“If you haven’t thrown up yet, try now to imagine a crown of thorns being placed – not at all gently – on your head, so that the thorns pierce your face and blind you with the blood streaming down from your head. Then imagine being told to carry a massive, heavy set of wooden beams, to the place of your actual execution.”

This part has been fixed in my head for the past few years. A crown of thorns is a bonus beyond the ‘normal’ crucifixion, it is a device conjured to mock the King of Kings specifically. It wasn’t just slapped on there and then taken off, it is nearly certain this twisted crown was driven deep into his scalp with the heavy blows, fresh pain with every twist of the head and move of the eyebrows.

It stays on his head for the entire passion. He can’t even lean his head back against the brace of wood he hangs from, because of the pain of jamming thorns deeper into his head. Perhaps even the sponge he drank from snagged or tugged on his crown, flashes of pain across the brow once again.

I expect it was buried deeply enough in his scalp and skull that his caretakers could not take it off in the rush to burial. The crown of mockery stayed in place as the king of kings descended into death to take the Keys of Death and Hades.

Resurrection happens. Two data points speak to me: 1. Shroud of Turin is a photographic negative of the instant regeneration of the resurrection. John kept his whole body linen wrap and its been passed down for nearly 2000 years, with some significant data work done in the 1970s. You can see a wrap around his brow of fresh blossoms and flowers.
2. When Mary sees him, she doesn’t recognize him. She thinks him a gardener. Why wouldn’t a gardener wear flowers and vines among his hair?

That speaks to three things:
1. Based on Moses’s law, the high priest of Israel wore an almond blossom diadem/crown across his brow, to bear the sins of Israel.
2. The Roman crown of triumph was a crown of laurel across the brow, so much that it is now the iconic crown of a Caesar, the conqueror.
3. She knew Jesus as the gardener. He’s the new Adam, the firstborn of the living, to bring us all back to the Garden where the man was first placed to live fully with God. The thorns (curse on adam) and the mockery are re-created by his conquering of death. We will each be in the new garden with him, and we can each bring people to this garden through self-sacrificing love today and tomorrow.