10.05 | Victory March
Mark 15:16-41
‘And the soldiers led him away inside the palace (that is, the governor’s headquarters), and they called together the whole battalion. And they clothed him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him. And they began to salute him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him.’
Mark 15:16-19
It’s a Friday morning in the ancient city of Rome. It’s Springtime, and Caesar Tiberius is the ruler supreme of the vast Roman Empire. By his time, the cult of the Emperor has been firmly established, with the reign of the Caesar’s already legendary across an Empire covering much of Europe, the Near East, and North Africa.
The imagery around Caesar’s cult was strong. The Emperor typically wore robes of purple,1 an expensive fabric to dye, that was traditionally associated with the original kings of Rome. Purple robes were an emblem of royalty and authority, and had become a formalised part of royal or victory processions.
Caesars also wore crowns — yet different crowns to mark different occasions. Sometimes the Corona Triumphalis — a wreath made from laurel leaves, symbolising victory; sometimes the Corona Radiata, a crown with spikes pointing outwards to imitate the rays of the sun, implying the supposed divinity of the Caesars.2 This claim not just of political power, but divine identity, was supported by the idea that the Caesar’s were thought to be a ‘son of the gods’ (divi filius)—thus representing the will and power of the gods upon the earth.
This was the imagery of Rome.
Some 1400 miles to the east, another man was surrounded by the soldiers of Rome. He was dressed in a robe of purple, and with a crown made of plants with spikes forced onto His head, while the soldiers mockingly knelt to pay homage to Him. He was led out of the palace, and paraded through the streets, with a passerby forced to carry His cross. He was nailed above the crowds, there was a sign placed above His head, proclaiming Him to be King. As He at last breathed His last, at 3pm in the afternoon, the Roman soldier, standing beside Him, named Him as the Son of God.
It’s not difficult to see the many ways in which Jesus’ crucifixion inhabited and yet subverted the imagery of Rome. And yet those points of connection give us some insights into what Mark wants us here to see.
He wants us to see the true King of the ages, who, in these moments of greatest humiliation and pain, is the true King of the only Kingdom that will ever bring peace to the earth. He wants us to see that only this man, condemned and dying as a criminal, is truly the Son of God. He wants us to see that these moments, that seem so painful and so dark and so devastating, are not at the truest level moments of defeat. Rather, bearing all the imagery of the victory parades of the superpower of the day, this is a victory march. In the agony of Golgotha, the enemies of God are being routed by love.
Jesus. Son of God. In royal robes and a crown of divine victory. Whose dying moments lead us into the great triumphal procession, that goes through death into life and life and life again.
This is our king.
Behind those streets and palaces of Rome, in all their superficial beauty and underlying corruption, all hell shuddered. The Empire had been exposed as a fraud, and its claims as flimsy and temporary. The true King, on a hillside, many miles away, had been enthroned. And His victory procession would endure into eternal days untold.
Reflect:
The Cross shapes our every day.
What pain do you need to bring there today?
What victory might you find?
Pray:
King Jesus,
In this world,
There is great competition for my attention;
The shiny and the strong and the charismatic and the wealthy
Are distracting.
Caesar in all his showbiz pomp
Cannot save me.
And yet,
In you, Lord Jesus,
I see something vastly more beautiful.
I see a Kingdom that does not kill for power,
But is killed for love.
I see a King who does not force His throne,
But surrenders to brokenness,
That brokenness itself may be undone.
I see a Way of being that abdicates every trivial and empty form of image management,
And instead —
In beautiful humility —
Undermines the schemes of hell and Empire,
In a worship of utter surrender
And truthful purity.
And as I gaze on you,
King Jesus,
May I walk this your Way too.
Unto the brilliance of true surrender
And the power of utter love.
In Your Name,
Jesus:
Son of God,
Messiah,
Saviour,
Lord,
And King,
In whose victory I walk,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
2 Samuel 1-2 | Proverbs 14:15-18
The ancient historian Suetonius, for example, wrote about Caligula and “the splendour of his purple robe”: (Suetonius: The Lives of the Twelve Caesars: Caius Caesar Caligula XXXV)
If you’re wondering, the coronavirus was named after these, due to the crown-like shape of the spikes on the virus, when viewed under a microscope