Holy Week invites us to slow down and remember. This year, I found myself reflecting on one powerful symbol — the crown of thorns. During this Holy Week, I have been reflecting on what Christ went through leading up to and including the cross. He was tortured. “Then Pilate took Jesus and had Him flogged. The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head. They clothed Him in a purple robe and went up to Him again and again, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ And they slapped Him in the face.” John 19:1–3 But even in their cruelty, God was revealing something deeper, something that had been set in motion from the very beginning. In Genesis 3:17–18, after Adam and Eve sinned, God said: “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you…” Did you catch that? Thorns were part of the curse. They were part of the consequences of sin, the brokenness that entered the world when humanity chose to be right in its own eyes. And it was these same thorns