A Crown, by Murray Hohns

I served as a mediator the other day. I have mediated many disputes over the past ten or fifteen years, but the last one was different than all the others. It involved a dispute between four Christian businessmen who had dissolved their partnership and in so doing had become deeply divided. To their credit, they chose to follow the peacemaker principles, which set forth a procedure to resolve disputes between people in the Kingdom of God.

One of the unusual things in the mediation was that each disputant could name a mediator, and thus there were four mediators and four disputants. One of the disputants had an attorney that acted as an observer and not a participant. All nine of us in the room were professing Christians.

The mediation was scheduled for two days. One of the other mediators arrived at the conference room we were using early on the second day to review the file and to place a full size crown of thorns in the middle of the large table around which we all sat. I was the second to arrive, and after the usual amenities, I noticed the crown and said something spiritual like “why the birds nest?” I thought I was being funny, but I soon felt chagrin with my remark. My co-mediator said he had the crown at his office (he is a pastor) and felt prompted to bring it to the mediation. He further advised me that he did not plan to mention it when the rest of the participants arrived. And so it was, the crown of thorns just sat there in front of everyone all day long, and no one mentioned it.

Mediations are not easy for the mediator or the parties, and this one was filled with acrimony, tension and fear since a good sum of money was involved, and several of the disputants no longer had the cash that might be necessary to bring the dispute to a close.

As the second day wore on, I found my eyes and thoughts drawn to that crown of thorns. It was mean looking, being made out of Bougainvillea canes that had many long, sharp thorns. I remembered how careful I had been lest I pricked myself while pruning such bushes. I winced as I contemplated how it must have felt when the soldiers shoved a similar crown on the head of the Savior.

I found my thoughts ran to the indignity, the cruelty, the ignorance and the arrogance of those soldiers as they put that crown on the Son of God. I thought about my Jesus, gentle and loving, who cared for each and every person he met during his ministry. Even then, there were so many who missed who and what he was. I thought how I had similarly mocked my Lord both before and after I knew him. My heart was deeply stirred, and I found myself unable to keep from weeping and blowing my nose for much of that second day. I do not generally weep in public, but I had never contemplated that crown before. I had read the gospels and seen religious art and actors in religious movies wearing that crown of thorns, but I had never sat in a room all day with a crown of thorns just sitting there three or four feet from me.

The presence of the Lord was so strong to me that day as the mediation wore on. I came home and told my wife about the crown and how it affected me. She was polite but unaffected to any extent that I could see. We traveled the next day to Jacksonville for the Foursquare annual convention, and I took my Bible out on the plane and its pages were absolutely alive with His presence. I slowly wept my way through Philippians and Galatians, and that does not happen very often. My hankie was thoroughly wet with my tears by the time we landed. It was an unusual few days for me.

I find myself still thinking about that crown. I decided that I would like a crown of thorns here in my home where I would see it every day. I wondered where I could get one. I no longer have a garden so I have to go to someone else. I thought about my son who is quite a gardener. However, it has been several years since I heard from him. We were out to dinner where he lives 2,500 miles from here, when he lost his temper and cursed at me as I tried to help him understand his need for the Savior. He has not spoken to me since. My son is what I call a wayward child. Oh, he is approaching 50, has a job, a wife and daughter, mows his lawn, washes his car and pays his bills. But he is not rightly related to his wife, to me, or to his heavenly father. He partly solves that lack of relationship by refusing to talk or write to me, and that makes him a wayward boy. I prayed about where I should go to get a crown of thorns, and then I wrote to my boy. I told him a little about that crown and how it spoke to me so strongly though it had no voice. Then I asked him if he would do me the great favor of making me a crown of thorns so I would have one here to enjoy. I really want that crown but I also wondered if it would speak to my boy as hopefully he put his anger toward his father in abeyance for the time it would take to fashion a crown from the thorny canes in his garden. I have not heard from him since I mailed the letter so I cannot end my story except to ask you if you have ever spent a day looking and thinking about that crown of thorns that they put on the Savior’s head so many years ago. I encourage you to do that. Perhaps you too will find that contemplation as profound and alive as I, and then decide that you, too, need to adorn your home or work place with your own crown of thorns.

PR