EXPLORE THE TEXT
Jesus’s willingness to endure the shame and humiliation of crucifixion leads us to humble surrender and praise.
27 Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the governor’s residence
and gathered the whole company around him.
28 They stripped him and dressed him in a scarlet robe.
29 They twisted together a crown of thorns,
put it on his head, and placed a staff in his right hand.
And they knelt down before him and mocked him:
“Hail, king of the Jews!”
30 Then they spat on him, took the staff,
and kept hitting him on the head.
31 After they had mocked him, they
stripped him of the robe, put his own clothes on him, and led him away to crucify him.
Note that, along with the trials and humiliation,
Jesus endured the betrayal of Judas,
the denial by Peter, and the scattering of His other followers.
But all of these just set the stage
for the deeper suffering He was going to experience.
Emphasize the cruelty of the Roman soldiers, as portrayed in this passage:
The soldiers mocked Jesus.
They picked up on the charge against Him that He claimed to be the King of the Jews.
Using that, they mocked Jesus as a king by stripping Him of His clothing and putting a scarlet robe on Him.
This robe was an outer garment a soldier used to keep warm as he stood guard.
Adding to the mockery of the robe, the soldiers fashioned a crown out of a thorn bush.
The design was a copy of the wreath worn by the Caesar on special occasions.
Pictures of this wreath are engraved on Roman coins.
This fake crown was then pressed into Jesus’s head. (PSG, p. 124)
Identify other ways the Roman soldiers mocked and humiliated Jesus.
In private, in the governor's house:
stripped him and dressed him in a scarlet robe.
twisted together a crown of thorns,
put it on his head,
placed a staff in his right hand.
they knelt down before him
mocked him:
“Hail, king of the Jews!”
they spat on him,
took the staff,
kept hitting him on the head.
they stripped him of the robe,
put his own clothes on him,
led him away to crucify him.
This intense suffering was not without a purpose.
While we might see it as a tragedy,
Jesus had predicted all of this and understood that it was
a necessary part of God’s plan of salvation.
Thank Jesus for the things He experienced on our behalf that day.