Chapel Blog
The Thorns
by John Bishop, Director of Spiritual Formation
Next week we will be celebrating the story of Easter - the central story of all human history. In the article next week, we will focus on how Jesus is the fulfillment of a story God has been telling from the beginning of time. As a setup to this climactic story, we have been outlining different symbols and images used in Scripture. We’ve already discussed the tree and the garden. Today we’ll look at the thorns.
Without the saving work of Jesus, sin rules our lives. And there are consequences to sin that cannot be avoided or erased. The Bible describes these consequences by using the imagery of the thorns. In Genesis 3:17-19 we read, “God said to Adam, Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’” “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
How many times have you poured your heart into something only to see some of your effort wasted? You practiced all summer but didn’t make the team. You spent six months saving, but by the time you had enough, it was out of style. You invested time and effort into the relationship only to be betrayed. Thorns!
We are so accustomed to the effect of sin that we even anticipate failure in our planning process. Airlines over-sell their seats because people don’t show (and maybe because of greed, too). If you’re smart, you have a contingency plan anytime you’re counting on someone following through. When you’re saving for retirement, you must account for inflation. You must carry insurance on everything. Thorns!!
This is not the way God intended it. He put us in paradise without need or lack. It was sin that introduced brokenness and wasted effort. It’s not work that we hate; it’s wasted effort. Work isn’t even the curse, it’s the thorns.
But over the last two weeks we’ve seen that the Bible does not waste words. So, it does not surprise us when we see a crown of thorns being twisted together to be placed on the head of Jesus at His crucifixion. It has to be thorns!
In Matthew 27:27-29 we read, “Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. 28 They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, 29 and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. ‘Hail, king of the Jews!’ they said.”
Jesus died for the sins we commit. But the thorns represent more than that. He also died to reverse the curse of Sin generally. He is stripped naked and shamed though he’d done nothing wrong in contrast to Adam and Eve who felt shamed in their nakedness because of their sin. And rather than causing thorns to appear through sin, Jesus, our sinless LORD, dies with thorns on his head.
We now have freedom in Christ to find meaning and value in all the work of our hands. Check out this promise in 1 Corinthians 15:58, “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” And to appreciate the full context of this promise, read the whole chapter later. Jesus is the new Adam, and the thorns have been covered by His blood.
Trust in Christ and redeem the work of your hands along with healing the hole in your heart. Next week we get to celebrate how it all comes together.
Westminster Christian School, located in Palmetto Bay, Florida, is a private, college-preparatory school for children from preschool through twelfth grade.