✍️ The Crowning of Thorns
And the soldiers wove a crown out of thorns and placed it on his head, and clothed him in a purple cloak, and they came to him and said, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they struck him repeatedly…So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple cloak…When the chief priests and the guards saw him they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!”…Pilate tried to release him; but the Jews cried out, “If you release him, you are not a Friend of Caesar.[c] Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.”
And he said to the Jews, “Behold, your king!” They cried out, “Take him away, take him away! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your king?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.
John 19:2-16
Courage is not the first virtue you would associate with the humiliation of a man. Yet, this is often the virtue associated with the Crowning with Thorns. The text clearly shows that Christ is being mocked and ridiculed, in other words, humiliated. One would assume that humility would be the virtue associated with this meditation. The author of Hebrews emphasizes this point. But the question remains, what about this event is intended to inspire courage in the life of the Christian?
…we do see Jesus “crowned with glory and honor” because he suffered death, he who “for a little while” was made “lower than the angels,” that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
Hebrews 2:8-9
Readers of this letter would have certainly had the image of Christ’s head with a crown of thorns on it. But without courage, can one be humble?
As we consider these passages, we begin to see the wisdom of directing the Christian to reflect on courage. It seems that the Crowning with Thorns demonstrates that courage precedes humility. After all, do pride and courage mix well? In short, if Christ is truly a King, then the ultimate act of courage is to submit ourselves to the truth.
During the trial of Jesus, we find Pilate, a politician divided between the will of the people, the counsel of his wife (Mt. 27:19), and his conscience. Pilate seems to be trying to avoid sentencing Christ to death, but he doesn’t want to lose the favor of the people. He must choose between protecting the innocent or fulfilling the bloodlust of the people. But, as Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.” (Mt. 6:24).
As Pilate brings Jesus out, he proclaims that he finds no guilt in him. Scripture says, “Pilate tried to release him; but the Jews cried out, ‘If you release him, you are not a Friend of Caesar. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.’”
There is no flaw in their logic. There is only one King, and this means there is one Kingdom. The Caesars, after Julius Caesar, began to see themselves as divine and demanded worship from the people. Recall the temptations of Christ in the wilderness. The Devil offers Christ “all the kingdoms of the world.” The price to pay is to worship the Devil. Now before Pilate, Christ is faced with a similar temptation: deny your Kingship, and I can make this all go away. If Christ had acquiesced, Christ would not merely be denying his identity, but affirming the divinity of the Caesars.
“Where are you from?” Jesus did not answer him. So Pilate said to him, “…Do you not know that I have power to release you and I have power to crucify you?”
— Jn 19:9-10
Essentially, Pilate is saying “Deny you ever said these things. Just say they misunderstood you. I mean you didn’t really claim to be the Son of God, did you? I mean do you really want to die for a mere misunderstanding?” How often are we Christians offered the same bargain: “You’re not a Christian, are you? You don’t really think marriage is only for men and women, do you?” In short, the virtue of courage is apt for our time because it seems to sum up the whole of the Christian life: Do we possess the courage to suffer and be humiliated for the truth we confess? Thus, it is appropriate that the following exchange should occur between Pilate and Jesus.
“You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”
— Jn. 18:37-38
What we learn from this passage is similar to the passage in John 6 about the Eucharist. If you claim Christianity as your faith, and you claim that no one can know the truth, then your brand of Christianity is more aligned with Pilate than it is with Christ. There is a growing number of Christians who are becoming agnostic about the faith, and when a Christian says “This is what Christianity teaches,” they reply with, “What is Christianity?” Similarly, if you find yourself reading John 6 and siding with the religious leaders and the crowd, then your interpretation of this passage is in error.
If we ever read the Bible and find that our theology more closely aligns with beliefs like “we can’t know the truth,” or “All Christians, in essence, believe the same thing,” or “I don’t think Jesus meant what he said, because that’s just weird,” then you need to examine whether you believe in the teachings of Christianity or something of your own making. It’s not easy to submit to the teachings of Christianity, but no Christian is intended to be merely part of a group of Christians at breakfast Bible studies or one who merely studies on his own and never submits to the Church. For a Christian to be properly formed into the image of Christ, there must be an institution to which he must submit so that he can imitate Christ’s submission.
Why? Because it is a submission that ultimately leads to salvation.
Christians who say, “What is truth?” ultimately have the excuse of avoiding submission to the King; they are a god unto themselves, they are Caesar within their world, interrogating the Truth, but never submitting to it. To enter the Church is one of the hardest and scariest things a person can do, but as my good friend said to me before I converted, “You’re gonna lose a lot, but you will gain so much more!”
Keep praying…
—DR