DAY SIXTY-SEVEN:
Arrest and Trial
Behold the Man! by Antonio Ciseri, 1871
Next stop: High Priest Caiaphas' house. A man named Annas is also there. Annas was the high priest, but he displeased Governor Pilate and was deposed in favor of Annas' son-in-law Caiaphas. Matthew and Mark's accounts tell us that the Sanhedrin, the supreme court of Israel, was gathered at Caiaphas' house. This gathering was irregular and illegal. The legal code the Sanhedrin followed said that when a criminal faced the death penalty the trial had to be held in broad daylight and in a place where the public could witness the proceedings. Hearsay evidence ("I heard that so and so said that the defendant said or did...") is not admissible in our courts and was not admissible in Jewish courts of that day either. Yet the Sandhedrin accepted hearsay testimony against Jesus. The Sandhedrin was not supposed to hold trials during the feasts or on the Sabbath. A member of the Sanhedrin should have been appointed to serve as Jesus' counsel. There's no evidence of that. This august body became a kangaroo court when it tried Jesus.
Jesus submitted to these unjust proceedings, and even sped them along. When the court attempted to question him about His teachings, He said, "I have spoken openly to the world. I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret. Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me what I said to them; they know what I said." Many of the Sanhedrin members had heard Jesus speak- they themselves could bear witness if they would. For this remark one of the guards slapped Jesus across His face. Matthew and Mark record that Caiaphas finally had enough and put Jesus under oath: "I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God." (Matthew 26:63) Jesus was under no obligation to answer, as their law, like ours, gave defendants the right not to testify against themselves. But Jesus did answer and said, "You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven." (26:64) This sounds evasive to us, but in fact by saying "you have said so," Jesus is showing proper respect for the high priest and the court. He affirmed that He was the Christ, and then takes the messianic title Son of Man as well. Caiaphas then tore his robes. Tearing one's robes was (and still is in that region) a way of showing anger or grief. The priests in general, and the High Priest in particular, were forbidden to tear their robes for the deaths of loved ones or other personal sorrows. The fact that Caiaphas tore his robes indicates how very angry he was at what he considered blasphemy. The guilty verdict came quickly. It was nearly dawn. Now off to see the Roman governor Pontius Pilate.
The Roman nobility generally weren't morning people. It's likely that Pilate's servants had to wake him up to see Caiaphas and his entourage. And indeed, Pilate was grumpy. "Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law." Pilate found an out when he learned that Jesus was from Galilee. He packed them all off to see Herod, who was in town for the Passover. Herod wanted to meet Jesus. He had lots of questions, none of which Jesus answered. Herod asked Jesus to perform a miracle, and He said nothing. He grew tired of Jesus and sent Him back to Pilate.
This time Pilate questioned Jesus. "Are you the King of the Jews?" Jesus wasn't afraid of Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin. He wasn't afraid of Herod, and He was not afraid of Pilate. "Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?" Pilate shot back, "Am I a Jew?" He told Jesus that it was His own people who wanted Him dead. Jesus replied, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world." Jesus was no threat to Caesar and his this-worldly empire. No one would take up arms under His command. When Pilate questioned Him further, Jesus replied, "You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice." Pilate, no doubt schooled in Greek philosophy, said "What is truth?" The great philosophers like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle and their successors all searched for the truth but eventually despaired of ever finding it. Pilate laughed that Jesus claimed to know the truth.
Pilate found no violation of Roman law and would have released Jesus. The other accounts tell us that he had Jesus flogged in the hope of appeasing the crowd. This was utterly unjust, and Jesus received a brutal beating that could have killed Him. He brought Jesus back out to the crowd, which still wanted Him crucified. Pilate could release one prisoner during Passover and offered the crowd a choice between Jesus and a man named Barabbas, a murderer and rebel. The crowd called for Jesus to be crucified, Pilate famously washed His hands, as if all the water in the world could wash away his guilt, and signed Jesus' death warrant. Off to the Place of the Skull, in Aramaic Golgotha and in Latin Calvarium, or Calvary.
Before we leave Jesus' trial, let's look in on Peter. You'll recall that Jesus told Peter that he'd deny Him three times before the rooster crowed. Despite Peter's protests that He would die for Jesus, he did deny Him three times. Not before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin; not before Herod; and not before Pontius Pilate. Peter was afraid to tell a few slaves huddled around a fire that he even knew Jesus. When that rooster crowed and Jesus left Caiaphas' house for the Roman Praetorium, Peter realized what he had done and wept bitterly. Jesus had called it. But Jesus had confidence in Peter because He knew the Holy Spirit would turn him into a different man.
Jesus had all kinds of opportunities to avoid the cross. He could have run out of the Garden of Gethsemane before the soldiers came to arrest Him. He could have confessed to the Sanhedrin, to Herod or to Pilate that He was a nobody and He would have been released. And if, as He told the disciples as He was being arrested that He could call upon twelve legions of angels (Matthew 26:53), why didn't He? Why, then, did He face the judgment of man and go to the cross? Because it was the only way to secure our salvation. Jesus pleaded so fervently that blood mingled with His sweat to avoid the cross. He submitted to the cross because only by dying for us could He accomplish our redemption. We'll look at this in more detail tomorrow when we consider the crucifixion itself.
Today we saw God on trial before men. It is ridiculous to imagine mere mortals judging their Maker. Yet that's exactly what we see here. And this is far from the only example of what C. S, Lewis called "God in the Dock" (in British courts the accused has to stay in a special area called the dock during the trial). People judge Him every day. Ted Turner, the media mogul who revolutionized cable TV tells of how fervently he prayed for his older sister as she was diagnosed with leukemia. He prayed all the more as she grew weaker and her pain increased. The night she died in agony Turner decided that God had failed him and that he would have nothing more to do with Him. He became an outspoken atheist. The trouble with putting God in the dock is that, like Jesus, He won't explain Himself. He has His reasons for all that He does and all that He allows and asks us to trust in His goodness. If that's not good enough for us He's willing to be found guilty and sentenced to ridicule and rejection. But through it all He loves us and woos us to Him in so many ways.
Here's my favorite scene from Jesus Christ Superstar, Jesus before King Herod from the 1973 movie. It was filmed at the Dead Sea, the site where God rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah. The rinky-dink big-production feel is meant to ridicule Jesus and His claims. Instead, at least in my opinion, it illustrates the absurdity of us judging God by our own standards.
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