By Pastor Tang Long Kin

Every year during the season of Lent we will hear an old hymn being sung or played through various online platforms. The song opens with these words: “A purple robe, a crown of thorns, a reed in His right hand. Before the soldiers’ spite and scorn I see my savior stand.”

The song describes accurately how the Roman soldiers piled insults and scorns upon Jesus. They mocked Him as the King of the Jews, hence they put a purple robe over Him and put a crown of thorns on His head. They even made Him hold a reed symbolizing the royal staff or scepter.

A year ago I was reading Genesis 3:17-19. It is about the curse God put on Adam when he disobeyed and sinned against God…”cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you..” When I read these words they struck me hard that God actually put a curse on man. As I meditated on this truth I thought there is no hope for man to be taken out of his sufferings. Let’s face the truth if God put a curse who can undo it? So I resigned to the fact that no matter how hard man works in his life he will always have thorns and thistles to bother him.

As I continued to meditate on the above passage, it dawned on me that Jesus wore a crown of thorns on his head as he was led to the Hill of Golgotha. Was it just a coincidence that the Roman soldiers put those thorns on His Head? Was it just a mere mockery of the soldiers since Jesus accepted the acclamation by the Jews as their king when he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey just a week or two before?  As I recall the gospel that was shared with me and I still hold on to it that Jesus borne all my sins and His precious blood that He shed on the cross washes away all my sins it struck me that He even took away the curse of God upon man. He wore that curse of thorns and thistles on His own head to set us free from that curse. Jesus broke the curse no man can undo. He took the curse upon Himself so that we are set free!

The thorns and thistles were the curse God put on man but the crown of thorns Jesus wore is no coincidence. That crown of thorns is indeed the cure for the curse!

John 10:10 says: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” Indeed we can have life abundant because Jesus took the curse away from us. In life we still need to work to earn a living and we still face problems and difficulties. Yes the thorns and thistles are still there but its power has been broken. When we turned all these over to Jesus, we find that our life is so much easier and those thorns and thistles do not bother us anymore.

We also witness whole community or even a whole country changed for the better when they accepted Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. Right in our own nation when the head hunters in Sabah and Sarawak turned to Jesus, the curse was broken and the communities rose out of their bondage into freedom. They are now leaders in our nation. In my own personal life I can declare that the thorns and thistles never bothered me. Jesus broke that curse in my life.

During this year’s Lent season as we meditate upon the suffering of Jesus and His victory over death, remember that Jesus did more than dying for our sins. He took the curse meant for us upon Himself so that we can have life and have it abundantly.