The Cross and the Crown
A Roman cross was one of the most humiliating and painful ways to die. Reserved for making lawbreakers into public spectacles of Rome’s authority. Typically, someone crucified would die slowly from suffocation.Each breath became a choice—lift your body against pierced feet in searing pain, or feel your lungs strain for air. All this while being naked and on display for the gawking public. Utter objectification and dehumanization. Someone gruesomely moved from image bearer of God to a mere symbol of brutality.
It should make us pause. Do you feel the weight? This is heavy.
We see the cross as the answer to our sin, which it is, but we forget, too easily, that it was first, a torture device.Transforming this symbol from a sign of torture adn condemnation to one of grace and freedom was incredibly costly.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in The Cost of Discipleship, talks about the difference of cheap and costly grace:
“Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”
Another symbol of Good Friday is the crown of thorns. A crown symbolizes authority, honor, and rule.
And Jesus spoke often of a kingdom—the reign of God breaking into the world.
As the Son of God, He holds all authority in heaven and on earth.
But Rome does not crown Him in glory. Rome already has its King. Instead, they press thorns into His head. A crown that mocks and brings additional pain.
Interestingly, the crown is made of thorns, which echoes back to a certain curse you may remember… Genesis 3:18 ”Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the plants of the field. “
Jesus takes on the curse of humanity—quite literally— in a crown of thorns.
The very sign of the curse becomes the mark placed upon His head.
The celebration of Good Friday is meant to help us lean into the discomfort of the dual nature of the cross as a symbol of death that brought us life and a crown that represents authority and rule that was laid aside to take up our curse.
And being open to this tension will prepare us for the most important decision of our lives: Will we choose complete freedom by submitting ourselves to the absolute authority of King Jesus?