Jesus Scourged and Crowned With Thorns

This Station takes us to a place of brutality and violence that is pretty hard to take.

Then Pilate, having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the praetorium, and they gathered the whole battalion before him. And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe upon him, and plaiting a crown of thorns they put it on his head, and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they spat upon him, and took the reed and struck him on the head. (Matthew 27:26-30)

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The disfiguring that is inflicted upon Jesus is the inevitable brutality that is exhibited when a mocking spirit is engaged with. In John’s gospel account we hear Jesus say to the soldiers, “But if I spoke the truth why did you strike me?” (John 18:23) A resistance to truth and truth telling will often manifest itself in mockery, or derision, that if not checked will inevitably escalate to acts of meanness, cruelty and even violence.

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In his “Lent for Everyone: Matthew Year A, NT Wright is yet once again helpful.

"All the strands of evil in the world seem to rush together upon him. The power-seeking politics of the local elite. The casual brutality of imperial Rome. The disloyalty of Judas. The failure of Peter. The large systems which crush those in their way, and the intimate, sharply personal, betrayals. And everything in between, the scorn, the misunderstanding, the violence. The story is told in such a way that we see and feel, rather than just think about, the many different manifestations of evil in the world. Matthew invites us to see them all converging on Jesus. That is what this story is all about.

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We are encouraged to see this scene, too, as somehow a revelation of the glory of God. It is one thing to be transfigured in the sense of shining with the dazzling light of God’s glory. It is another thing, perhaps equal if not greater, to be seen in agony, sharing the sorrow and pain of the world. Perhaps the two scenes need each other to be complete. Certainly our own pilgrimage, if we are faithful, will have elements of both. One of the reasons we read and reread this extraordinary story is because we know, in our deepest beings, that the scriptural story to which Jesus was obedient must be our story too. Matthew, telling us that Jesus’ disciples all forsook him and fled, wants us by contrast to stay the course, to see this thing through, to witness the glory of God in the suffering face of his crucified son.”

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There is evil in this world. Yet, what the enemy means for evil, God will work for good. Suffering is never good in and of itself, but God can bend it - shape it - conform it - to His purposes and keep us centred on the “good way.”

A final thought from Dr. Martin Luther King to ponder as we see Jesus suffering here and lean into the work of His Spirit comforting, guiding and giving us eyes to see where God is weaving His upside-down glory, beauty and goodness in the most dire of circumstance and experience. “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."

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Art by Scott Erickson