Crown of Thorns
John 19:1-3
Have you ever experienced a moment in your life when everything changed? The moment occurred and because it occurred everything changed in your daily existence. Maybe it was your wedding day, or the birth of a child…maybe it was the day you bought your house or got a new and better job. When those kinds of things happen, our lives change.
There is a moment in the history of the world that caused everything to change. Sometimes we take this event for granted because we are so far removed from it in time. But because it happened, everyone in the world was given an opportunity. But, this event set into motion a plan that had been planned for thousands of years.
I find it interesting that you can find the whole message of the gospel in one small fact found in scripture. This is done by design, it is done throughout scripture. The angel comes to Joseph and tells him that Mary will bear a son who will be called Immanuel. That is the Gospel story. God is with us!!!! In Revelation, over and over, the gospel is seen in small instances.
Talk about a bad day, in a matter of a short period of time, Christ was betrayed, arrested, convicted, denied, tried, and beaten severely, all while holding the knowledge of his impending death on the cross. But because that event happened, and because he defeated death in the form of the resurrection, we meet here with hope of eternity. In our world, in our lives, we claim to be people who remember the cross everyday. We claim to live for Christ. But when was the last time you focused on Golgotha, you focused on Jesus, you focused on his pain, you focused on his sacrifice for you, you focused on His cross. Sometimes we fail in our commitment to keep the cross in our thoughts and in our foundation for daily living. I want you to make a commitment to remember the cross in your daily life. Tonight, I want to remember the cross, I want to put the cross in the forefront of our thoughts. I want us to be motivated to live, because the cross stood. I want us to be motivated to be children of God because of his forgiveness.
In John 19, Jesus is in the midst of His darkest and most painful hour on the earth. Having stood trial for nothing he did wrong. The Jews delivered Him to Pilate to be condemned. Pilate asked him questions about truth, about the kingdom He talks about continually, and His kingship. Pilate could find nothing wrong with Him, but having his hands tied with the Jews, He consented to having Jesus flogged. John 19:1-3. Flogging was a form of torture to weaken the individual to the point of death right before the crucifixion.
Why did this happen? Why did Pilate, have Jesus flogged? No. Why did they mock him and call him King of the Jews? No. I find it very interesting that upon the head of Christ, they placed a crown of thorns. Why did they place that crown of thorns?
People never changed. People were people, like they are now. But Jesus came into the world and preached a gospel message of change, he preached a message of emotion, a message that would potentially end most things associated with the religions of the day and time. He preached a message of change to the new creation or Christian. 2 Cor. 5:17. Change sums up the whole gospel, change in outlook, change in circumstance, change in view of eternity.
He came and fulfilled the plan of God that had been planned for thousands of years since the fall of man. He came and suffered, he came and died, he came and rose again. That’s the gospel. That’s why he died, that’s the reason for the cross, but have you ever considered why he wore a crown of thorns?
When we read Genesis 3, most of us know that chapter as the one that tells of the fall of man. When God created man, they were made in His image and had a relationship with him unlike anything I could describe. Adam and Eve experienced an intimate relationship with their creator. God let them have dominion or power over everything, he gave them but one restriction. They could not partake of the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden. After Eve was tempted by the serpent, her and her husband fell to the temptation. This brought sin into the perfect creation that God had made. God’s righteousness could not tolerate the sin of Adam and Eve. But God is in the business of forgiveness. I know most of you know the story of Genesis 3, you know about the fall of man, and so you may be asking, how does this have anything to do with the cross and the crown of thorns? After the sin of Adam and Eve, God declared judgment on them for their failing. And it’s interesting what occurs. Genesis 3:17-18. After the fall of man God cursed the ground because of what Adam and Eve had done in falling out of right relationship with Him.
What was one very important thing that was put into the ground at that point?
Verse 18 talks about thorns being put into the ground. Is that significant? Of course it is. Why were the thorns put into the ground? Because of sin!!! Adam and Eve sinned against God by partaking of the fruit. They fell out of the relationship that God intended because of that sin. And that sin was the reason that thorns began to grow in the ground. Christ Jesus, Immanuel, God with us, took those same thorns that came into existence because of sin, and wore them on His head and defeated sin so that we wouldn’t have to experience the judgment that sin deserves, and on the cross as he defeated that sin, and the devil, he wore the thorns on his head.
In those thorns, is the message of the gospel. The thorns that we brought into existence because of sin, Jesus takes away because of love. God is in the business of forgiveness. Genesis 3 is not only about the fall, but about God’s redemptive work of forgiveness. You see that in the thorns that Jesus wore on his head. You seed it in the tunics of skin that GOD gave to Adam and Eve to clothe them from their nakedness. You can also see it in the fact that God allowed them to physically die. If they wouldn’t have physically died, they would have lived forever without God, forgiveness. What a message of hope we can see in the small things.
After the flogging of Jesus, after the thorns were put on His head he was delivered to be crucified. He carried his own cross, but was so weak, he required the help of a man named Simon. He was taken to Golgatha to be executed. They divided his clothes, they mocked and laughed at him, when he was thirsty, they gave him sour wine. He was likely nailed to a cross and had to wait to die. The intense pain he underwent because of his love is unimaginable. Yet as he was being mocked and laughed at, throughout the pain he underwent for nothing he did wrong, he made a powerful statement. As he was dying, he listened to those who hated and despised him, who laughing at him, do you know what he said? Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.
Jesus takes our thorns on his own head and offers us forgiveness.
Jesus gave the world a gift. His self sacrifice came about so that we wouldn’t have to experience the punishment that sin deserves. And through His resurrection, we have hope to experience that love eternally. What should your response be? To tell everyone you come in contact with how the cross and the Christ have changed your life.
