Telling the Beads Bead 13 Crowned with Thorns

Bead Thirteen - Crowned with Thorns

Having dealt out the vicious punishment of flogging with their usual ferocity, the soldiers gathered around Jesus and began to taunt him. The purple cloak which Herod had placed on him had been dragged off earlier and was lying around on the floor so they draped it over his shoulders. Someone spied a thorn bush and, ripping off some branches, twisted them into a crown and pressed it into his head in cruel mockery. 

Someone else fetched a long reed from a nearby stream. They placed it in his right hand, kneeling down in front of him in a callous parody of worship. “Think you are a king, do you?'' they snarled at him. “Well here are your sceptre and crown! Let’s see how much you like them!” Continuing their cruel sport, they hit him and spat in his face, saluting him and chanting, “Hail, king of the Jews! Long life to the king!” Then, taking the reed out of his hand, they struck him repeatedly on the head with it.

Pilate went outside and addressed the huge crowd. “I shall have the prisoner brought out and I tell you again that I have found no case whatsoever against him.” Jesus stumbled out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate pointed at him and said, “Look, here is the man. Look at him!!” thinking that when they saw his wounded body, bleeding from the punishment he had just received, their hearts might be softened and their thirst for blood satisfied but no, they simply continued their mindless chanting.

Yet again, Pilate said, “Take him yourselves then and have him crucified! I have told you that I have found no case against him!” but the leaders of the people called out in one final effort to have Jesus executed. “According to our law, this man must die because he claimed to be the Son of God!” Pilate was by now even more afraid than ever. Returning to the courtroom, he had Jesus brought to him again. “Where are you from?” he said but to this question, Jesus gave no answer.

Pilate said to him, in some desperation, “Are you refusing to speak to me? Don’t you realise that I have the power to release you or have you put to death!” Jesus replied calmly, with the inner strength which only he possessed, “You would have no power whatsoever over me if it had not been granted to you by my Father in heaven. It is the people who have handed me over to you who will carry the greater guilt.” 

From that moment on, Pilate made even greater efforts to persuade the crowd to agree to the release of Jesus. He had him brought out for the last time and took his place on the judgement seat, saying to the crowd, “Here is your king,’’ but by now, the leaders had worked them up into a frenzy. “Take him away! Crucify him! Crucify him!” they shouted mercilessly. 

Many of them would have been the very same people who had hailed Jesus as their Messiah and Saviour only five days earlier when he had ridden into Jerusalem on a humble donkey. They had lined the streets with their children, joyfully waving palm fronds in front of him in adulation and laying them on the very ground he rode upon, crying out to him, “Hosanna to our King!” 

At the last moment, as Pilate sat in front of the crowds, his wife sent him a message. She told him that she had had a very disturbing dream about the innocent man who stood before him and that he should have nothing to do with his death but Pilate was afraid that if he didn’t give in to the demands of the crowd he might have a riot on his hands so he felt powerless to change his decision. 

He sent for a bowl of water and a towel and washed his hands ceremoniously in front of all the people, saying to them, “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” to which they shouted back. “Let his blood be upon us and upon our children then!” By now, It was nearly noon. So, in weakness and fear, Pilate felt he had no alternative but to hand Jesus over to be crucified, having done everything that he dared risk to spare and release him.

He had sent him to Herod, had offered Barabbas to the people in his place and had even had him flogged although he knew him to be innocent, hoping against hope that it might satisfy the baying crowds but everything had proved to be of no avail. The soldiers stripped the robe from the scourged and bleeding body of Jesus and put his own clothes back on him. And so it was that, after having been dragged from pillar to post throughout the night, treated with the utmost contempt and cruelty, he was led off toward his death on a cross.