March 17 2024: The Coronated King - Hannah Thom

Mark tells of the abuse Jesus suffered at the hands of soldiers after being flogged and dragged into the Praetorium. While the scene makes the reader wince at the sheer brutality of it all, there is also something else just below the surface: the way Mark frames the story of what happens to Jesus from the purple robe, to the crown and the homage is a description of what would happen when Caesar was coronated emperor of Rome.

At one level this is subversive commentary: what the soldiers were doing was, in some way, hailing Jesus as the king he is. But he is also asking a question of the reader, “Is this the king you want?” Not one who comes with great pomp and circumstance, but one who comes in brokenness, humility, into the pain and the violence of our world. The question he asks demands a response. So the only question left is, “What will that response be?”