We know that roses have thorns, but we don’t actually expect them to. Florists have genetically modified roses so the ones we have in bouquets have barely noticeable protrusions. In our comfortable, pampered modern lives, we’ve come to expect only roses, roses without thorns. If life hands us a bunch of thorns, we scream, “Not fair! Where are the roses?”
My Mysterious Mind
When a horse wins a race, a beautiful arrangement of roses is placed around its neck. As the winner of a beauty pageant is announced, a massive bouquet of roses is handed to them. After a stage performance of music or theatre, the performers are given beautiful bunches of flowers. Ice skaters glide between cascading clusters of roses after finishing a crowd-moving routine.
Imagine if these victors received thorns instead. The victorious horse is adorned with a huge bramble; Miss America is handed a cluster of thorny stems; and amazing performers are congratulated with bundles of spiky twigs. This isn’t what is expected. Where are the roses?
These scenarios seem implausible. No one would give thorns to the winners! How grossly unfair that would be!
And, yet something similar sometimes happens in life. The spouse who remains faithful is sometimes given a thorny season with a physically or cognitively deteriorating partner. A once-thriving, beloved business is dismantled by those who love it most, who remain dedicated to the end. A difficult project, finally completed, brings harsh unintended consequences. A child, lovingly nurtured by sacrificing parents, becomes hostile to those who cared most for him/her. Living a long life only to receive a prize of cancer, chronic pain, dementia, stroke, or the loss of loved ones. The victors of successful marriages, businesses, parenting, and long life are sometimes awarded brambles of thorns.
And it isn’t fair. Most of us live by the value that hard work and loyalty should be rewarded with wonderful outcomes. And often they are. Handed a bundle of only thorns, we scream, “I don’t deserve this! I’ve worked too long and too hard…for this?!”
At times the awards for such dedication and sacrifice are unpleasant, thorny, difficult, and undesirable. Caring for a dying loved one, serving in a role beyond fatigue, or sacrificing for an important cause sometimes ends in thorny places. It’s not fair to get to the finish line and receive a prickly prize. But it happens.
Has something unexpectedly thorny happened to you? At long last breaking through the finish line ribbon, the long-anticipated prize is worse than a disappointment, it’s a painful trophy. Where are the beautiful roses? Why are there so many thorns?
Message of Mystery Acres
There are very few plants or trees with thorns on our beautiful piece of paradise. That’s surprising, really, because thorns are common in undisciplined parts of nature. When searching for a piece of land to buy, my husband and I encountered thorns on every visit. One of those pieces of land still calls to me. It was much more beautiful than our beloved Mystery Acres, but also overwhelmingly thorn-infested.
How could it be both beautiful AND thorn-infested? How could a place still call to me with its amazing location and gorgeous views, while simultaneously haunting my memory with its horrible thorniness?
To get to this gorgeous little piece of Missouri required driving alongside a neighbor’s property. My husband and I refer to the man who lived there as “Deliverance.” During one of our visits to this piece of almost-Eden, Deliverance paid us a visit on his four-wheeler. Our interaction with him was as uncomfortable as the bushes growing unrestricted on much of the for-sale acreage: thorny. My husband and I could imagine owning and enjoying this tucked-away bit of land, but we couldn’t imagine finding peace there because of this prickly neighbor.
If it had just been the overgrown thorn bushes covering much of the property, we might have bought the place. There were thorn-free paths to the edge of the creek and that creek was incredible! Its beauty still summons me.
But those thorns! And that spiny property owner nearby! There would be no peace there, even if the land were successfully cleared of thorns.
So, we passed on purchasing it. I have no regrets. Mystery Acres has less beautiful vistas overlooking a year-round creek, but it also has no thorn trees and only a few briars. And, if a neighbor comes by on a four-wheeler, they are incredibly nice. One even brought us homemade blueberry jam. Another has offered to help us with his equipment multiple times. I don’t get nervous at all when a four-wheeler drives by or pulls into our gravel drive.
The message of Mystery Acres is about the inevitable combination of thorns and beauty. It compels each of us to ponder the presence of each, adjusting our expectations towards gratitude when there are very few thorns.
Ancient Mystery’s Voice
“God said, ‘Now the land will produce thorns.’” (See Genesis 3:18)
God created the moon and stars, the earth, the plants, the animals, and his crowning achievement: humans. He surveyed His accomplishments and said, “It is good.” Then, sometime after hitting the finish line of creation, those humans God created disobeyed the only rule He gave them. That rebellion, eating the one food that was forbidden, brought brokenness to the entire creation. And one of the side effects of that fallen creation was thorns.
I think that’s when God made ticks, or when ticks started sucking blood, but the Bible only mentions thorns. So, I’ll go with that.
Not long after the victorious feat of making a magnificent world, that victory was rewarded with an infestation of thorns. Man’s disobedience to God brought damage into all of creation, and with it came prickles and briars. I wonder if roses grew without thorns prior to the fall? Logically, yes.
Fast forward a few thousand years and God arrived in human form as Jesus. After living as a human and doing so perfectly, avoiding all temptation and destructive impulses, what was the award awaiting this perfect victor?
A crown of thorns (See Matthew 27:29). The perfect person ran a perfect race, surpassing all others, and getting to the finish line, his prize was a crown of twisted, spiky, brambles. All thorns with no roses.
Talk about not fair. Human disobedience brought thorns into creation. Perfect obedience received a crown of thorns for walking among that creation.
Those thorns are the result of creation damaged by disobedience, or what the Bible calls sin. Then, as Jesus was nearing the end of His race as a human, He took the disobedience of all humans onto Himself, and the symbolic crown of thorns displayed His carrying of those sins.
And none of it was fair. The crown of thorns belonged to the losers, those who broke God’s rules. Jesus traveled the way of suffering, known as via dolorosa (in Latin), a name that sounds like it includes roses, but the path that did not. Wearing that grisly crown, Jesus was then nailed to a cross and died. Sin, man’s disobedience, and the penalty for that sin, died on that same cross.
What a terrible story! But it doesn’t stop there. The crown of thorns and death on the cross (known as crucifixion) wasn’t the end of Jesus’ victory lap. That would come on the third day after His human body died.
On that third day, an event celebrated by Christians as Easter, Jesus, in a human body, came back to life. And His reward for His sacrifice, and the suffering and thorns He had just endured, was the people who were restored into a right relationship with God. He did it all for them. He did it for all of us. We are his roses.
Ancient Mystery’s Voice speaks of thorns. From the first mention of thorns in Genesis when man’s sin brought damage to creation, to the crown of thorns placed on Jesus, the victor’s, head, thorns are evidence of disobedience. In the other 35 places the Bible speaks of thorns, the imagery is of wickedness. Thorns are never portrayed as something good, something God-pleasing. I don’t like thorns and God doesn’t either. He hated thorns, and the sin that brought them, so much, He died to eradicate them. For Jesus, our sins were the thorns, but we are His prize of thorn-free roses.
Sadly, we must wait a while longer to see the revised creation, absent of thorns. But that is coming. Meanwhile, there are still thorns, and many times when our well-intentioned efforts are rewarded with them, and only part of the time with roses.
Living in Mystery
What does it mean to live in the mystery of thorns without roses? When our efforts are rewarded with thorns and few to no roses, with cries of “not fair,” – how might we respond to these prickly prizes?
We believe our good work should earn us rosy prizes; believing that can motivate us beyond exhaustion toward noble goals. But to expect that a broken, thorn-infested world will only reward us with roses is to have unrealistic expectations. Yes, to the victor go the spoils, but the spoils of this broken world are thorns. The unfair part is when we get any roses at all. Broken people, living in a broken world, will logically receive thorns for their efforts. If there are some roses in the mix – that is reason to be grateful!
Thus, living in the mystery of thorns and roses means adjusting our expectations. In a world of thorns, receiving thorns is something expected, getting roses only would be something to celebrate. Thorns are evidence of pervasive brokenness; roses are evidence of the beauty that still remains. Being grateful for the roses while expecting mostly thorns is based on a more realistic view of how things work in a fallen creation.
Watch for roses while being prepared for the thorns. Pause and be grateful when you find the roses, especially if they have no thorns. The old advice to “stop and smell the roses” deepens in meaning when you realize how unlikely roses are in a world overgrown with thorns.
Lastly, walking the path of suffering for others or for a noble cause often brings a crown of thorns. For those following Jesus, to do so might mean going via dolorosa, the way of suffering. Each of us is likely traveling our own via dolorosa, bearing the thorns of another’s pain. When that journey is complete, we can hope for a crown of victory, the voice of Jesus, saying to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Fighting the good fight, running the faithful race, or enduring the hard battle might bring a peculiar reward of thorns. I don’t want this to be true, but I have found that it sometimes is what happens. Rather than expecting victories limited only to roses, we can expect thorns from a thorn-infested world. Watching for the roses amidst the thorns, we can live in deeper gratitude when we find them, pausing to breathe deeply and celebrate richly. Traveling via dolorosa, suffering for those we love or for a cause we embrace, might bring a crown of thorns in this life, but, at the ultimate finish line there awaits One with a greater prize, a crown of divine praise.
Connecting with Mystery
Dear Lord of All Mystery, I don’t like thorns, but I know You don’t like them either. Help me to watch for the roses You provide in this prickly, fallen world. Remind me to slow down and celebrate the roses, rather than get tangled in the brambles. Thank You for going the way of suffering, not rejecting the thorny path, to embrace me as Your prize. Strengthen me to walk resolutely on my via dolorosa, trusting You to welcome me at the finish line with a victor’s crown. Amen.
Notes from Dr. Mac
If you want to do your own investigation of any of the scriptures I use, I suggest you go to Bible Gateway. This free online version of the Bible allows a search of words or phrases in various translations. I encourage you to do a search of the words “crown” and “thorns.” There is a rich weave of these terms across the Ancient texts.
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