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Matthew 27:27-31
Jesus Is Mocked Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor's headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion[b] before him. And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him. |
The soldiers mock Jesus
The Praetorium was probably Pilate’s headquarters; the soldiers, his personal bodyguard; made up of the best of the occupying forces in Jerusalem. It is hard to imagine anything other than that some of these troops had already helped to flog Jesus.
To further compound His suffering, the whole company set upon Him. Perhaps 80 troops in all; mocking Him, taunting Him, torturing Him.
You can hear the raucous laughter, see them encourage each other, urging new and higher levels of humiliation. This was a gang getting more and more excited, and out of control.
You can hear the laughter as a soldier’s cloak is put roughly onto Jesus shoulders; getting louder as the thorn branches are twisted into a crown and a staff thrust into His hands.
Then the real jeering starts; ‘Hail King of the Jews’. This is not just torture, this is humiliation.
How incredible then, to watch Jesus. Not a word. No reaction. You can sense His exhaustion, recognise His pain. You can understand His desolation as He suffers this treatment in the midst of this.
And yet…
And yet, this is not God’s final plan. It is the route that He had to take for you and for me. He had to suffer instead of us. To be utterly cut off from God, His Father, our Father.
And yet…
And yet, we watch and we wait, for this is not the end.
Neil M