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Grace,
mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
And
the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you
are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus said to him, “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.”
Prayer: Dear Lord
Jesus, bless all of us with your Holy Spirit, to me that I may preach well, and
to all of us that we may hear well. Amen.
This week for our
mid-week Lent sermon, we read about where Jesus comes to appear before Caiaphas
the high-priest. Last week, we were reading about the passage that St John
records where Jesus appears before the high-priest Annas. As we mentioned last
week, there were two high priests, but Annas was kicked out of his position by
the Romans. After this happened, then the sons of Annas and his son-in-law
Caiaphas carried on the priesthood. However, out of respect, they took him to
Annas to examine and interrogate Jesus first.
Last week we read
about how the high priest Annas questioned Jesus about his disciples and his
teaching. However, Jesus points Annas to his disciples: Ask them about me
and my teaching. They know what I said. When Jesus had said this, he received a
slap from one of the high priests’ servants. Is that how you answer the high
priest? he says. Or we might say: How dare you speak to the high priest
like that!
We might know of
many situations where someone is being questioned, but they don’t expect the
person to answer at all. We might think of an old movie with an old English
boarding school, and the principal lines up a row of boys for a caning, and one
of them points out that he hasn’t done anything wrong. The reply comes: How
dare you speak to me like that? Or we might think of the old story by Charles
Dickens, Oliver Twist, where the boy Oliver asks for more food. More? The
very fact that Oliver spoke at all lands him in deep trouble.
The conversation is
not relevant here. What is happening is that the person who is in charge wants
to show that he’s in charge, and will allow no one to point out that he has
acted wrongly or unfairly. It’s as if to say: I will not have my conscience
pricked in front of you, my boy!
This also happened
with Martin Luther, actually. During his life, Martin Luther had become famous
and he had written a lot of things against the pope and his teachings. The
Emperor Charles V summoned Martin Luther to the city of Worms to recant all of
his writings. To recant means that he had to say in public that everything he
wrote was false. However, instead of simply saying the simple words “I recant”,
Luther had something to say. He knew that not everything he wrote was
controversial—but many things he wrote were simply the clear teaching of
Scripture. How could he recant those things? If he said they were false, he
would be saying the bible itself were false. But you see, nobody wanted Luther
to speak—the simply wanted him to submit and bow, even if the pope and his
teachings were wrong, and that was something Luther refused to do. So he said
his famous words: Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me.
So you can see how
through history God lets his people suffer in a similar way to his Son, Jesus,
not so that someone like Luther could atone for the sins of the world, but so
that he could be comforted by Christ’s atonement and his suffering that already
happened. Jesus was not being a rebel, he was being respectful, he was being
polite—however, just the very fact that he spoke at all to Annas got him a slap
on the cheek.
Now, Annas had had
enough of all of this. He wasn’t going to be spoken to like that! He wasn’t
going to have Jesus question his authority! So he fobs him off—he passes Jesus
on to his son-in-law, the high-priest Caiaphas. Annas was a kind of
high-priest-in-exile, but Caiaphas was the high-priest who was actually
serving.
So let’s have a
look at our text for this evening.
We read: Now the
chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus
that they might put him to death.
When it says the whole
council, the actual word there is the “Sanhedrin”. The Sanhedrin was a
council of Jewish leaders. The whole Sanhedrin, which is mentioned here
was a group of 71 leaders. Actually, we read in the Gospel of John about a man
called Nicodemus who came to Jesus at night-time. Jesus teaches him about holy
baptism and that unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter
the kingdom of God. This man must have been there too, but we don’t hear
about him protesting. Next week, we’re going to read about Peter denying Jesus
three times. We can see in our reading from last week, Jesus getting slapped,
and this week, Jesus being spat upon and mocked. I don’t know about you, but if
I were one of Jesus’ disciples there, I would be worried that if they found me
out, they would probably treat me in the same way. Nicodemus also probably knew
that there was dodgy stuff going on. He knew there was a conspiracy afoot. And
if even a close disciple like Peter wasn’t prepared to stand up and be counted,
it’s probably no wonder that Nicodemus kept quiet too. However, we see
Nicodemus later turns up and buries Jesus together with Joseph of Arimathea.
When there’s a lynch mob going on, it’s a very difficult thing to stop it,
without being lynched as well. And so, Nicodemus keeps silent. Peter denies
Jesus with his words, but Nicodemus denies him with his silence.
This is a useful
thing for us to examine ourselves. Have you ever stood by and watched someone
be unfairly treated, even though you knew it was wrong, and even though you could
have easily done something to stop it? What about when someone blasphemes and
says something against Jesus: have you stood up for him, or have you denied him
with your silence? Keeping quiet and sitting on the fence is not doing
something—allowing evil to happen is no better than if we committed the evil
ourselves. And yet, there is another silence, a better silence—when all our
sins are numbered and recorded against us, and are ready to be read aloud,
there is a silence. The record is washed clean, there is nothing to be read
anymore. As Psalm 51 says: Blot out my transgressions. With his
suffering and death, Jesus takes all our sins, one by one and blots them out
with his blood, so that in the sight of God, there is nothing left to read, but
only silence, calmness and peace with God.
So we read that the
chief priests and the whole council—the whole Sanhedrin—were seeking false
testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death, but they found none. Here
we see a blatant breaking of the eighth commandment, which says: You shall
not give false testimony against your neighbour. And here the priests and
the council know that they are seeking false testimony, and yet they are
seeking for it anyway.
We even read: They
found none, though many false witnesses came forward. Then it says: At
last two came forward and said: “This man said, ‘I am able to destroy the
temple of God, and to rebuild it in three days.’”
Notice that there
was two people who came forward. In Numbers 35, and Deuteronomy 17 and 19 it
says that a person who is to be sentenced to death has to have two witnesses
testify against him. Here we can see a situation where two witnesses come
forward and they testify, and then this gives the priests and the council to
tick off their little box and make sure that they justify their actions
according to the law.
Now, let’s have a
look at what these witnesses actually say… This man said, “I am able to
destroy the temple of God, and to rebuild it in three days.” In Mark’s
gospel it is put a little differently: We heard him say, ‘I will destroy
this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another,
not made with hands.’ Mark also adds: Yet even about this their
testimony did not agree.
What’s interesting
about this is that Jesus actually did say this. In John 2, we read where Jesus
says: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The
Gospel of John continues: The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years
to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But—John
writes—he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was
raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he has said this, and they
believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. We’ll come back
to this passage in a moment. Let’s go back to Jesus’ trial.
We read in the
Gospel of Mark that the witnesses kind of remembered that Jesus had said this
but they still didn’t report it accurately or spell out exactly what he was
talking about. But none of that matters—what matters now is that we’ve got him!
Nobody really cared about the testimony—everyone was looking for some kind of
excuse to kill Jesus, they just had to find a pretext, or an excuse. Now they
had one! Who cares about the details too much?
And so, what they
do is that they twist Jesus’ words around to make them suit their dodgy
politics. They misquote him. Can’t you imagine what it must be like to be a
politician? I could imagine that this must be one of the most frustrating
things about that job. One day a politician holds a press conference, and then
he wakes up in the morning and switches on the morning news or reads the paper,
and they’ve quoted him as saying “what”?!! You see, a lot of the time, politics
is not about giving people a fair hearing, it’s all about the agenda. If
someone says something that doesn’t suit the agenda, then they get throttled in
the press… people are trying to catch politicians out, people are trying to
find some way to construe their words so that they look like fools, even if
they know it’s not right, and put the worst possible construction on it.
But this is how the
world deals with Christians too. It takes everything Christians say, and twist
things around so that it all sounds bad in such a way that it doesn’t fit the
political agenda of the day. I could think of so many examples, but I’m sure you
can think of a situation where this has happened.
Jesus here bears
this kind of sin. And he remains silent. He refuses to answer. They know that
they are just looking for an excuse to kill him, and so what’s the point of
trying to defend yourself. They already twisted Jesus’ words, the more he says,
the more they’ll twist. None of this has anything to with justice, with
fairness, it just has to do with the fact that they hate Jesus and want to get
rid of him. Jesus here takes all the sin of hatred that are committed against
us and which we have committed against others, and he stands still, silent, and
bears it for us.
St Stephen in the
book of Acts, who is the first Christian martyr, is actually killed for the
same reason. We read in Acts 6, that it says: This man never ceases to speak
words against this holy place and the law, for we have heard him say that this
Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place [the temple] and will change the
customs that Moses delivered to us.
Can you see that
this actually happened? The Jewish temple has actually been destroyed now, and
the customs of Moses have been changed. We no longer sacrifice lambs, but we
hear the preaching of Christ’s death and celebrate the Lord’s Supper. It is no
longer the priests that enter into the temple on earth, but all Christians
through Holy Baptism enter into the temple of heaven. What Stephen said
actually has come true.
But Jesus himself
never appeared at any time with a sword or a hammer in his hand to destroy the
temple. And yet, in history later on it happened. The Jewish temple in
Jerusalem was destroyed in the year 70 AD. And it was destroyed by the Romans. Now
in Matthew 24 we read where it says: Jesus left the temple and was going
away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple.
But he answered them, “You see all these do you not? Truly, I say to you, there
will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”
Now, it so happened
when the temple was destroyed, that because the Romans set it on fire, that all
the gold melted, and ended up in all the cracks of the temple floor. The Romans
pulled up all the stone right down the foundations to get all the gold. So it
actually happened in history that there was not one stone upon another left.
Today, there is an outer wall still there, called the Wailing Wall, but this
wasn’t actually part of the temple.
So what did Jesus
have to do with the temple being destroyed? Well, Jesus is actually the God of
history, and he raises up empires and brings them down. He has been doing this
right from the beginning of the world, and he is still doing this today. Even
though the Romans were a terribly corrupt people, God still used them to
destroy the temple. The Roman Empire also doesn’t exist anymore either. They
also had their own crimes to account for to God.
And so we see here,
that Jesus has everything to do with every part of history. He brings down
the mighty from the thrones, and lifts up the lowly. And this,--this!—this
God is the man who is on trial in our reading tonight.
We might look today
at the city of Jerusalem—even today the Jewish temple has not been able to have
been rebuilt. In the years 688—692, Muslims built a mosque on the exact place
where the temple used to stand. Some Muslims believe that this was the place
where Muhammed ascended into heaven. And so, could you imagine if Jewish people
decided to put a bomb under this mosque and rebuild a temple? It would start
another World War or worse!
And so, there’s
this terrible stalemate and hatred between Jews and Muslims still today in the
middle-east and right there in the city of Jerusalem. And as Christians, this
shows us one thing—it is not for us Christians to take sides with Muslims or
the Jews, with the Palestinians or the Israelis. The time for the temple in
Jerusalem is over, and Islam is not the true faith. The city of Jerusalem even
today stands as a testimony that all people—even Jews and Arabs together—should
go outside the city of Jerusalem and find not the place where temple used to
be, or where Muhammed supposedly ascended into heaven, but the place where
Christ suffered and died on the cross. As we read from John: Jesus was
speaking about the temple of his body. Jews and Muslims together are called
to reconcile through Christ, and Christ is the only one that will reconcile
them. He is the only one who will reconcile anyone.
Now, let’s think
for a few moments more about the accusation which they threw at Jesus. Or
better still, let’s call to mind what Jesus actually did say in John: Destroy
this temple, and I will raise it up in three days.
Jesus is silent. He
won’t answer the accusations. But all the while, this is exactly what is going
on. They are destroying Jesus, they are the ones who are destroying this temple
at this very moment. And Jesus silently lets it happen. He gives up his own
life. Jesus has the authority to lay down his life for the sheep, and he has
authority to take it up again. Jesus is in control of the situation, as he
allows his body to be destroyed, and then prepares to raise it up in three
days.
What a wonderful
comfort it is to us that Jesus willingly gives up his life. It wasn’t out of
his control, but he allowed himself to be destroyed, so that for us he would be
raised up again in three days. Let’s listen to what Isaiah said about this over
500 years before: He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not
his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that
before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.
After Jesus keeps
silent, we read that the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the
living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.”
The high priest
says: I adjure you. This means that is calling upon Jesus to make an
oath. It’s as if he gave Jesus a bible and said: I call upon you to tell the
truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
It’s almost as if
this is what Jesus has been waiting for—this is Jesus’ opportunity to speak the
truth. So many times, we read in the gospel where Jesus does something for
someone and he tells them to tell no one about it. Sometimes of course, they go
off and tell people anyway.
You might know the
passage where Jesus asks the disciples: Who do you say that I am? And
Peter says: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And then
Jesus gives Peter his new name, changing it from Simon Peter, and says that
this confession of faith that he just made is a rock, and that on this rock I
will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And
then—can you believe it?—Jesus then tells Peter not to tell anyone. It says: Then
he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.
Well, here we are,
the moment we’ve all been waiting for. The high priest actually asks Jesus to
testify with an oath if he is the Christ, the Son of God. And Jesus says: You
have said so. We might say in Australia: You said it, mate! In the
Gospel of Mark we read that Jesus says: I AM. He speaks: I AM, just as
he—yes, just as this same Jesus—said to Moses so many years ago, tell the
people that I AM has sent you.
Jesus testifies
this right in the presence of everyone. And he even adds a little bit extra. He
says: You have said so. I AM. 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.
Jesus here knows
what will happen to him. He knows he will ascend into heaven, but he wants to
do it with wound marks in his hands. And now, these people are going to help
put them there. In fact, we have put his wounds there. But we know that for us
the wounds of Jesus are a wonderful pledge, the proof of the forgiveness of
sins and of everlasting life. Jesus says: You will see the Son of Man. Where
is he? He is sitting and he is coming. He is seated at the right hand of
Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.
The same Jesus that
is in charge of world history will also end world history and judge the world.
And this is the man who is on trial.
Either it’s true,
or it’s rubbish.
We Christians
believe that it’s true. But at Jesus’ trial, they condemn what he says as
blasphemy. They say that it is a sin against God.
The high priest
tore his robes and said, He has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do
we need? You have heard his blasphemy. What is your judgment? They answered,
“He deserves death.”
If what Jesus says
is wrong, then he deserves death. But if what he says is right, then everyone
in the world deserves death, because all have sinned and have fallen short of
the glory of God. I deserve death. You deserve death. Our sinful flesh, our
sinful nature thinks Jesus deserves death. But Jesus accepts the verdict, and
he goes to die on our behalf.
And just as at the
same time the high-priest tears his robes, Jesus, our true high priest, puts on
his. He puts on his priestly robes, and walks to the altar to make a sacrifice.
He is not walking to the altar in the temple, but to the cross, and he is not
wearing robes of silk, but a covering of blood. And still to this day, we bring
all our needs and our troubles to this high-priest, our living Jesus, and he
brings us into God’s presence together with him, covering us, robing us with
his blood, and making us completely pure like him.
What a wonderful,
trustworthy Saviour we have! Romans 8:1 says: For now there is no
condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Dear Jesus, we
thank you that you were despised and rejected by men; we thank you that you are
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief for us. Have mercy on us and
strengthen our faith as we think upon your suffering and death. Amen.
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