As we draw close to the start of Lent, my books Crown of Thorns is an excellent way to start Lent. Here is a sample from the book. Next week I will share the rest of the thorns. To get the book here is the link to Amazon

The pain was immediate and excruciating, and I cried out in agony. 

Suddenly I realized something strange was happening to me—I could feel each individual thorn and each one carried its own hurt. 

The first thorn I felt was piercing my right temple, and the blood that ran from this wound flowed into my right eye, causing me to blink. This thorn was the pain of the denial of Peter and of others in a far distant future that would deny my calling. I longed to see Peter, to tell him I forgave him, but he was nowhere to be seen. I knew I wouldn’t see him for several days, that he was hiding in fear—of the Romans, of the Jews, and even of me. He was afraid of having me see him, so he stayed away. 

The second thorn that I felt was right in the middle of my forehead, and the blood from that puncture tricked down the side of my nose and landed on my lips. This pain was the loss of my friend Judas and as the blood touched my lips, I thought about how we greeted each other when I last saw him—with the kiss—the kiss of betrayal. Judas was so distressed by his well-meaning betrayal that he had already hung himself, but I felt his kiss on my face, now covered with blood. Ah, Judas, my dear friend, I will see you in Paradise. 

The next thorn I felt was at the back of my head and caused blood to flow on my shoulder. This one was a pain of regret that soon my mother, Mary of Magdala, and the young man I had come to love so deeply, John, would be holding my dead shoulders as they took me down from the cross. This, perhaps, was the bitterest pain of all, because I didn’t want to see them hurt, any more than they wanted to watch my suffering. I was almost happy to feel the blood from that wound—it seemed, for a moment, like a healing pain. 

Each subsequent thorn raised a new level of pain and brought to mind a new hurt in my soul. The hurt of betrayal, denial, the hurt of love, the hurt of the unjustly condemned. I felt in the thorn on my left temple, the pain of so many that had gone before me, unjustly condemned to die. And this thorn brought with it the pain that so many after me would die unjustly—accused of crimes they didn’t commit, would die for their beliefs or for simply being the “other”—the one who was different in some way, the one who no one cared about, the innocent, and sometimes even the guilty whose sins had already been forgiven. And I knew there would be many unjustly condemned to die long after I left this earth. 

There was a thorn over my left ear, that had been woven by the gentle one, I was sure, because that one drew no blood, and left me feeling hope and love towards the hands that wove it, reluctantly and sadly. I felt that empathy deep in my soul, and it gave me hope. 

One thorn had a particularly disturbing aspect to it. It seemed the thorn itself was in pain because humans had used God’s creation to make an instrument of torture. It reminded me that another of God’s beautiful natural creations, a tree, would soon be where I would meet my death. I realized that this was nothing new. Humans had been using nature to inflict harm on others since they were created, making instruments of torture and death from nature itself. And I wept a tear for that thorn and for all the Creators’ natural beauty that would be destroyed by humans in years to come, and would be used as instrument of war, not of peace and beauty. 

PS, if you have friends who you think would appreciate these blogs, send me their name and email to Linda@LindaLysakowski.com