The Crowning with Thorns
Jerusalem, “Ecce Homo” Convent, February 20, 2026
Is 52:13-15; 53:1-6; Mt 27:27-31
Dear brothers and sisters,
The image of Christ crowned with thorns, the “Ecce Homo,” which we celebrate today, is one of the most difficult to understand, yet also one of the most significant in our tradition. It is not merely a moment of cruelty in the Passion, but the revelation of the face of both God and man.
The journey of the Old Testament is a journey toward a Face. The believer’s heart longs to see the face of God: “My soul thirsts for God, the living God: when shall I come and behold the face of God?” (Ps 42:3). Moses speaks with God “face to face” (Ex 33:11), but when he asks to see His Glory, the answer is clear: “You cannot see my face” (Ex 33:20). The face of God remains hidden. The face is too much. It is the excess of being, holiness, and love that fallen man cannot bear. The Law, the Prophets, and Wisdom are His blurred features. The face of God is the great desire of every human being, and the ancient plea remains: “Make Your face shine upon us, and we shall be saved” (Ps 80:4).
With the Incarnation, this desire becomes a reality. “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known” (Jn 1:18). In Jesus of Nazareth, the face of God has a nose, eyes, and a mouth. He smiles at children, is moved by the crowd, becomes angry at hypocrisy, and weeps for His dead friend. It is a human face, familiar and accessible. It is a comprehensible God, close, “to our measure.” We might be tempted to stop here. But the Crowning with Thorns described in today’s Gospel (Mt 27:27-31) takes us beyond this. It is a parody that, by divine irony, becomes a revelation of a deeper truth. It is the moment when God shows us another aspect of His face, not in glory, as Moses would have wanted, but in suffering and humiliation. This is the paradox of the face of God.
The Gospel describes some distinctive features of this face.
The Crown: A royal symbol, yet made of thorns – the sign of the curse of the earth after sin (cf. Gen. 3:18). He is the King who takes upon Himself the curse of the world. His kingdom is not founded on power that crushes, but on love that allows itself to be pierced. His majesty is found in humility; His strength is revealed in vulnerability.
The Disfigured Face: Isaiah prophesied the Suffering Servant: “His face was so disfigured beyond that of any human being” (Is 52:14). The face of God is no longer that of a loving teacher, but of the innocent tortured, the righteous mocked.
We recognize the face of Christ today in those who suffer and are humiliated – physically, spiritually, or socially. When we contemplate Christ mocked, we do not face merely a memory of the past, but see a reflection shining today in all who suffer: in poverty, disease, and conflict zones. Every act of dehumanization, every time a face is disfigured, is an act against God, while every restoration of dignity becomes an act of worship.
“Ecce Homo”: “Behold the man!” (Jn 19:5). This is the name we give to this place. Pilate, unknowingly, proclaims a theological truth. In that man, scourged and crowned with mockery, stands the fullness of humanity. Because in Him, humanity and divinity are united, Pilate also reveals the face of God. “Behold your God!” we might say. The God who offers Himself is not found in power, but in total self-emptying (cf. Phil. 2:7).
In this moment, Jesus is silent. He does not respond to mockery, does not expose the lie with argument, does not summon legions of angels. His silence is eloquent. It is the silence of Love that does not answer hate with more hate, or violence with more violence. It is the silence that absorbs evil, swallows it in the abyss of mercy, and disarms it. In that silence, God reveals His greatest “power”: the ability to forgive, to transform poison into medicine through compassion. It is the silence that calls us, His disciples, to an existential change: to respond to evil not with retaliation, but with creative forgiveness; to injustice not only with protest, but with sacrificial witness.
However, the Passion is not the last word. The crown of thorns will be replaced by the crown of glory in the Resurrection. But the wounds remain. The risen Christ will show His wounds to the Apostle Thomas (Jn 20:27). Those wounds, those signs of the crown, have not been erased; they have been transfigured. They have become the permanent seals of love, the channels through which divine life flows into the world. They tell us that God did not “bypass” human suffering, but passed through it and redeemed it. His glorious Face forever bears the marks of His extreme love. And so it is for us: our “thorns,” when united with His, will not be erased, but can be transfigured into instruments of compassion and places of encounter with Him.
Contemplating the Face of Christ crowned with thorns is an act that transforms us. It transforms our idea of God: no longer a distant and impassible God, but the God-with-us, who cries out in the suffering of the world and redeems it from within. It transforms our gaze upon others: we learn to see the face of Christ in every humiliated, suffering, marginalized person. The crown of thorns is placed on the head of every human outcast. It transforms our gaze upon ourselves: our humiliations, our inner sufferings, the moments when we feel mocked or useless, are not signs of failure or distance from God. Instead, they can become the privileged place where we meet His Face more closely and authentically, without masks.
Let us bring to this Holy Face our uncertainties, so that He, the Mocked, may give us pure faith; our struggle to hope against all hope, so that He, the Forsaken, may infuse us with solid hope; our hardened hearts, so that He, from whose pierced side flow blood and water, may make them hearts of flesh, capable of compassion.
“Behold the Man! Behold your God!” By contemplating Him, we will be transformed into His image, from glory to glory, passing through the cross to reach the unending light of the Resurrection.
+Pierbattista Pizzaballa
Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem
