Good Friday 3: Our head and the crown of thorns

John Chapter 19 starts with the words, ‘Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe and went up to him again and again, saying, ‘Hail, king of the Jews!’ And they slapped him in the face.’

     The Palestinian thorn differs greatly from our English thorn. Our thorns — for example on a rose or a teasel — will hurt if we touch it. Dust and pollen on the surface of the thorn can infect a wound and prevent its healing. If allowed, the wound will itch then fester. If nothing else, the wound is a bit of a nuisance.

     The Palestinian thorn is very different. Its spikes can be 3 or 4 inches in length. That’s the same length as the diagonal across the palm of my hand and longer than any of my fingers. The Palestinian thorn is as hard as tempered steel and as sharp as a stiletto. It will have required some skill on the part of the Roman soldiers to have plaited a crown of these thorns without hurting themselves during its construction. But a Roman soldier was trained when administering pain and death. If he did not cause extreme pain and massive death, he would himself he executed. He had to be good at his job.

     Imagine a crown made up of sharp steel spikes, and imagine it being forced onto a man’s head. Incidentally, also forget and idea derived from Victorian stained glass of Jesus head adorned with long locks of hair acting like a cushion. He would have had a haircut of very short hair to prevent lice and to avoid anyone mistaking him for a woman. Now imagine the crown of thorns being rammed onto his head. These spikes pierce his skin extremely easily. Actually, they could readily enter the bone and we have records of them passing through the plates of bone that comprise a human cranium. These spikes could have entered the brain of the victim, though its safe to guess that didn’t happen to Jesus because he remained lucid to the end.

     Jesus was crowned with excruciating thorns because he claimed to be a king, or at least the description of his crime above his head says so: ‘INRI: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jesus’. The purple robe points in the same direction. But now remember that Jesus actually said his Kingdom was not of this world, but tyrants don’t understand irony or subtlety. Pilate and Herod heard the word ‘king’ and felt the fear of competition. Crowning Jesus with a crown of thorns was intended to address the absurdity of a Palestinian peasant claiming to be a king. How could a runt of a peasant occupy a palace? To prevent the common people having such ideas, it was necessary to make an example. The crown of thorns was therefore a piece of political theatre, saying something like, ‘This is what happens to people who have ideas above their station. He warned!’

      Today as we watch Jesus being tortured to death, we are invited to have compassion — to share his passion … or are we? We are invited to look at his kingship and the way we are his willing subjects. We’re invited to look at the way our thoughts make kings of ourselves rather than subjects of the King of Heaven.