crime against Caesar. History suggests that Pilate's tenure as governor here was not well-liked by his Roman superiors. The only worse outcome than a Jewish rebellion against Caesar and Pilate would be a Jewish rebellion against Pilate in the name of Caesar. This threat hits Pilate where he is most vulnerable, so he lets Jesus be crucified.

What does this crowning of thorns mean to us?

What the Roman soldiers meant as a mockery, was in fact a picture of Christ’s two roles, first of suffering servant (read Isaiah 53), and second of conquering Messiah-King (read Revelation 19). Secondly, Jesus was willing to endure the pain, the insults, and the shame, all on our account. The crown of thorns, and the suffering that went with it, are long gone, and Jesus has now received the crown of which He is worthy. “But we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone” (Hebrews 2:9]

Moreover, the Roman soldiers unknowingly took an object of the curse, the thorn, and fashioned it into a crown for the one who would deliver us from that curse. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’” (Gal 3:13). Christ, in His perfect atoning sacrifice, has delivered us from the curse of sin, of which a thorn is a symbol. While intended to be a mockery, the crown of thorns was, in fact, an excellent symbol of who Jesus is and what He came to accomplish.