How deeply the incident here related impressed itself upon the mind and heart of Christendom is manifest

(1) from the romantic legends current among Christians regarding it, from the time of Helena, the mother of Constantine, downwards; and

(2) from the frequent representations of the thorn-crowned Redeemer produced by Christian painters, who have used all the resources of their art to give to the "Ecce Homo!" the interest of sorrow and of spiritual beauty.

I. THE OBVIOUS AND ORIGINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CROWN OF THORNS.

1. It was an evidence of the cruelty and brutality of Christ's foes. The actual plaiting of the crown, and the actual placing of it upon the holy Sufferer's head was the deed of the Roman soldiers. Insensibility to the pain experienced by Jesus may have been natural to such men; but the mockery and scorn displayed in the pretence of homage must have been learned from the Jews.

2. It was an opportunity for Jesus to exhibit those moral qualities which have ever since been peculiarly associated with his name. His patience, his meekness, this dignity, were never more conspicuous than when he was insulted and ill used by his calumniators and foes. Nor can we see that such dispositions could have been so strikingly exhibited except in circumstances such as those in which the Man of sorrows was then placed.

II. THE SYMBOLIC AND PROPHETIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CROWN OF THORNS.

1. This affecting coronation is an emblem of our Savior's earthly ministry. His career brought together the hate and the loving devotion of multitudes; it was marked by poverty and lowliness, and yet by a majesty quite unique; he was despised and rejected of men, yet his teaching constrained the exclamation, "Never man spake like this Man!" and his miracles constrained the cry, "What manner of Man is this?" The thorns of hatred and contempt were thrust into his head; yet love and loyalty wrought them into a victor's wreath, a monarch's diadem.

2. The crowning of Jesus with thorns symbolized the character of the religion which he founded. The cross was followed by the resurrection; the entombment by the ascension. Thus God brought together, in the career of his own Son, the profoundest humiliation and the most exalted glory. And this arrangement represents the nature of Christianity. It is a religion of humility, contrition, and repentance, and also of peace, victory, and power. It smites the sinner to the earth; it raises the pardoned penitent to heaven.

3. This incident was prophetic of the progress and the victory of the Christian faith. Our religion has indeed triumphed, but it has triumphed through suffering. Its onward course has been marked by the blood of confessors, martyrs, and missionaries, and by the toil and anguish of thousands of faithful promulgators. The thorns of suffering are the means; the crown of glory and of conquest is the end. Christ was made perfect through suffering, and his Church shall reach a universal dominion only by a toilsome path of strife, watered by tears and stained with blood. - T.

According to prophecy the Messiah was to fill the three offices of Prophet, Priest, and King. Carnal expectation ignored the two former, and built its hopes on the latter. They were unwilling to be taught by the Prophet, they could not support the Priest, as His demand of sacrifices and offerings was beyond the extent of their love for religion; but they were willing that a King might reign over them. The kingly idea attached to the person of Christ agitated them the most. The Roman soldiers crowned and worshipped Him in derision; these were the rugged steps leading up to His throne.

I. THE CROWN OF THORNS WAS AN EMBLEM OF THE ASCENDANCY OF JESUS THROUGH SUFFERING TO THE GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD. "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things?" &c. The course was not understood by His persecutors, "But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels," &c. He gave to all the subjects of His future kingdom an example of —

1. Willing service. Even with the crown on His head, His last strength was spent in the service of truth and justice.

2. Entire submission to the will of God. "He was oppressed," &c. Such an example of service and submission claims for Him the crown which the thorns symbolized.

II. THE PURPLE ROBE WAS EMBLEMATIC OF THE POWER WHICH HE WOULD EXERCISE OVER MANKIND. The other evangelists call it scarlet, but a robe with the colour of red in it was generally called purple. The one used was, no doubt, an old left-off robe of the proconsul. It was an emblem of power, worn by governors and generals. A reed was also put in His hand to represent the seeptre. Jesus is King —

1. By Divine appointment. "Yet have I set My King upon My holy Hill of Zion." The government was to be on His shoulder. All judgments are committed to His care.

2. By virtue of His influence. Men's thoughts are captive to the obedience of Christ. The hearts of the sons of men are in His hand. The kingdoms of this world are bowing to His authority. The angels of God worship Him.

III. THE MOCK HOMAGE WHICH WAS PAID IS AN EMBLEM OF THE ADORATION WHICH HE WILL RECEIVE (ver. 3). They saluted Him in terms of loyalty which they did not feel; but myriads have since said, "Crown Him Lord of all." The vision reveals the four and twenty elders casting their crowns before the throne. And in another vision, "On His head were many crowns."

(Weekly Pulpit.)

God intended that the evil of sin should be fully manifest by the death of Christ. Those who had a hand in it show by their malignant spirit what a hell the world would become if there were no check upon it. But submitting as He did, Christ checked that spirit, and seemed to say, "Do your worst on Me, and let it suffice for ever."

I. TO WEAR THIS CROWN CHRIST HAD LAID ASIDE THAT OF DIVINE MAJESTY. What a contrast is here. They mocked Him in all His characters. As a Prophet they said, "Prophesy unto us"; as a Priest, "He saved others," &c. In bitter scorn of His Kingly claims, they crowned him with thorns. We can pity the great who are degraded, or impoverished, because, being human, we can measure the depth of their descent; but we have no power to gauge the height from which Christ "humbled Himself." He left a world of glory for one of meanness, one of purity for one of crime, &c. He who had created all things was sold for thirty pieces of silver. He who was the source of bliss suffered anguish. He who had worn the royal robes of heaven was clad in a cast-off robe of office. He who had borne the crown of the universe was tormented with the spiky circlet of mockery. None could have placed it on His brow but by His consent; and the power by which He laid aside the one led Him to receive the other.

II. BY WEARING THIS CROWN OF MOCKERY CHRIST ADDED A GLORY TO THAT WHICH HE WEARS ETERNALLY. It is not the weight of gold in a crown, or its jewels, that are the measure of its value, but the character of its wearer. Judged thus, what glory attaches to the crown of Christ! It was wondrous love to man that led Him to wear the thorn-crown, and never was there such a crown as that which He now wears. We have read of crowns given for distinguished services, of crowns won by splendid victories, of crowns worn by hereditary right, royal crowns, imperial crowns, &c., but where is one like that which Jesus now wears? He conquered suffering and death for us, and now every spike of that mock crown is a jewel inwrought with that of His Divine majesty.

III. BY WEARING THE MOCK CROWS CHRIST GAINED A FURTHER RIGHT TO BESTOW A CROWN OF LIFE ON ALL THE FAITHFUL — one without thorns. "Be thou faithful unto death," &c. "To Him that overcometh," &c. That which Christ died to obtain at such a cost must be worth having. Eternal bliss alone could balance such Divine sufferings. We may say, like Paul, "With a great sum obtained I this freedom." "Ye were not redeemed," &c. As Jonathan stripped Himself (1 Samuel 18:4) of his royal robes and put them, as signs of honour and love, on David, so Jesus was stripped that we might have the covering of His righteousness. He hungered, thirsted, sorrowed, was made a curse, &c., that we might not hunger, &c.

IV. THE POWER CHRIST GAINED OVER HUMAN SOULS BY WEARING THAT MOCK CROWN.

1. Men are led to mourn the guilt that brought Him such pain. "Weep not for Me" He said, knowing that the sin which could so treat Him was far more terrible than all suffering. Thorns are pressed on Him such as these —

(1)Indifference to His sufferings.

(2)Unbelief in His great work.

(3)Unreality of professed belief.

(4)Inconsistency of life.

(5)Greed of worldly gain and pleasure.

(6)Neglect of others for whom He died. Surely He has had thorns enough thrust in already. Will you add more?

2. He gains such intense affection as He could have obtained in no other way. We could never have loved majesty or power; but Jesus we can love as God manifest in the flesh. Nothing arouses love like a sight of the crucified Saviour. Hence the cross has been His stepping-stone to dominion over souls.

(Homiletic Magazine.)

Of other plants growing in the vale of Jericho, we noticed the Nebk, the most abundant thorn in the Holy Land. Hasselquist ("Voyage and Travels") says, "In all probability this is the tree which afforded the crown of thorns put on the Head of Christ: it grows very common in the East." This plant was very fit for the purpose, for it has many small and sharp spines, which are well adapted to give pain. The crown might be easily made of these soft, round, and pliant branches: and what in my opinion seems to be the greatest proof, is, that the leaves much resemble those of ivy, as they are of a very deep green. Perhaps the enemies of Christ would have a plant somewhat resembling that with which emperors and generals were used to be crowned, that there might be calumny even in the punishment.

(Wilson's "Lands of the Bible.")The thorn bushes, which during the summer and autumn had been so dark and bare, were clothed with delicate green sprays of finely-serrated leaves, which almost hid the sharp, cruel-looking thorns. They were sprinkled with little round buds; when they opened, they threw out silky tufts of crimson, crowned with golden-coloured powder. The seed vessel is round, and divided into four quarters: at first it is almost white, but gradually becomes pink: and at the apex there is a little green tuft, in the shape of a Greek cross. When the seed is quite ripe, it is about half-an-inch in diameter, and of a very shining red colour. I have never seen a plant of which so beautiful, and at the same time so cruel, a crown could be composed. This thorn is the Proterium spinosum. About Easter it is seen in all its beauty, the leaves glossy and full-grown, the fruit or seed-vessels brilliantly red, like drops of blood, and the thorns sharper and stronger than at any other time. No plant or bush is so common on the hills of Judaea, Galilee, and Carmel as this.

(Roger's "Domestic Life in Palestine.")

When John Huss, the martyr, was brought forth to be burned, they put a paper over his head, on which were pictured three devils, and the title, "heresiarch." When he saw it, he said, "My Lord Jesus Christ, for my sake, did wear a crown of thorns: why should not I, therefore, for His sake, wear this ignominious crown?"

(Bp. Ryle.)

How well did that converted Tahitian, Barn his name was, understand the comfort to be derived from these thorn.wounds of Jesus; when on his deathbed, he said: "The blood of Jesus is my sure foundation. He is the best of all kings. He gives me a pillow for my head without thorns."

(R. Besser, D. D.)

They put on Him a purple robe. — This again was done as a mark of contempt and derision, in order to show how ridiculous and contemptible was the idea of His kingdom. The colour, "purple," was doubtless meant to be a derisive imitation of the well-known imperial purple, the colour worn by emperors. Some have thought that this robe was only an old soldier's cape, such as a guard-house would easily furnish. Some, with more show of probability, have thought that this "robe" must be the "gorgeous robe" which Herod put on our Lord, mentioned by St. Luke, when he sent Him back to Pilate (Luke 23:11), a circumstance which John has not recorded. In any case we need not doubt that the "robe" was some shabby, cast-off garment. It is worth remembering that this brilliant colour, scarlet or purple, would make our blessed Lord a most conspicuous object to every eye, when He was led through the streets from Herod, or brought forth from Pilate's house to the assembled multitude of Jews. We should call to mind the symbolical nature of this transaction also. Our Lord was clothed with a robe of shame and contempt, that we might be clothed with a spotless garment of righteousness, and stand in white robes before the throne of God.

(Bp. Ryle.)

Cleopas, Cleophas, Jesus, Joseph, Mary, Nicodemus, PilateArimathea, Gabbatha, Golgotha, Jerusalem, Nazareth, The Place of the Skull, The Stone PavementArmy, Arrayed, Cloak, Clothed, Crimson, Crown, Dressed, Garment, Plaited, Platted, Purple, Robe, Round, Soldiers, Thorn, Thorns, Threw, Twigs, Twisted, Twisting, Wreath1. Jesus is scourged, crowned with thorns, and beaten.
4. Pilate is desirous to release him,
15. but being overcome with the outrage of the crowd, he delivers him to be crucified.
23. They cast lots for his garments.
25. He commends his mother to John.
28. He dies.
31. His side is pierced.
38. He is buried by Joseph and Nicodemus.

John 19:2

     2036   Christ, humility
     5145   clothing
     5177   robes
     5280   crown
     5544   soldiers

John 19:1-3

     5879   humiliation
     8817   ridicule, objects of

John 19:1-6

     7505   Jews, the

John 19:2-3

     2312   Christ, as king
     2315   Christ, as Lamb
     5584   torture

John 19:2-6

     4520   thorns

John 19:2-12

     2585   Christ, trial

February 20 Morning
He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied.--ISA. 53:11. Jesus . . . said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.--He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise.--To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

August 4 Morning
It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.--JOHN 19:30. Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.--I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.--We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily ministering an offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

October 18 Morning
One of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.--JOHN 19:34. Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you.--The life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls.--It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Jesus said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.--By his own blood he entered in once into …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

February 17 Morning
The whole bullock shall he carry forth without the camp unto a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn him on the wood with fire.--LEV. 4:12. They took Jesus, and led him away. And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha: where they crucified him.--The bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

The Title on the Cross
'Pilate wrote a title also, and put it on the cross.' --JOHN xix. 19. This title is recorded by all four Evangelists, in words varying in form but alike in substance. It strikes them all as significant that, meaning only to fling a jeer at his unruly subjects, Pilate should have written it, and proclaimed this Nazarene visionary to be He for whom Israel had longed through weary ages. John's account is the fullest, as indeed his narrative of all Pilate's shufflings is the most complete. He alone records …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

The Irrevocable Past
'What I have written I have written.'--JOHN xix. 22. This was a mere piece of obstinacy. Pilate knew that he had prostituted his office in condemning Jesus, and he revenged himself for weak compliance by ill-timed mulishness. A cool-headed governor would have humoured his difficult subjects in such a trifle, as a just one would have been inflexible in a matter of life and death. But this man's facile yielding and his stiff-necked obstinacy were both misplaced. 'So I will, so I command. Let my will …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

Christ's Finished and Unfinished Work
'Jesus ... said, It is finished.'--JOHN xix. 30. 'He said unto me, It is done.'--REV. xxi. 6. One of these sayings was spoken from the Cross, the other from the Throne. The Speaker of both is the same. In the one, His voice 'then shook the earth,' as the rending rocks testified; in the other, His voice 'will shake not the earth only but also heaven'; for 'new heavens and a new earth' accompanied the proclamation. In the one, like some traveller ready to depart, who casts a final glance over his preparations, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

Christ Our Passover
'These things were done, that the Scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of Him shall not be broken.'--JOHN xix. 36. The Evangelist, in the words of this text, points to the great Feast of the Passover and to the Paschal Lamb, as finding their highest fulfilment, as he calls it, in Jesus Christ. For this purpose of bringing out the correspondence between the shadow and the substance he avails himself of a singular coincidence concerning a perfectly unimportant matter--viz., the abnormally rapid sinking …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

The Grave in a Garden
'In the garden a new tomb.'--JOHN xix. 41 (R.V.). This is possibly no more than a topographical note introduced merely for the sake of accuracy. But it is quite in John's manner to attach importance to these apparent trifles and to give no express statement that he is doing so. There are several other instances in the Gospel where similar details are given which appear to have had in his eyes a symbolical meaning--e.g. 'And it was night.' There may have been such a thought in his mind, for all men …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

Jesus Sentenced
'Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged Him. And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on His head, and they put on Him a purple robe. And said, Hail, King of the Jews! and they smote Him with their hands. Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring Him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in Him. Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the Man! When the chief priests …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

An Eye-Witness's Account of the Crucifixion
'And He bearing His cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha: Where they crucified Him, and two other with Him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst. And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS. This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin. Then said the chief priests …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

Joseph and Nicodemus
'And after this Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; ... And there came also Nicodemus which at the first came to Jesus by night.'--JOHN xix. 38, 39. While Christ lived, these two men had been unfaithful to their convictions; but His death, which terrified and paralysed and scattered His avowed disciples, seems to have shamed and stung them into courage. They came now, when they must have known …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

The Fifth Word
"I thirst."--JOHN XIX. 28. This is the only utterance of our Blessed Lord in which He gave expression to His physical sufferings. Not least of these was that intolerable thirst which is the invariable result of all serious wounds, as those know well who have ever visited patients in a hospital after they have undergone a surgical operation. In this case it must have been aggravated beyond endurance by exposure to the burning heat of an Eastern sun. This word, then, spoken under such circumstances, …
J. H. Beibitz—Gloria Crucis

The Sixth Word
"It is accomplished."--ST. JOHN XIX. 30. 1. What had been accomplished? In the first place, that work which Christ had come into the world to do. All that work may be resumed in a single word, "sacrifice." The Son of God had come for this one purpose, to offer a sacrifice. Here is room for serious misunderstanding. The blood, the pain, the death, were not the sacrifice. Nothing visible was the sacrifice, least of all the physical surroundings of its culminating act. There is only one thing …
J. H. Beibitz—Gloria Crucis

The Third Word
"Lady, behold thy son." "Behold thy mother." ST. JOHN XIX. 26, 27. In this Word we see the Son of God revealed as human son, and human friend, all the more truly and genuinely human in both relations, because in each and every relation of life, Divine. 1. The first lesson in the Divine Life for us to learn here is the simple, almost vulgarly commonplace one, yet so greatly needing to be learnt, that "charity," which is but a synonym of the Divine Life, "begins at home." Home life is the real test …
J. H. Beibitz—Gloria Crucis

The Last Look at Life,
(Passion Sermon.) TEXT: JOHN xix. 30. "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished." THESE greatest and most glorious of the last words -*- of our Saviour on the cross come immediately after those which are apparently of the least significance and importance. The Lord said, "I thirst;" then the moistened sponge was handed to Him; and when He had received the soothing, though not pleasant draught, He cried, "It is finished." And we must not break the connection of these …
Friedrich Schleiermacher—Selected Sermons of Schleiermacher

The Shortest of the Seven Cries
As these seven sayings were so faithfully recorded, we do not wonder that they have frequently been the subject of devout meditation. Fathers and confessors, preachers and divines have delighted to dwell upon every syllable of these matchless cries. These solemn sentences have shone like the seven golden candlesticks or the seven stars of the Apocalypse, and have lighted multitudes of men to him who spake them. Thoughtful men have drawn a wealth of meaning from them, and in so doing have arranged …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 24: 1878

The Procession of Sorrow
I. After our Lord Jesus Christ had been formally condemned by Pilate, our text tells us he was led away. I invite your attention to CHRIST AS LED FORTH. Pilate, as we reminded you, scourged our Savior according to the common custom of Roman courts. The lictors executed their cruel office upon his shoulders with their rods and scourges, until the stripes had reached the full number. Jesus is formally condemned to crucifixion, but before he is led away he is given over to the Praetorian guards that …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 9: 1863

Death of Jesus.
Although the real motive for the death of Jesus was entirely religious, his enemies had succeeded, in the judgment-hall, in representing him as guilty of treason against the state; they could not have obtained from the sceptical Pilate a condemnation simply on the ground of heterodoxy. Consistently with this idea, the priests demanded, through the people, the crucifixion of Jesus. This punishment was not Jewish in its origin; if the condemnation of Jesus had been purely Mosaic, he would have been …
Ernest Renan—The Life of Jesus

The Third Word from the Cross
In the life of our Lord from first to last there is a strange blending of the majestic and the lowly. When a beam of His divine dignity is allowed to shine out and dazzle us, it is never long before there ensues some incident which reminds us that He is bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh; and, contrariwise, when He does anything which impressively brings home to us His humanity, there always follows something to remind us that He was greater than the sons of men. Thus at His birth He was laid …
James Stalker—The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ

Objections to Genuineness.
THE most plausible objection to the genuineness of these writings is thus expressed by Dupin: "Eusebius and Jerome wrote an accurate catalogue of each author known to them--with a few obscure exceptions,--and yet never mention the writings of the Areopagite." Great is the rejoicing in the House of the Anti-Areopagites over this PROOF;--but what are the facts? Eusebius acknowledges that innumerable works have not come to him--Jerome disclaims either to know or to give an accurate catalogue either …
Dionysius—LETTERS OF DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE

And at his Crucifixion, when He Asked a Drink...
And at His crucifixion, when He asked a drink, they gave Him to drink vinegar mingled with gall. (Cf. Joh. xix. 29) And this was declared through David. They gave gall to my meat, and in any thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. [262] …
Irenæus—The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching

Inward Confirmation of the Veracity of the Scriptures
We are living in a day when confidence is lacking; when skepticism and agnosticism are becoming more and more prevalent; and when doubt and uncertainty are made the badges of culture and wisdom. Everywhere men are demanding proof. Hypotheses and speculations fail to satisfy: the heart cannot rest content until it is able to say, "I know." The demand of the human mind is for definite knowledge and positive assurance. And God has condescended to meet this need. One thing which distinguishes Christianity …
Arthur W. Pink—The Divine Inspiration of the Bible

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