Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robeand went up to him again and again, saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And they slapped him in the face. John 19:1-3

This passage is torture. Literally.

The soldiers are about to crucify Jesus and yet they decide to make things even worse by giving him psychological trauma as well, mixed in with physical assault.

It’s utterly horrendous. And He hasn’t even gotten to the cross yet.

It’s barbaric behaviour. It’s also mob mentality and shocking that Jesus put up with this.

But this is the kind of King that Jesus is – one who both rules and serves. One who made Himself nothing.

Colin Buchanan’s song Have You seen my Holy Saviour? jumped into my head as I wrote the above.

When faced with the great suffering that Jesus experienced on the cross, we can only worship, for He became nothing so that we might become something.

This is love, the love of God. We can’t understand it. We can only respond to it.

So this post is going to end here so that you can take a moment to respond. You might like to use the song Have You seen my Holy Saviour? to guide your reflections.

Yours struggling to fathom the suffering and the love,

Alison