John Donne, celebrated English poet ("No Man is an island") and Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, London (1573-1631), preached at the death of King James I in 1625.
His text was from Song of Songs 3:11 --
"Come out, you daughters of Zion, and look at King Solomon wearing the crown, the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his wedding, the day his heart rejoiced."

In his homily John Donne used the image of the crown of thorns.

"You know the curse of the earth: 'Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee" (Genesis 3:18)....it brought forth thorns to Christ, and he made a Crown of those thorns, not only for himself, but for us too...All thorns of life and death are broken, or blunted upon the head of our Solomon, and now even our thorns, make up our Crown, our tribulation in life, our dissolution in death, conduce to our glory."

Jesus took the curse that fell on the earth as the result of the sin of Adam and Eve and bore it on the Cross. He turned the curse into a crown.

"The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us for we have sinned." (Lamentations 5:16) Christ, the sinless one, became sin for us. He laid aside his crown of honor and put on a crown of thorns. Through his sacrifice on the Cross he bore the thorns of life and death and broke them. He took all our thorns, all the troubles of this life, even our dissolution in death, and made them into the crown of glory.

"Here, in this life of perfect obedience and love; here is this courage that bears the worst that hate can do and is still unfalteringly calm; here, in this love that is unquenched and undiminished by the desertion of friends, by the blows and jeers of enemies -- here we see Man fulfilling his true destiny and manifested as superior to circumstance. 'We see not yet all things subject to man. But we behold him who hath been made a little lower than the angels, garlanded for the suffering of death with glory and honour' (Hebrews 2:7-9). As the victim was garlanded for the sacrifice, so Jesus for the Cross -- with thorns of glory and honour." (William Temple, Readings in St. John's Gospel, p.359)

He took the worst of this life -- the curse of the Fall -- that our daily work will produce thorns and thistles -- life will be hard -- the suffering that will always be part of our lives -- and endured it so that he could turn it into the crown of victory, the crown of glory and honor. Down through the ages people who have suffered much in this life has found comfort in the knowledge that Jesus the Son of Man and Son of God took upon himself our suffering, all human suffering, all the cruelty of humanity and all the deadly and destructive diseases of mortal life so that he could accomplish our salvation.

Edward Shillito, shattered by the carnage of the First World War, found comfort in the fact that Jesus bore the torture and ignominy of his Passion. It inspired him to write his poem 'Jesus of the Scars':

If we have never sought, we seek thee now;
Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars;
We must have sight of thorn-marks in thy brow,
We must have thee, O Jesus of the scars.

The heavens frighten us; they are too calm;
In all the universe we have no place.
Our wounds are hurting us; where is the balm?
Lord Jesus, by thy scars we know thy grace.

The other gods were strong; but thou wast weak;
They rode, but thou didst stumble to a throne;
But to our wounds only God's wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds, but thou alone.

"Only a God in whose perfect Being pain has its place can win and hold our worship; for otherwise the creature would in fortitude surpass the Creator." (William Temple)

The victim on the Cross becomes the Victor who "was given a crown and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest." (Revelation 6:2) He has conquered death and Hades for us. We share in his victory and are given "the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge will award on all who have fought the good fight, finished the race, and kept the faith." (2 Timothy 3:7,8)

Is it no wonder that this Savior is the crown and focal point of our attention. We point to him, not with scorn and derision, but with eyes of faith and hearts full of love and worship. He is the God of our wounds who suffered death for us to bring us to glory.

(Ted's blog is to be found at www.tedschroder.com)