Why Jesus Wore the Crown of Thorns

Hi, Victorious Living. I am Christi Overton-Johnson, the host of More Victorious Living, and I am so glad that you're joining me today. I enjoy, more than anything, doing these videos. Well, not quite. My favorite thing is to go actually into the prisons and to meet those of you who are watching this, to see the faces behind the tablets. That's my favorite thing to do. But I do love just coming and sitting and just meeting with you and sharing my heart. My husband likes it, too, because I actually brush my hair and wash it for filming days, so he's always like, oh, it must be video day, and I'm like, yep. So, yeah, so today's video day, and I just knock them out so I don't have to do my hair again tomorrow, because it's a chore. Anyway, I digress. I wanted to share today something that I had a little, what's the word, an epiphany the other day, where it was like one of those ah-ha moments. A verse that I've read many, many times out of Isaiah, but it really just jumped off at me, and it just made me realize the incredible gift that God gave us when he took the crown of thorns upon his head. You know, when Jesus was getting ready to be crucified, during the night, I believe it was, he was arrested, and he was flogged and beaten, and they, you know, put this robe over him, and were mocking him, spitting him in his face, and they put a crown of thorns, and this wasn't just like a little bitty rose, you know, like a little briars or something. These were really long thorns, and I cannot remember, I believe I had studied something that said it was something like an inch. They were long, and so when he was standing there, and they placed the crown of thorns in, the soldiers just went by, and they would hit Jesus in the head, and those crowns, those thorns would just go into his brow, and he would just bleed. And there's, you know, there's a lot in that that we could really unpack today, just the shedding of the blood there, and, you know, of the mind, all the different places that he shed blood, you know, our hands, which are, you know, represent, you know, our work, and our movement, and the things we do, our feet, where we go, and there's all these different sermons on it. But today, I wanted to focus on the thorns, and I've read something recently. My husband and I read this every day together. It's called The Book of Mysteries, and it's by Jonathan Kahn. I love this book. It is, it's sometimes really deep, but it's just one page. There's 365 lessons, and my husband and I, we read one a day, and then we, you know, maybe at night, not every night, talk about it for a few minutes, but we're both trying to be

faithful and to read that, and literally, it's one page. But this day, it was entitled The Lord of Eden, and y'all, I don't normally bring a reading, but this really blessed me, and I wanted to share it with you. So, the way that Jonathan Kahn writes this, it's, he writes it, he's talking with someone that is teaching, calls them teacher, and according to this book, he was in actually a desert-type place. I'm not sure where it was. I'm pretty sure it was over in the Holy Land, but he was there for a year under the tutelage of a teacher who taught him lessons. And so, you're walking through his journey of learning and being taught, and so this one is entitled The Lord of Eden, and it was for Day 25, so we actually read it on January 25th. But anyway, he's talking about him and the teacher. They sit down in a desert valley, and it's surrounded by mountains, and they see storm bushes there, and the teacher reached for the branch, twisted off, and held it in front of Jonathan's eyes, and the teacher says, look at these thorns. Did you ever wonder why Messiah wore a crown of thorns? And so, I'm not just going to read it. I'm going to kind of tell you it. And Jonathan says, well, I did think it was strange, and the teacher says, think about it. What does a crown represent? a crown represents royalty, power, authority, wealth, kingship, glory. Yet this crown was not made of gold like a king would wear, it was made of thorns. Why? And it says here, when man fell, talking about Adam and Eve, the consequence of that fall was the curse. The ground would now bear thorns and thistles. The thorns were thus the sign of the curse, the sign of a fallen world, a creation that can no longer bear the fruit it was called to bear. Now, instead of bringing good fruit, it brings forth thorns, pain, piercing,

blood, tears, destruction. Now, how well do you all know that and do I know that? That because of sin, this world has, it's prickly, it's hard, it hurts, and it pierces you, there's a lot of darkness, a lot of bloodshed and tears, a lot of pain. And so the story continues. Jonathan says, the teacher handed me the branch of thorns and then the teacher continued. When a crown is placed on a man's head, he becomes king. At that moment, the weight of the kingdom rests upon him. So here's the mystery of the crown of thorns that was placed on the head of the Messiah, Jesus. When the crown was placed on his head, he became the king of the thorns. Thorns speak of pain and tears, so the crown of thorns means he will now bear the pain and tears of man. Thorns speak of the piercing, so he will be pierced. So the crown and the thorns are linked to the curse and the curse is linked to death. So the crown of thorns ordains that Messiah will die, he will become the curse for us. He becomes the king of the thorns, the king of the curse. But a crown also signifies authority. You know, a king has authority. One who reigns, so this is saying that Jesus is one who will reign. So by wearing the weight of the curse, he becomes king over it.

He becomes king of the curse and king of the cursed, king of the broken, king of the pierced and wounded, king of the rejected and king of tears. So all who have fallen can come to meet him, Jesus, and find redemption. For the one who wears the crown has authority over all of these things. He will turn our sorrow into joy, our death into life, our thorns into blossom. He who wears the crown is Lord of the fallen, the king of thorns. Today's mission, he says, is to bring the thorns, the wounds, the shame, the sorrows of your life to the king of the thorns and commit them to his authority. So I wanna ask you today, what are the thorns of your life? What is the pain of your life? What are the ashes of your life? What are the things that have fallen? Where have you fallen? And like that commercial, I've fallen and I can't get up. You know, the old people that have the little button and you know, where are those moments where you just feel like it's over? You have shed so many tears over something. I just encourage you today that Jesus Christ is the Lord, the king of every thorn that you have ever experienced. And it's not that he just, he's not bringing those things into your life, the enemy brings them.

He, Jesus, has the authority over those things. So I want you to be encouraged today. And this devotion here gives us some verses. And I recommend this book. If you've been walking with the Lord for a while and you're hungry for some deeper things, this is a really good book. But Isaiah 53, let me turn to that. Isaiah, if you have your Bible, is in the Old Testament. And it's towards the back of the Old Testament after Psalms and Proverbs, Song of Songs, Song of Songs, some say Song of Solomon. But it's Isaiah 53, three through five. It says, despised and rejected. This is all talking about Jesus. He was a man of sorrows acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses he carried. It was our sorrows that weighed him down and we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins. I was thinking about that. I love The Chosen. I said this in one of my last videos, but The Chosen shows that religious leaders thought Jesus was a sinner, like that he was blaspheming God. This is talking about them. They looked at him. They thought him hanging on the cross was a punishment for his sins, but in reality it was a punishment for their sins and for our sins and for everyone to come. He was pierced for our rebellion. He took the piercing in his brow, the piercing in his side, the piercings in his hands and his feet for us. He was crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we would be whole. He was whipped so we would be healed. All of us, like sheep, have gone astray. We have left God's path to follow our own, yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all. And so, you know, I think about what sin do you have today? What failure do you

think that you have? What hard ground have you been trying to make fruitful? What does a farmer do? He plows and he tills the ground and breaks it up and, you know, part of the curse was that the ground would be difficult and there would be weeds that they come and choke out the fruitful things and that's not just in the ground. Like, I'm looking out my window and I'm looking at a lot of vines coming up the trees. I'm looking at thorns and thistles out there and weeds that'll come and if I had any landscaping out there, the dogs have ripped up every single piece of it, but if I had any, there would be weeds in those beds because that's the curse of the ground. But God, he gives us the ability, despite what is going on in the world, to be fruitful. So let me ask you again, what hard ground in your life have you been trying to plow? Bring in the king of the thorns. Bring in the one in your life that knows how to till that ground. He's already defeated the curse and overcome the curse so that you could have freedom and victory and a fruitful life. So, let's look at another scripture. The one I really wanted us to look at is, I think it's in Isaiah 61. Yes. I really should prepare more when I come on these. I'm so sorry. I just... here's how it goes for me. I will just get a hankering to sit here and talk to you. Something in my heart will just say, sit, and I'll sit and I'll just ask God, what do you want me to talk about? And he will lead me to different places. So there's nothing scripted. It's just you and me talking. And none of my family wants to sit and just talk about the things of the Lord. Not that they don't like Jesus and love Jesus, but yeah. You guys, I'm thankful because I get my feel of talking. So thank you for doing that for me. But Isaiah 61, it really speaks to Jesus and how he came and laid his life down for us. But this is why Jesus came and why he went to the cross. It says in Isaiah 61, he has come to comfort the brokenhearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed. He has sent Jesus to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord's favor has come, that there will be justice for you. And with it, the day of God's anger against all your enemies. How awesome is that? And this is talking to the Israelites, but I believe, you know, we have been grafted in.

If we are believers in Jesus Christ, we are God's people too. We are part of God's family. And so to me, I take these verses and I run with them. And I just say, thank you, Lord, that you will comfort me when I'm brokenhearted. That you're gonna defeat my enemies. He will. And it says, listen to this, he will give a crown of beauty for ashes. This was where I had that epiphany the other day. I was like picturing, because I just read this, and then I read this, and I thought, hmm, he took off his crown of glory. I mean, God came, it says, let me read this to you. Okay, Christy, where is this? Peter. Peter scores the end here. I think it's first Peter. Hmm. It's the verse where it's talking about he laid down his royalty. I'm sorry. There is a great verse in first Peter two, actually, talking about who he was. Yeah, but there is one where it talks about, I couldn't find it, y'all. I'm gonna have to go look that up, where it's talking about that he left his royalty, and he came, laid it all down at God's feet so that he could come and live in human flesh

and experience everything that we've experienced. Sorry about that little delay there. But what I was thinking about was God, Jesus, the Son of God. I get so tongue-tied, I'm so sorry. He laid his crown of royalty down, his crown of glory, and he went and lived in human form and took a crown of thorns so that we could give our crown of ashes and get a crown of beauty. You see the exchange? This was my ah moment. I was like, to all who mourn in Israel, to all who have gone through troubled times, to all who are in barren lands, because Israel was in a barren land. They had lots of enemies. They were being attacked on all fronts, and they were not able to live that fruitful life that they should have been living as God's children, as his chosen ones. And it says that he will give a crown of beauty for ashes. So I thought about, Jesus, you took off your crown of royalty. You put on a crown of thorns so that we could take off our crown of ashes and give us a crown of beauty. I love that. There's a song, y'all know I like to break out in song,

but it says, ♪ He gives beauty for ashes, strength for fear, ♪ ♪ Gladness for mourning, peace for despair. ♪ ♪ He gives beauty for ashes, strength for fear, ♪ ♪ Gladness for mourning, peace for despair. ♪ That's out of this Isaiah 61. He gives a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G. That means weeping and grieving. So are you grieving and weeping today? Are there tears of sadness? Are you miserable? Do you have like this, everything in your life is just burned up. You have a heap of ashes. God wants to take them and make something beautiful out of it. So then you can walk. I think about so many of my friends who have been formerly incarcerated or gone through severe trauma. That was not my story. I had some trauma. I had some hurt and some pain and my story's different. But I think about those that had walked through decades of addiction and decades of incarceration. And now all those ashes have been, just been made into this beautiful, beautiful crown,

a crown of beauty. That when they march in with me to these prisons and they tell their story, there's no shame in that. What used to be. It's all, all that ash has been made into something beautiful. That's what Jesus does. That's what the King of Thorns does. That's what the King of Kings and Lord of Lords does. He gives us beauty for ashes. He gives us fruitfulness for what was once a barren place. He defeats the curse. Maybe there's been just a curse in your generational line. Maybe there's been addiction after addiction after addiction. Your great-grandfather, your grandfather, your mom, your dad. And this just keeps going down and your kids are in addiction and your grandkids. I've met whole generations that have all been incarcerated. And that is just, does not have to be your story. that is your story right now, he is the one who can break the barren, cursed grounds of your family. Just go to him and say, God, here I am. I ask you to forgive me of my sin. I ask you to heal me of my diseases. I ask you, Lord, to come into my life. Draw me close, touch me.

I ask you to break the yoke of oppression all over our family, to break the curse of addiction. Pray that to God and say, God, I give you my family. I give you my kids. I give you the future generations that it will stop today, and that every single one of us are gonna walk in righteousness. Every single one of us are gonna walk with our heads held high, like it says in Leviticus 26, 13, and we're gonna walk as children of the king, not hunched over in a barren land, hunched over with grief, hunched over in pain. No, we're gonna live under the joy of the Lord, the peace of God. We're gonna have a crown of beauty on our head instead of walking around with a heap of ashes. That, my friend, is what the Lord of Eden, the king of the thorns, the one that has authority over all things, and who is now, the word of God says, has given us authority over those things, if he is in us, because we have his power in us. You do not have to walk in a barren place. Even, listen to me, even if you're in prison right now, that does not mean your life is over. That does not mean you cannot live a fruitful life in that barren land. The God of the thorns, the king of the thorns,

will turn it all around for you. He will make that barren land a fruitful place. All you gotta do is come to him, give your life to him, follow him, lay it at his feet, lay those ashes down. Don't keep sweeping them under the rug. Don't keep trying to walk around all dusty and dirty. Just come to God and say, God, make me clean. That blood he poured out for you makes the blood of the lamb poured out for you, makes you clean, it makes you clean. Did you hear that? It makes you clean. I think I just said it five times. I hope this has encouraged you. Your mission today, according to Jonathan Cahn, is to bring the thorns, the wounds, the shame, the sorrows of your life to the king of thorns and commit them to his authority. So another verse, he gives two more verses. Let's look at those quickly. Matthew 27, 29. Matthew is the, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John is the first book in the New Testament. And these are the gospels. Matthew is one of the gospels. Matthew was a tax collector. He was a disciple. And this is his account of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

Matthew 27, 29. They wove thorn branches into a crown and put it on his head and they placed a reed stick in his right hand as a scepter. Then they knelt down before him and they mocked Jesus and taunted Jesus. Hell, king of the Jews. And they spit on him and grabbed the stick and struck him on the head with it. When they were finally tired of mocking him, like they did it so long, they grew tired and weary of it. They didn't stop because Jesus was hurting. They just got bored. Then they took off the robe. Think about how long they probably did that and how the blood on his back had probably dried into that robe. And when they took it off, it would have ripped off his skin. They put his own clothes on him and then they led him away to be crucified. That's the thorns. That is the account of where he took those thorns for us so that he could become the king of the thorns. So that was Matthew 27, 29. Then Galatians 3. Galatians is in the New Testament. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. Y'all, if y'all got some time,

memorize the order of the books of the Bible. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians. I think I got it right. I had to learn that as a little girl. So Galatians 3.13, but it comes in handy when you're trying to find things. And hey, make it a game. See if everyone in your dorm can learn it. And then someone gets something from commissary, like a prize or something, whoever does it first. make it fun, make some games out of it. So Galatians 3 13 and then we'll close, but Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took himself the curse for our wrongdoing. The wages of sin, this is another verse out of Romans, I think Romans 6 23, the rages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, that is Romans 6 23. So what we should have got for our debt for our sin is death. We were cursed, he became the curse. And the Bible even says, the law says that, what does it say? He who is cursed hangs on a tree. So he became the curse for us by hanging on that tree on the cross of Calvary. He let his blood flow because the Bible says there is no forgiveness for sin without, there is no remission of forgiveness of sin without the shedding of blood. So on the cross, he hung on the tree, he became the curse, he shed his blood so we could have the forgiveness of sin. He died, he was buried. Three days later, that stone was rolled away, not by people, but by God himself who had resurrected to dead. God brings dead things back to life. And the reason that's so important, if he had stayed in the tomb, Satan would have won. Satan would have been the victor. Satan was so excited Jesus was hanging on that cross, he didn't know what was coming. If he had known what was coming, he wouldn't have messed with Jesus. He wouldn't have wanted him to take our curse. Because what happened is, he fulfilled all the laws, so now it's

not about rule following for us, it's just about loving God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and loving others as ourselves. So when he was raised from the dead, what he did is he conquered death. He conquered death for you, because we had the curse of death on us. Now we've got the blessing of life, because he became the curse. So it's so important, and all you have to do to walk in that blessing is receive it. It's a gift. For the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. A gift is not something you earn. A gift is not something you buy. A gift is something you receive. Will you receive it today? So Father, I thank you for my friends that are watching. I thank you for their love for you, for their hunger and thirst for the Word of God, for their prayers, God. I thank you for the plans and the purposes that you have for them. God, it's not over. That's what you want them to know. It's not over. Life may seem barren. Life may seem miserable. It's not over. God has a plan. The King of glory, the King of the thorns is about to blossom things in your life. He's about to turn it around. Turn it around. God, turn it around for my brother and my sister today. Lord, we love you. We thank you for this time together. In Jesus' name, amen. Listen, I love you. Our team loves you. We're here for you. As I say it all at the end of our programs, don't forget to get a hold of our magazine, Victorious Living. If you don't get it, we directly ship them into over 500 facilities. It goes into thousands of others through some of our partners. If your facility doesn't get it, let us know. Call Mr. Pat, 352-478-2098. Better yet, have your chaplain call Mr. Pat or have your chaplain or program director go straight on to our website, VLMIN.org. VLMIN.org. There's a chaplain's tab. They can request an event for us to come. They can request magazines with staples or without. Our magazine is bilingual, so you can share it and use it as a witnessing tool for English and Spanish-speaking men and women across your compound. It's a great tool for you to use. A lot of people, that's where they're finding the Lord. Maybe they're not ready to go dive in the Bible yet, but yet they'll read that testimony of somebody whose life was turned around and they recognize themselves in that story and they recognize the goodness of

God in their story and they wonder, if God did it for them, could he do it for me? And the answer is yes. So use those magazines in your own ministry. ministry. Use these videos in your own ministry. In the front of our magazine we encourage people to do small groups. I've done a video on how you can do small groups. I've got, and I think we're putting a PDF on that video where you can download it and there's all sorts of tips about being a facilitator of a small group and also being a part of a small group and what a small group should look like. So I put together two three-page documents for that. It's available if you write to us. We have to, because of mailroom restrictions, we have to mail them in two separate envelopes, but we do hope to get them on the tablets as well. So yeah, do that. Send your chaplain to our website. There's lots of resources there. Use these videos, like I said, with your friends. Tell your family about it because they can watch it. They can download the Pando app. They can go on our YouTube channel, the Victorious Living YouTube channel, and mine, Christi Overton Johnson. They can watch all of these for free. Everything you're seeing, they can see. And so please just tell them to follow us. How great would it be if maybe you and your mom or you and your spouse or your father or brother or whoever, your kids, you're doing these together. You're watching the video and asking some questions like, what did I learn? What did God speak to me? Share some verses that you think of, and maybe if we talked about a theme, dive into that theme together. So there's so much you can do. Get creative. We want these to be tools that you use in your own ministry efforts and on your own faith journey. Okay. God bless you. Take care. Bye-bye. Thank you for watching our broadcast. Are you an incarcerated brother or sister who needs encouragement? Write to us at Victorious Living Correspondents, P.O. Box 2751 Greenville, North Carolina, 27836. Or email us at Hope at VLMag.org. To view Victorious Living magazine in its entirety, please have your chaplain contact us at 352-478-2098 or email us through our website at VLMag.org. We are happy to provide our Victorious Living magazine free of charge, in bulk, with or without staples.