Day 10 of 2 Weeks 2 the Cross: Matthew 27:27-37

Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into headquarters and gathered the whole company around Him. They stripped Him and dressed Him in a scarlet military robe. They twisted together a crown of thorns, put it on His head, and placed a reed in His right hand. And they knelt down before Him and mocked Him: “Hail, King of the Jews!” Then they spit on Him, took the reed, and kept hitting Him on the head. When they had mocked Him, they stripped Him of the robe, put His clothes on Him, and led Him away to crucify Him.

As they were going out, they found a Cyrenian man named Simon. They forced this man to carry His cross. When they came to a place called Golgotha (which means Skull Place), they gave Him wine mixed with gall to drink. But when He tasted it, He would not drink it. After crucifying Him they divided His clothes by casting lots. Then they sat down and were guarding Him there. Above His head they put up the charge against Him in writing:

THIS IS JESUS
THE KING OF THE JEWS.

In cruel, torturous fashion, Jesus was led to the cross with a thorn of crowns on His head, spit on His face and welts on His head and body from His many beatings. The Scripture passage today is such a hard one to read, knowing the suffering Jesus endured. As I read these verses to the kids, our six-year-old son sat silent, with hurt in his eyes. His questions came after I was finished reading: What is a reed? Why did they put thorns on His head? What did they give Him to drink? Why did they make fun of Him and hit Him?

After some of my feeble answers, Jackson started explaining what we had read to his younger sister. “Lauren, Jesus did this so He could die on the cross for our sins.”

Yes, it all comes down to that. Jesus went through all of this for me, and for Jackson and Lauren, and all humanity. God so, so loved the world.

The sign hung above Jesus on the cross may have said, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews,” but it could have read more accurately, “This is Jesus, the King of Kings.”

For our family activity, we made cross sun-catchers.  This craft used black construction paper, wax paper and tissue paper. The kids glued different colors of tissue paper to the wax paper, and then we glued the black cross images on top. On the bottom with white colored pencil, we wrote, “This is Jesus, King of Kings!” Of course, when the kids were close to finished, the sun burst out from behind the clouds just in time so we could hang their creations on the window and see them illuminate with color.