The Humiliation of Jesus Christ

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I suspect there is no place on earth where spitting on someone is an acceptable custom. In fact spitting on someone is a sure fire way to show that you don't respect a person and in many cases that person might respond with violence. So when the soldiers spit on Jesus they weren't doing so as an act of worship. They wanted to let the man know that they were in control and that they could do whatever they wanted. What they wanted was to bring this "King" down a few notches. Spitting was their way of humiliating One who just a few days earlier claimed to be the Son of God.

The Bible tells us that after Pontius Pilate delivered Jesus to be crucified, soldiers took Him into the Praetorium where an entire garrison gathered around Him (Matthew 27:26-27, Mark 15:15-16). The Praetorium served both as the home and judgment seat of a Roman governor, in this case Pilate who was serving as the prefect of Judea. In researching the Praetorium I found myself thinking about what this represented during Jesus' trial. God incarnate, the King of Kings and the LORD of all standing before Pilate in the man made Praetorium. The One who judges all standing before a man and judged under Roman law: His case heard in a building made by human hands. And although Jesus was found not guilty, He would be sentenced to death and taken prisoner by a garrison of Roman troops.

This garrison of troops was likely the one assigned to protect Pilate and the Praetorium. Based on information from several different sources a garrison would have been just under 500 soldiers, implying that the group that gathered around Jesus in the Praetorium was quite large. Unlike the five or ten soldiers often depicted in movies, hundreds of soldiers came to mock this man from Galilee as implied when scripture says the "whole” garrison gathered around Him.

The garrison stripped Him, according to Matthew 27:28. Reading this gave me flashbacks to highschool swimming class. I avoided having to change clothes during gym class by wearing my shorts under my pants. This didn't work when we had to take a semester of swimming. I had no choice but to drop trousers in a locker room full of teenage boys, all of whom trying to keep their eyes focused straight ahead into our assigned lockers. It was unnerving. The occasional taunt or practical joke might have built character but at the time were just downright painful. Jesus was stripped by and in front of a large group of soldiers. I can only think of one word: embarrassing. At least Adam and Eve got to wear fig leaves.

The soldiers then dressed Him in a scarlet robe. Their choice is interesting, as scarlet is also the color of blood and of the stain of our sin which Jesus bore on the cross (Isaiah 1:18). But the soldiers were not thinking of sin when they put the robe on Jesus nor did they care about the burden He would bear when they put upon his head a crown of thorns. His was not a scepter of power but a reed of shame placed in His right hand as they bowed and made fun. They mockingly called Him king. They then spat on Him and hit him in the head with His reed/scepter before once again stripping Him in front of them all.

Jesus made it clear that He could call 12 legions of angels to save Him from this path (Matthew 26:53-54). So why didn't He? Why endure such humiliation when in a snap He could have single handedly turned the tables on each and everyone of those soldiers? I'm not always comfortable with the answer to that question because it involves a love that is deeper than I can even begin to fathom: God's love for you and for me.

My studies of what it means to observe lent have led me to look at the meaning behind Ash Wednesday and Baptism. I also looked at fasting and Jesus’ time in the wilderness. Along with these aspects of the faith, it’s important to think about the abuse Jesu endured at the hands of the soldiers and how humiliating this situation had to have been. He endured being spat on as part of the path necessary for our salvation. It should have been you and me standing before those soldiers. Instead it was our Lord. Keep that in mind as you meditate and consider your relationship with our LORD.