FIRE Committee Newsletter Lenten Series - 2015 The Prayer of St. Ephrem O Lord and Master of my life, dispel from me the spirit of slothfulness, indifference, ambition and vain talking. (prostration to ground). Grant instead to me, your servant, the spirit of purity, humility, patience and charity. (prostration to ground) Yes, my Lord and my King, bestow upon me the grace of being aware of my own sins and of not judging others. For you are Blessed for ever and ever. Amen. (prostration to ground) Behold, Your King Late Friday morning, April 3, A.D. 33, at Herod s Palace on the west side of the walled city of Jerusalem, Pontius Pilate gave in to the demands of a crowd to release the murderer Barabbas (meaning son of the father ) and to crucify the source of life, Jesus Christ ( the Son of the Father). We learn from Matthew and Mark that the soldiers received Jesus and carried him away from the outdoor public area into the palace for some extracurricular activities. Now that Jesus was condemned, the soldiers knew they had free reign to take advantage of their prisoner. And so they did. Table of Contents The Prayer of St. Ephrem Behold, Your King Quick Links CMA Website Donate Now Contact Us Email Us FIRE COMMITTEE Chair: Kathleen M. Raviele, MD Chair: Kevin Murrell, MD Don D. Bouchard, DO Donna C. Dobrowolsky, MD Sr. Mary Diana Dreger, OP, MD Rev. Matthew J. Gutowski, STL Sr. Edith M. Hart, RSM, DO Cynthia B. Hunt, MD Thomas W. McGovern, MD Anthony S. Oliva, MD Since the crime of Jesus was to be the King of the Jews, a king that the chief priests of the Jews who request his death did not want ( We have no king but Caesar - John 19:15 ), the soldiers decided to play off the royal motif.
In Matthew, Mark, and John we see that Jesus royal treatment included four trappings befitting a king: 1. 2. 3. 4. A crown A royal robe A royal staff Homage of his subjects Matthew and Mark refer to the crown with a term that often meant a wreath or garland awarded as a crown of victory to the winner of an athletic contest. To fashion a crown, the soldiers had to twist together portions of a thorny plant. Holy Land botanists have suggested one plant as the most likely one used to make the crown of thorns. This plant even contains the name of our Lord, Ziziphus spina christi, colloquially known as Christ s Thorn. This evergreen member of the buckthorn family is native to Israel and grows as a shrub or tree up to 60 feet tall and has been found at altitudes of up to 5000 feet above sea level. When I recently travelled to Israel, our guide pointed out this plant along the highway at many locations. We stopped to inspect some, and with difficulty that involved skin piercing and bleeding for our guide and me, we were able to separate a small branch from the tall shrub for me to take home. The thorns are incredibly sharp and measure about 2 cm long. I have no doubt that with pressure, they could easily pass through hair and the scalp skin. Because of the difficulty in handling the branches of this plant without inducing self-inflicted wounds, I doubt that the soldiers made a tightly woven circlet out of this plant. I suspect that the crown was more of a cap with perhaps more thorns peripherally than centrally, but I doubt there was much of an open area centrally.
A small specimen of Ziziphus spina-christi growing along a road near the Sea of Galilee. Closer view of spines of Christ s Thorn plant growing in Galilee.
Smaller spines measuring about 1-cm long on one sample of Christ s Thorn plant. The image of the crucified man crowned thorns on the Shroud of Turin reflects such a cap of thorns, for there are both venous and arterial blood flows emanating from multiple points on the scalp; not only in a ringed fashion. The number 3 pattern on the forehead suggests blood meandering down around muscle-induced furrows from its supratrochlear vein source. Before placing a royal robe on Jesus, Matthew tells us that he was first stripped. His own tunic, dried to the mass of clotted blood, skin, and muscle on his chest and back, was torn off to freshly and painfully open the scourge wounds of the Roman flagrum. The scarlet or purplish robe placed on Jesus was a chlamyda, a short cloak worn by military officers and soldiers that had probably been previously dyed a red or purple color. This new robe then gradually dried to his back as soldiers mocked and struck him. The royal staff given to Jesus is called a reed by Matthew and Mark. I had always pictured something like the wavy palm branch we carry into Mass on Palm Sunday. Not so. The word for reed used in the Gospels is kalamo referring to a reed in its various appliances, such as a wand or staff. The most likely plant used to provide the reed was Arundo donax, the giant reed or cyprus cane of Israel, an abundant waterside plant that grows over 30 feet tall in ideal conditions! This plant is more like bamboo than a soft reed and was commonly employed to manufacture walking-sticks, measuring rods, fishing-rods, and musical pipes. A staff of this plant could inflict significant damage!
Arundo donax Freshly cut reeds of Arundo donax.
Dried staffs of Arundo donax. After Jesus was provided the three physical attributes of his kingly power, his subjects used them to pay a grisly antito him. After letting Jesus hold his sceptre in his homage hand, Matthew (27:30) and Mark ( 15:19) note that the soldiers struck his head with the reed. Of course these evangelists want us to know that the solders used the reed to drive the thorns more deeply into the scalp of Jesus since they would not want to cut themselves doing this with their hands! I operate on scalps of patients almost daily and am never disappointed by the ability of the scalp to provide a tremendous amount of blood through the smallest of incisions. John tells us that soldiers used their palms to strike his face while they spat on him, knelt before him, and gave him false homage by hailing him by his crime, King of the Jews. When they tired of their sport, or simply had to move on to Calvary, they stripped off his royal robe and freshly opened his clotted wounds only to yet again affix his own outer tunic, the one for which soldiers will soon gamble. It was in such a state that Pilate declared, Ecce Homo, Behold, the man (John 19:5).
Within the last year, archaeologists have opened a site near the Tower of David in the Old city of Jerusalem where Herod s palace foundations have been found. (Ruth Eglash/The Washington Post) Archaeologists in Jerusalem dug through seven layers of history inside a former Turkish prison that sits next to the Tower of David Museum on the west side of the walled Old City of Jerusalem. At the base are revealed the foundations of Herod s grand palace where Pontius Pilate stayed during Jewish feasts. This is the most likely site of the trial of Jesus where Pilate declared, Ecce Home! ( Behold, the Man! ). (Ruth Eglash/The Washington Post)