Matthew 27:27-31 A Scarlet Robe and a Crown of Thorns
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: September 17, 2019 Matthew 27:27-31
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him. And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him.
(Understanding the Text) The human capacity for cruelty constantly amazes and horrifies me. The whole battalion was there. This was not just a few cruel individuals. When they looked at Jesus, they did not see the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. They saw a Jewish pretender who was rebelling against their own people. They saw a second-class human who did not deserve any rights. They looked at Jesus and saw the Jewish nose and the Jewish clothes and the Jewish hair. They saw “not-my-kind,” and they felt no pity. This was a man slated for cruel death, so they did not have to worry about offending anyone in their treatment of Him. They had no limits put on them externally, so they tormented their prisoner. He had been charged with being a rival to Caesar, so they would mock that claim. Where did they come up with the scarlet robe?
Jesus must have reacted to this in the same way that He had to the governor’s questions, with silence. That silence might have been why they spit on Him and hit Him on the head with the reed. I wonder how thick and strong the reed was? I think of the reed as a flimsy thing, but it seems like they wouldn’t have hit someone with something flimsy.
(Revelation of God) Satan was inspiring the soldiers to their actions through playing on their negative emotions of resentment, superiority, and bigotry. He was trying to get Jesus to think that humans were not worth saving, but Jesus must have looked at these ignorant malicious beings and known that He was their only hope of something different. This is what I don’t understand about God. When we are at our worst, He looks at us in love and longs to bring us close to Himself. He doesn’t hold the stinky baby far away from His nose. He still smells the stink, but He cuddles us as close as He can.
Well, this passage answered one of my questions. Jesus may have been naked on the cross, but He was not naked on the way to the cross. It says that they put His own clothes back on Him before leading Him away to crucify Him.
(Application) My application for myself is that as time goes on, I will see more and more cruelty. Some of it may be directed towards me. I may be the recipient of attempts to humiliate me. I need to remember that Jesus faced cruelty with silence and pity and love. I might not be able to manage love, but I should feel pity for people who are so given over to Satan’s dominion that they themselves have no pity. I do not need to respond to the cruelty around me unless it is to protect someone else from the cruelty. I never need to feel humiliated because I am a child of the King. Jesus was not humiliated no matter what others did because He knew His mission and His Father’s love. I need to remember my mission and Jesus’ love.
(Prayer) I cannot love people as You do. I cannot face cruelty as You did. I cannot hold people close who want to hurt me. Show me how to react in the face of cruelty and indifference. Give me the strength, love, and trust in You to behave as You want me to. Heal me from the hurts inflicted by living in this cruel world.