The King Whose Crown is Thorns

The King Whose Crown is Thorns
Christ the King; Luke 23:33-43
“If you are a king, then save yourself!”
Self-centredness spits out its cruel taunts.
Demeaning victims flaunts the soldiers’ power
and helps disguise the wrong they dare not see.
Yet Jesus prayed for them, “Forgive them, Lord!
They do not know what deed it is they do!”
The criminal beside him shouts in rage:
“God’s chosen one would save himself and us!”
The other in his agony finds sight:
“Fear God, for our misdeeds have brought us here,
but I believe this man has done no wrong.
Your kingdom comes, Jesus! Remember me!”
The king whose crown is thorns replied, “In truth,
today you’ll be with me in Paradise!”

The king whose crown is thorns unsettles kings.
He says, “The first is last, the last is first.”
He eats with tax collectors, prostitutes:
a woman of the streets anoints his feet
with precious oil and dries them with her hair.
He dares to touch and heal those deemed unclean,
confronts the hypocrites’ abuse of power,
and in the temple turns the dealers out.
“The kings of nations lord it over them.
Not so with you,” he says. “I’m one who serves.
The greatest must be humble as the least.
The kingdom welcomes those most like a child.”
His crown is thorns, his throne a cross, his death
a gift for saving others, not himself.
	Barbara Messner 16/11/2022