Jesus Is Scourged and Crowned with Thorns

V. We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee.

R. Because by Thy holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world.

At Pilate's order, Jesus is scourged. Roman scourging was carried out with the flagrum, a whip of leather thongs tipped with pieces of bone or metal, designed to tear open the flesh. It was a legally prescribed preliminary to crucifixion, intended to weaken the condemned enough to shorten the time on the cross. The soldiers then take Jesus into the praetorium, dress him in a purple robe, press a crown woven from thorns onto his head, and place a reed in his right hand. They kneel before him in mock homage and say: "Hail, King of the Jews!" They spit on him and strike him on the head with the reed (Matthew 27:27-31).

The mockery is elaborate — a purple robe (the color of royalty), a crown (a symbol of kingship), a scepter (the reed), the acclamation ("Hail, King!"), the genuflection. Everything that should accompany the greeting of a king is present — performed in ridicule. But the terrible irony, which the soldiers cannot see, is that they are performing the truth. He is a king. He is the King of Kings. They kneel before the Lord of the universe in mockery and in doing so reveal, in spite of themselves, what Isaiah had foretold: "Kings shall see and stand up" (Isaiah 49:7) before the suffering Servant.

The Crown of Thorns is perhaps the most universally recognized symbol of the Christian faith after the cross itself. It transforms the symbol of curse ("Thorns and thistles it shall produce for you," Genesis 3:18) into the emblem of a new creation. Jesus wears the crown of a fallen world's pain upon his head, and in wearing it, begins to undo what the Fall produced. The sixth Scriptural station is a meditation on the royalty of suffering love.