I have been privileged in the last couple of years to be able to spend some time in my friend's back yard strolling through the mesquite trees right before Easter. I was able to do that again this past week. The walk alone looking at the thorns afforded me great compassion for the Lord as I contemplated the events before the crucifixion.
The crown of thorns was in itself a humiliation. A notice was prepared and fastened to the cross proclaiming JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. Chief Jewish priests protested it and shouted for him to be taken away and crucified. They had proclaimed to Pilate that they had no king but Caesar.
Imagining such thorns crushed into his head is startling enough, but when mocking, flogging and crucifixion are added to the the accounts of his suffering, it is almost unbearable to ponder the depth of torture to which Jesus submitted, unto death, for each one of us.
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Then 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 struck him in the face.
Jn. 19:1-3 NIV
So the soldiers took charge of Jesus. Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull. Here they crucified him, and with him two others~~one on each side and Jesus in the middle.
Jn. 19:17-18 NIV
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