THE WONDER OF DELIVERANCE

The Crown of Thorns

After the cruel scourging the soldiers took Jesus into the inner court. There they called in the entire battalion; on paper that would be about six-hundred men. Jesus, who was semi-conscious, was ridiculed by the soldiers. Though Pilate did not give the order, they thought it would be ´a good joke´ to rip off His clothing and hang a Roman soldiers cloak on the shredded back of this rural Jew. Jesus had been welcomed into Jerusalem as a king by His own people, that is why they gave Him a reed as a sceptre in their ridicule, and they made a crown of thorny branches and shoved this roughly onto His head.

The crown of thorns was probably made of dried branches of the Zizyphus spina, a tree with razor-sharp thorns about 2,5 cm in length, which can easily penetrate the skin of the skull.

The soldiers mockingly fell on their knees before Him and ‘hailed’ Him as king. They spat in His face, ripped the reed out of His hand and hit Him on His head with it, so that the razor-sharp thorns pushed into His skin and He began to bleed for the fifth time⁵⁸. The ‘crowning’ of Jesus by the Roman soldiers was a prophetic act, directed by the Father in order to show you what the fifth wonder of the Cross means for you.

Jesus has come to be crowned with the crown of thorns of our lives.