Mark 15:16-20
A Crown Made of Thorns
16Then the soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called the whole company together.
17They dressed Him in a purple robe, twisted together a crown of thorns, and set it on His head.
18And they began to salute Him: “Hail, King of the Jews!”
19They kept striking His head with a staff and spitting on Him. And they knelt down and bowed before Him.
20After they had mocked Him, they removed the purple robe and put His own clothes back on Him. Then they led Him out to crucify Him.
Berean Standard Bible
The soldiers take him inside the governor's headquarters and call the whole company out to watch. This is not two bored men having a laugh at a prisoner. It is a unit, assembled, for entertainment, and what happens next is short and ugly and Mark writes it down without softening any of it.
They dressed Him in a purple robe, twisted together a crown of thorns, and set it on His head.
Purple is the color a king wears. Thorns are what you reach for when the crown is meant to hurt as well as look the part. With the costume finished, they give him the greeting.
Hail, King of the Jews!
Roman soldiers said those words to an emperor, and here they are shouting them at a beaten prisoner in a barracks yard.
They kept striking His head with a staff and spitting on Him. And they knelt down and bowed before Him.
The blows are landing on a head that already has thorns pressed into it. Isaiah, centuries before, wrote about somebody who offered his back to those who struck him and did not hide his face from scorn and spitting. The kneeling is the part that goes deepest, because getting down on your knees is what a person does in front of a real king, and these men are doing it as the punchline.
The thorns are not a random cruelty, whether or not the soldiers knew it. Thorns arrive in the Bible in the third chapter of Genesis, where the ground is cursed and what it yields is thorns and thistles. Every farmer in that country pulled them out of his field for a living and knew where they came from. So a crown made out of the curse gets pressed onto the head of the man who came to deal with the curse, by soldiers who were only looking for something sharp.
When they have had enough they take the robe off him, put his own clothes back on, and lead him out to be crucified. They dressed him as a king in order to mock him and then undressed him again, because the joke was finished and there was work to do.
Everybody in that yard who calls him a king this morning means it as an insult. Mark records nothing that he said to any of them.
How We Know
Verse 16 names the place and the unit: the palace, that is the Praetorium, and the whole company of soldiers. The praetorium was wherever the Roman governor held court while he was in Jerusalem.
Josephus has a later governor quartered at the palace and holding his tribunal in front of it, which points at Herod's former palace rather than the fortress beside the temple. The location is disputed and nothing has settled it. The purple robe, the crown, the reed and the kneeling form a mock coronation within Mark's own account, and Mark reports it without calling it one.
That the unit, the building and the charge all fit the setting supports a scene reported by somebody who knew how a governor's garrison was organized.
- Josephus, Jewish War 2.301.
Questions
1 Where have you said the right words without meaning them? What was going on when it happened?
AnswerEverybody has, and it is usually not lying. It is a habit running along on its own while attention is somewhere else, which is a good deal more common than deciding to be a hypocrite.
2 What do the soldiers dress him in, and why those two things?
AnswerA purple robe and a crown twisted together out of thorns. Purple is the color a king wears, and the crown and the salute are the props of a royal welcome, borrowed and used as a joke on a prisoner who cannot stop them.
3 Where do thorns come from in the Bible?
AnswerGenesis. When the ground is cursed, what it yields is thorns and thistles. A crown made out of the curse ends up on the head of the man who came to deal with the curse, pressed there by men who were only looking for something sharp.
4 Which part of what the soldiers do is the worst?
AnswerThe kneeling. Hitting a prisoner and spitting on him are cruelty, and everyone in the yard knows it. Kneeling is what you do in front of a real king, and they are doing it to make each other laugh.
What This Means for Us
They knelt. Soldiers who thought the whole thing was funny got down on their knees in front of him, said the right words out loud, and meant nothing by any of it. Then they stood up, took the robe back, and led him out to kill him.
People still do a version of that. Correct words can be said in the correct position by somebody who means none of them. Nobody here is a Roman soldier, and every one of us can sing something on a Sunday and forget it before lunch.
The difference is not the words and it is not the kneeling, because both were right in that courtyard. The difference is whether he is your king when you stand back up.
Prayer
Father, men knelt in front of your Son and meant nothing by it. Keep us from doing the same thing in better clothes. Make the words we say true by Tuesday. And thank you that he wore that crown without a word of complaint. Amen.