Re:Verse reading–Mark 15:16-20, 24-40; Mark 16:1-8 (Holy Week reading, day one)
“They put a purple robe on Him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on Him”–15:16-17
It was a joke. Cruel. Expensive. Ordinary people in that day couldn’t afford cloth with color dye. Especially not purple cloth. VERY expensive and therefore a symbol of royalty.
But, once a mob gets going, no one worries about expense. So, the soldiers wrapped a purple robe around His bloody shoulders and plaited thorns to make a pretend crown. To ridicule a dying man? Yes, but also to express the hostility toward God that lies in the human heart!
“How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the WICKED, nor stand in the path of SINNERS, nor sit in the seat of the SCOFFERS”–Psalm 1. Sadly, the world still has people who don’t listen to God because they are too busy making a joke.
Don, your phrase, “the hostility toward God that lies in the human heart,” really jolted me. Are we hostile toward God because He demands we put Him and His will before our own?
Charlotte Anderson