And the power and the permanence of that Kingdom was to be founded, not on the compulsion of human force, but on the greater compulsion of his Divine self-sacrificing love for all humankind – a love so powerful in its attraction that the nails and the Cross, so far from extinguishing it, served only to reveal and prove it with unique certainty.  As he himself said, “…I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (NRSV, John 12:32).

So on Good Friday Jesus began his reign as King of Love, and the nature of both his Kingdom and his love was symbolised by the Crown of Thorns.

So when, after the scourging, the soldiers arrayed him in a trooper’s scarlet cloak, and plaited a crown of thorns and put it on his head and a reed to serve as a sceptre in his right hand and kneeling before him mocked him saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” (NRSV, Matthew 27:29) – it was then that the Crown of ridicule became the Crown of glory.