3) CROWNING

WITH THORNS

Life has its headaches.

Life has its worries and its anxieties.

Life has its mental storms.

Life has its crowning with thorns.

When have you felt like you were being crowned with thorns?

Life takes place between our ears – as we talk to ourselves inwardly about what’s happening outwardly. We worry about the people we deal with each day – at home and at work. Then there is traffic, weather, the cost of gasoline and the cost of raising children.

When we make mistakes or wrong turns, it’s hard to shake mistakes out of our mind. Family and friends tell us to let our mistakes go, but we can’t. They tell us to smell the roses, instead of looking at the thorns. We want to reply, “Hey, there are no roses in mistakes – only thorns and they seem to keep on sticking it to us.”

And sometimes we are hurt by others ….

If someone wants to make fun of us, they will find a way. They’ll twist and turn our words or actions into thorns and stick them into us. They’ll remind us of our weaknesses. They will bring up our past mistakes. The closer we are to others, the more they know our raw weaknesses.

However, we can develop the skill in reflecting on what is sent our way and deflect it. Of course it takes time to acquire this virtue – in the deep recesses of our mind.

Who of us could deal with a crown of thorns? Who of us could stand having a crown of sharp thorns driven into our head with reeds? Who of us could then deal with being spat at, dressed in purple and then mocked with the words, “Hail King of the Jews!”?

What did Jesus think and say when this was happening? We really don’t know. Mystics, as well as the gospel writers, imagine Jesus’ thoughts.

They were doing in the palace or praetorium that night what tyrants and bullies have always done to persons they want to persecute. Forget they are persons. Make him things. Make them objects. Never see them as subjects.

Jesus mirrors the opposite. Jesus is the king. And as king he saw all his subjects – especially the poor and the needy, the stuck and the sinner, in what they were being subjected to in life.

Jesus was a king – so they crowned him with a crown of thorns – and dressed him in a purple cloak. .

Jesus was a king who washed feet and let his feet be washed by a woman whom others saw only as an object. Jesus saw people as royalty – children of Our Father – especially people whom others objectified in order to rid them from their circles – sinners, tax collectors, people with leprosy, prostitutes, the unholy.

Jesus never tried to be a king with a golden crown. Yes he talked about a kingdom, but it wasn’t one with golden streets leading to a palace. No, he only mentioned a narrow way that leads to life. This carpenter told us to build our house on rock, yet he had no place to lay his head.