Different Kind of Crown

Road Trip ~ Dessert Lessons continued

A few years back, one of my Groovy girlfriends gave an entire lesson on palm trees. It was quite informative and interesting. I wish I could remember what she said and thought of her when I took these photos. I do know that the palm family contains 32 genera with about 1100 species (okay, I got that info off a website). What I don't know is what this crown of green growth is in the photo. It was quite lovely to look at and enhanced the beauty of the tree, but what I don't know is whether it is a natural formation for the palm or an interloper, indeed a parasite of sort. It was the only palm in the grove that had this lovely crown, and I haven't seen it since.

Crowns usually signal elevated significance, as in royalty or a sweet 16 party. Often bejeweled or made of expensive metal, it is a thing of beauty in and of itself. My God wore a crown of a different sort. Oh sure, it was meant to convey His royalty, as the king of the Jews, the Messiah ~ not in an honoring way but in a tongue-in-cheek, disreputable, derisive way. A crown of thorns. It was meant as the ultimate put down.

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head... And they struck Him in the face (condemned to die because He claimed to be the Son of God). John 19:1-7

Cut by thorns, with blood running down His face, the crown of Christ was none any wanted to wear. But He wore it silently, bearing His burden with grace. Since the beginning of creation, Christ knew this would be His crown to wear.

To Adam He said..."Cursed is the ground because of you...it will produce thorns and thistles..".- Genesis 3:17

Woven into a crown, these thorns are a symbolic representation of our sin carried by, and paid for once and for all, by Christ's death.