THORNS

                   I wear a crown of thorns. Not on my head, that would be odd, but on my arm, right under the name of one of my children. I do not wear it to be morbid. It is a painful symbol, but it is a painful symbol of hope. Hope for a world without pain, a world with no thorns.

                  In the bible thorns are the emblem of our fallen world. Sometimes we forget that this world is fallen, like when we stand gazing at a beautiful sunset and, for a moment, it seems there is nothing wrong with creation. Then, we turn and walk back into our lives and are soon confronted with…thorns.

We see a dead deer on the side of the road. We stub our toe. We get a stomach bug. Our child comes home from school with head lice. We are forced to put another dog down because he is old or sick. A good relationship goes sideways. Cancer hits. All thorns. They are an appropriate symbol for the curse; life will cut you; it will make you bleed. You do not go through a week in this world without some cuts and scrapes. Thorns. We may live in a glorious ruin, but it is still a ruin.

                  “The creation was subjected to futility”, the Bible says. We are the kings and queens of creation, and our kingdom has rebelled against us. It may not seem fair, but it is only an echo, a consequence of our rebellion against the Creator. It resists us, as we resist Him. It is hard because we are hard. God reaches out His hand toward us and we push it back; we reach out our hand toward creation and it pushes back; we get pricked by thorns. Jesus used the imagery of thorns when describing “the cares of this world”. When Paul writes about a physical disability that he suffers from he refers to it as “a thorn in the flesh”. When we are confronted with a frustrating or acrimonious situation, we often refer to it as a “thorny issue”.

                The Creator did not just become a man, he became a “man of sorrows”. He chose to wear the emblem of his own curse as a crown, he became the curse. He entered the system and became the infection that was destroying us, then he left the system, taking the virus with him into the grave. The curse is now working backwards; it will continue to do so until “the rivers clap their hands, and the mountains sing together for joy”.

                  So, I wear a crown of thorns…

I wear it for every dead deer on the side of the road.                                                                                                                             

I wear it for every forest fire and every earthquake and every flood that ravages this creation.

I wear it for every beloved pet I have had to put down.

I wear it for every hospital full of kids with cancer.

I wear it for every mother’s son blown to bits on some dreadful battlefield far from home.

I wear it for every little girl born with a heart defect.

Mostly, I wear it for my King, the Galilean. The One who stepped across time and eternity and stood here in the dirt, with thorns on His head and blood on His cheek. Majesty, in misery. For that day when man punched omnipotence in the face. The day we, literally, stabbed God in the heart.

I wear it for the most appalling act of love that has ever been conceived. Forgive them Father, they know not what they do.

I wear it because a beautiful sunset can never forgive you.

I wear it because you do not need just another good teacher, you need someone who can come and pull out all your thorns.

I wear a crown of thorns because it is the only crown the King of Glory ever wore here. He was not ashamed of me; I will not be ashamed of Him.

            “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God… creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”      Romans 8