A Travesty of Trials...

During the weeks leading up to Easter, we have been looking at the final conversation that Jesus had with His closest followers before His death, which is recorded for us in an account of Jesus life in our Bibles called the gospel of John. This week I would like for us to jump back into the story of Jesus final words to His followers.

After celebrating the Passover feast and after praying for His followers throughout history, Jesus and His closest followers went to a garden called the Garden of Gethsemane. Judas, who was one of the twelve disciples, but who had chosen to reject and betray Jesus, completed His act of betrayal by leading between 300 and 600 Roman soldiers to the garden in order to arrest Jesus.

You see, the Jewish religious leaders, in their opposition to Jesus, wanted to make absolutely sure that there was no way that Jesus could escape capture. Jesus, however, did not resist His arrest. While the disciples turned tail and bailed on Jesus; while Peter cut off the ear of one in the arresting party, and then retreated in fear, Jesus remained firmly committed to completing the mission He had been given.

Jesus was arrested and brought, in the middle of the night, to face the first of six trials that would decide His guilt or innocence. For the Jewish religious leaders, there was no time to waste; Jesus needed to be dealt with quickly and quietly. Jesus first trial was before Annas, who was the Father in law to Caiaphas, who was the ruling High Priest. Annas held what we would call in our culture today an Arraignment, where the charges were read against Jesus.

Annas quickly agreed the Jesus case was worthy of proceeding. Jesus was then taken to Caiaphas, who was the ruling High Priest, for a trial. While Jesus was appearing before Caiaphas, the Sanhedrin, which was the senate and the supreme court of the Jewish people was hurriedly being gathered together. You see, Jewish Law required that trials be held during the day. However, the Jewish authorities wanted make sure that Jesus was found guilty, so they focused on getting all their ducks in a row so that Jesus would be found guilty.

At Jesus trial before Caiaphas, many witnesses were brought to present evidence against Him. There was a problem, however. And that problem was that none of the evidence would stick to Jesus, because none of the evidence was true about Jesus. And what made matters worse was that Jesus would not speak. Jesus would not take the stand to defend Himself or cross examine the witnesses.

This was not working out as the religious leaders had planned. Finally in desperation, Caiaphas asked Jesus to tell the truth as to whether or not He was the Messiah that God had promised to bring the Jewish people back to God and back to prominence in the world. Jesus, being under oath, answered the question truthfully. Jesus explained that not only was He the Messiah; Jesus explained that He was God in a bod.

Now at this point, the High Priest had two choices. The High Priest could agree and acknowledge that Jesus was God in a bod and give up his power and authority and worship Him as such. Or the High Priest could reject Jesus words as a blasphemer and call for His death. The High Priest chose option two. The High Priest rejected Jesus, which resulted in Jesus being beaten by the crowds who were there to witness the trial.

Now, having all the evidence that they needed in the dark, the religious leaders were able to bring their story to the light of day in front of the Sanhedrin. The trial before the Sanhedrin was only a formality to affirm the decision made in the previous trial. I mean, why would the Supreme Court challenge or question what occurred in the evening; they simply rubber stamped the ruling of the religious leaders of the day.

However, the Jewish people were not allowed to exercise capital punishment for a crime. Only the Roman government, who ruled over the Jewish people, could pronounce and carry out a sentence of death. So early Friday morning, after the trials before the Sanhedrin, Jesus was brought before Pilate, the Roman governor. When Pilate heard that they Jewish religious leaders wanted him to crucify Jesus, Pilate responded by questioning Jesus. Upon questioning Jesus, Pilate pronounced a not guilty verdict, having found no legal grounds for a crime worthy of death under Roman law.

But there were politics involved here. Pilate did not want to lose political points among the Jewish people. So, since Jesus was from Galilee, Pilate sent Jesus to see Herod, who was the Roman official in charge of Galilee. After attempting to get Jesus to perform a miracle as though Jesus was some kind of carnival act, Herod sent Jesus back to Pilate without passing a guilty verdict.

So Pilate’s attempt to shift the political damage to Herod had failed. The political hot potato was now back in Pilate’s lap. Pilate attempted to find a political win for himself by having Jesus scourged. At that point, Jesus was stripped of clothing. Jesus hands were tied to a post above His head. The whip that was used in a scourging was made of several pieces of leather with pieces of bone and lead embedded near the ends.

Two men, one on each side of the victim, usually did the scourging, which was limited to a maximum of forty stripes. The whip would be brought down again and again across the shoulders, back, and legs of the person being scourged. At first the heavy thongs cut through the skin only. Then, as the blows continued, they cut deeper in the subcutaneous tissues, producing first an oozing of blood from the capillaries and veins of the skin, and finally spurting arterial bleeding from vessels in the underlying muscles. In many cases, after a flogging, the skin of the back would be left hanging in long ribbons and the entire area would be an unrecognizable mass of torn, bleeding tissue.

After flogging Jesus, the Roman soldiers slammed a crown of thorns onto His head and dressed Him in a purple robe in order to mock Him. Pilate then brought Jesus before the Jewish religious leaders and explained the he had found Him not guilty of anything that deserved death. But the Jewish religious leaders and the crowds that gathered became more and more adamant that Jesus was to be crucified.

Pilate sought another politically expedient solution by offering the Jewish people a time honored tradition of releasing one guilty person on the Passover. Pilate offered the Jewish people two options. They could have Jesus released or they could have a notorious terrorist and murderer named Barabbas released. Surely they would choose Jesus, Pilate thought.

Yet to Pilate’s surprise, the Jewish religious leaders had convinced the crowds to ask for Barabbas release and for Jesus to be crucified. And Pilate, being concerned with maintaining political points and power; and being a people pleaser that feared and focused on the approval of men, made the politically expedient decision to condemn to death a man that had not been found guilty. Pilate condemned Jesus and handed an innocent man over to be crucified.

Tomorrow, we will look on as Jesus experiences the most painful death imaginable…