Each moment. Each phrase of this day in the recording of Christ’s passion has significance. Significance deeper than we can even express in words. We should meditate upon each moment, and yet there are not enough moments in time in this life to wonder and ponder upon each item, each event, each person, each spoken and unspoken word: all which have meaning and are worthy of meditation as they point to the reality which all of time looked forward to and now looks back upon. The life and hope of each and every generation of mankind is carried in these moments. Even our own.

In the passion according to St. John, Jesus is spoken of as “king” many times. What should a king wear to show his royalty and his domain, but a crown? So, Jesus, our king, is crowned…with thorns. Why thorns? Was this just to mock Jesus or did God move the mockers to reveal greater truth? The first time we hear of thorns in the Bible is in Genesis after Adam and Eve fell into sin. God spoke a curse on the ground saying, “thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you.” In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” The very ground out from which man was created will itself turn against him because of the curse of sin. No longer would food come easily as it did in Paradise. Now it will come only with thorny and sweaty labor.

Behold the kind of kings we have then in Jesus. He is one who is willing to bear sin’s curse, literally wearing the thorns of sin on His head in order to break the curse and release us from it. Here is your king, He who is the king of the world, the king of an everlasting kingdom. A king, who doesn’t parade His wealth with gold and jewels in His crown, but who manifests His love by bearing the symbol of sin’s curse upon his head with blood stained thorns. There is no fault in Him, as Pilate said. But this Man who fulfills what the first man could not be, bears all of your faults in order to redeem His kingdom. By the work of His sweat and bloody brow, through the crown of your thorns, He bears the righteous wrath and heat of God against sin in His body bringing forth a bread of life, that as Jesus said in John 6:58 “he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever” as He here conquers death by His own death.

There also is an important fact, which we must understand. Every betrayal, false accusation against Jesus, every scourge, humiliation and depravation, every pain and pierce is received by Jesus Christ for sinners upon His bodily flesh. Clever church signs may say things that seem profound like “Math problem: “3 nails+1 cross= 4 given”. It is nice that they are trying to preach the cross, but without the body of Jesus Christ as the one bearing sin, the cross and the nails are nothing but symbols of torture. They sadly missed the most important part of the equation: the body of Jesus. Our sins were not placed upon the cross, but upon the body of Jesus charged to Him while He died upon the cross. The true profound reality is that God Himself takes on the flesh of His created humanity to take sin upon Himself; upon His perfect flesh and bone body, to fulfill the Law and take upon His body and soul the curse of sin, to conquer and reign over a sin and thorn infested world which by nature rejects God’s love. How profound is God’s love? How profound the sacrifice? Jesus crucified has been damned upon the cross for sin, so that His own body acts as “a dam” holding back the full rush and destructive flood of God’s wrath and the fires of hell from destroying us. This is profound. Our sin upon the body and person of Jesus Christ. Then He dies so that with Him our sin and the ultimate curse is judged and dies with Him. We have been baptized into this death drowned by His blood by His Holy Spirit breathed from the cross to be given new life. New life because death is absorbed in the one who died and is buried, but is now here upon the bare slab of the grave bed altar with His crucified and resurrected body for you to eat and drink and live forever.

All creation grieves as Jesus breathes His last from the cross… but only for a moment. Soon the dark chill of the night gives way to the joy and light of the 3rd day, which gives proof, that the work of God, the work of salvation and substitution in Jesus Christ has been accomplished. There will be an end to death and sin for all under the curse who believe and hold fast to Christ crucified and raised as their King, their redeemer Lamb and Lord, and by Him give eternal thanks to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pr. Aaron Kangas