A reflection for the Passion of Christ
There’s something about the crown of thorns. That crown of thorns.
For in that inauspicious crown, a thousand moments meet. The longings and pains of all our hearts, every prayer I’ve ever said or could ever utter, all my hopes and joys collide in that crown of thorns.
For in those thorns I find the Jesus that I know. The Jesus who inhabits my every moment, my every breath; the one who resides in the exquisite contradiction of both the lion and the lamb; both my Master and my Friend:
Jesus, the King, who came to serve.
Jesus, my King, who chose for his grand procession not a fine carriage or horse, but a humble and borrowed donkey.
Jesus, my King, who lived not in a palace but among the poor.
Jesus, the King of kings, who on the night before he died, stooped to wash his own disciples’ dirty feet.
Jesus, King of kings, who wore not the crown jewels, but a crown of painful, bloodied and rather ordinary thorns.
This Jesus, who ushered in an upside down kingdom. He came and turned human wisdom on its head until it was the right way up.
He chose for his team not the rich or learned, but a lowly band of squabbling fishermen, in whom we may locate all of our own fears and failings, yet with whom he preached the good news of the Kingdom and changed the world. He’s changing it still.
He taught us a new way to think and to see and to be. And in his defining Sermon on the Mount, he has left us a gift of teaching that offers us all we need to live and all we need to know him.
This lion whose power made the blind see, the deaf hear, the mute speak, the lame leap and cleansed those with leprosy. He set people free from all manner of bondage and affliction and opened up the Scriptures so that we really perceive and really understand.
And yet.
We meet this crown of thorns on the night of Jesus’ betrayal, arrest and trial. The night where sweat became blood, servanthood became terror, where meekness met majesty, silence spoke volumes - and a bundle of thorns became the richest crown there could ever be.
This JESUS.
Read: Matthew 27, John 18-19
Copyright © Sharmila Meadows 2023
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