What Really Happened With The Crown Of Thorns
March 24, 2016
In my kitchen is a small house plant. It’s called a Crown of Thorns. I’ve had this particular plant for years. Regretfully, year after year it has been barren. Never producing the pink blossoms I’ve expected. For some strange reason I can’t part with it. Perhaps it's because of the name….
Indeed, this plant’s stock is thorny. And they can grow to become very large and menacing. Many grow here in Southern California and they look imperious and I cringe when I think about Jesus and Good Friday. By the way, why in the world to they call today, “Good Friday.” It was terrible….. But I always remember….
Sunday’s a comin!
They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, 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. They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. 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. — Matthew 27:28-31
Do you think the Crown of Thorns is significant? Up until just recently, I always thought that the crown was of course, a mockery of His kingship or that it was in some way a spiritual representation that the devil perverted.
But No.
It’s so much more than all of that. The placement of the Crown of Thorns on the head of Christ was pointedly redemptive.
It breaks the curse placed upon the ground when Adam sinned.
To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.” — Genesis 3:17-18
Everything about today! The day where Jesus mediated the New Covenant and set our redemption into place. Everything about the Crucifixion is meaningful.
This is just one of the many things the blood of Christ redeems.
Today, I received a phone call from Deborah, a Sumites from years gone by. She called me to share how she is hungry for more of God and to share all that the Lord has redeemed in her life. Today, on this day, Good Friday, I weep as I type. I’m overwhelmed as I think of the lives, that I have personally known, that have been redeemed, healed, saved because Jesus gave everything ….. TODAY, on “Good Friday.”
And as I was on the phone, I walked into the kitchen and my little plant, my Crown of Thorns, blooms. And it blooms in petals of perfect white.
I love you so much Jesus. I lack adequate language to say how your love has redeemed everything in my life and those who are part of our SUMite home. We honor you Jesus with words of worship, love and eternal loyalty. I’m so thankful we have all of eternity to love you and honor your sacrifice of this day.