Crowned with Thorns

The call of this devotional is to take our eyes off our thorns, however painful, and focus on Jesus, who knows more about the pain of thorns than we ever will. As we meditate on the symbolism of the King of the Universe with a crown of thorns on his head, let’s prepare our hearts to worship, as we kneel beneath the Cross of Jesus.

On a hill called Golgotha, known also as the Place of the Skull, Jesus is ridiculed for having a purple robe, a symbol of royalty, put on him and a mock crown of thorns pushed onto his head. Little did they know that he was the true King of Glory Psalm 24:7-10 points to. This King, declared by Psalm 24 as the Lord strong and mighty, was enduring this ignominy for you and me.

The thorn-crowned One was he of whom Isaiah prophesied – the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6), and he is the one who, at the culmination of history will be declared to be King of Kings and Lord of all Lords (Revelation 19:16).

The gospels allow us to enter some levels of the pain our suffering Saviour endured, but it is Isaiah in chapter 53 of his prophecy that pulls back the curtain on the extent of his agony. Think on these words about the Suffering Servant: despised, rejected, pierced, crushed, wounded, oppressed, afflicted, and cut off. As if that was all? He was abandoned by his Father. From the Cross he cried out: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

What is your response to the suffering he endured for the sins of the world? All I can think of is to fall on my knees in worship. Then I find myself singing one of the classic hymns of the Christian faith, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” penned by Isaac Watts in 1707:

“See from his head, his hands his feet,

Sorrow and love flow mingled down,

Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,

Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,

That were a present far too small,

Love so amazing, so divine,

Demands my soul my life my all.”

Excerpts from The Point of Your Thorns: Finding Purpose in Your Pain

By Rowland Forman