April 15, 2022

The most unjust, the greatest perversion of justice ever to happen. Especially we, when we consider who it was that was on trial

in order to think well about the trials that Jesus stood on that night and morning. It's helpful for us to have some sort of a background in our mind about the system of criminal justice under which Jesus lived. It's helpful for us to recognize just a few things that can help us to see more clearly. I think more vividly what it was that Jesus endured on that night and why.

Israel, as we all know, was a theocracy. A theocracy means that it is a nation that is ruled directly by God. There has not been another true theocracy since then. There's never been a Christian theocracy. There will be a Christian theocracy for eternity, but there has not yet been a Christian theocracy and there's not been a Jewish theocracy since then.

There may be some Muslim states today that would claim to be a theocracy, and their laws would indeed, perhaps look that way. However, the God that it's supposed to be ruling them directly doesn't exist. So, we can't really think of those as a theocracy. So, Israel was a theocracy, a nation that was ruled directly by God.

And when we think about a nation that's ruled directly by God, that means that God is not appointing the king and the governors and the leaders to rule through them. God is ruling directly. He has his directions for the nation that he speaks to the nation through his prophets, and those prophets speak to the king, and the king does what God says.

That's how a theocracy was supposed to work. So, as we think of this nation state of Israel being a theocracy, and we think about the criminal justice system under which Jesus stood trial in such a nation, we would expect that criminal justice system to look somewhat different than criminal justice systems that exist under nations that aren't theocracies.

We would expect that criminal justice system to look very much like the God who is in direct control of that. So, we would expect something about the system of jurisprudence of the Jewish state. To have an emphasis on justice because the God who is their ruler is the God of justice and he loves justice.

And he tells his people that we are to love justice and seek justice as well. So, we would expect to find that criminal justice system to be very heavily favored toward justice. But we would expect all to be that way and, and indeed all should be that way. But in addition to that, we would also think that that criminal justice system should also be heavily weighted toward mercy, because after all, the God who is in rulership over that criminal justice system is the God who tells us that, that his most definable character trait is the character trait of mercy, compassion.

So, we would expect mercy to be heavily weighted in that system of criminal justice. In addition to that, we would also expect truth to be something that is of utmost importance under such a system because the God who designed that system and put it into place is the God of truth. When he comes to the earth in bodily form, he tells us that he is truth and his people are to be people who are truth lovers.

So, those are three things that we would expect to find in such a criminal justice system under a theocracy of the living God. And this is, is exactly what we find. The criminal justice system of Ancient Israel was surprisingly advanced, surprisingly just, and very surprisingly weighted, very much toward mercy and truth because all of those things were important to the God who was the ruler of that nation.

So, in this nation of Israel, God appointed in each city or each village that was known as a synagogue city. A synagogue city, just means that there are at least 120 male heads of household in that city. Now we think of household today, we think of a mother or father and two and a half kids in ancient Israel.

Think of household as well. Just think of the household of Jacob. We're told when the household of Jacob reached Egypt, it was 70 persons. So, think of a household in those terms. So, ahead of a household. If there were, if there were 120 heads of household in a city or in an area, then that was called a synagogue city.

And they not only not only had a synagogue, but they had what was called San. Sanhedrin, the, the word just means council or gathering. And so, there would be a Sanhedrin that was assembled for that city. Now, the Sanhedrin consisted of 23 men noticed the odd number of 23 men who were known as godly, honest, respectable men.

And these men were the judge and the jury and everything for the justice system. They were the men before whom all the cases were taken. They heard them and they decided upon them. So, it's this system upon which all of the criminal justice that we will be talking about tonight in Jesus' trials, it was all based on the system of the Sanhedrin.

We see God lay this forth in places like Deuteronomy chapter 16. And Deuteronomy chapter 16, God says, you shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns that the Lord your God is giving you according to your tribes, that they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. You shall not pervert justice.

You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe for bribe. A bribe blinds the wi eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous justice and only justice you shall follow that you may live and inherit the land that the Lord your God has given you. So, this is where God lays forth the system of the Sanhedrin.

Now, in each synagogue city, we talked about this, this council of 23 and areas in which there weren't 120 heads of household, they would have a Sanhedrin of seven In Jerusalem, they had a San Huron of 70 plus the high priests. So, again, odd numbers. 70 plus the high priests. Now the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem, they were the cream of the crop, so, to speak.

They were the ones who had showed themself to be particularly wise in other Sanhedrin. So, so, think of the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem, kind of like our Supreme Court. They began in Sanhedrin of smaller areas, and when they showed themselves to be particularly respectable, particularly godly, particularly wise, then they would then be appointed to the Jerusalem San Hadron.

It is this Jerusalem Sanhedrin that will be talking about tonight. This lays the background for us for a system of criminal justice under which Jesus stood a system of criminal justice that placed a premium on first of all, of course, justice. But that sort of goes without saying right justice, but also above justice would be mercy.

And so, the system was designed to place a heavier emphasis on mercy rather than justice. When the two seemed to be at odds, mercy was the one that won out or was supposed to. And then above them both, it placed a premium on truth because again, this is the god of truth. And so, under this system, it was almost fanatical how God had placed within this system a respect for truth tellers and a disdain for false witnesses.

Numerous times in the Old Testament, we read something like this from Deuteronomy 19. If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priest and the judges who are in the office of those days, the judges shall inquire di diligently.

And if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, Then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So, if you were found to be giving false witness before the Sanhedrin, whatever, the punishment for the crime that you were giving false witness for was the punishment that you then received.

You see the heavy emphasis that's placed on truth we read of just the disdain for false witnesses in the Old Testament. In fact, the ninth commandment, you shall not bear false witness. The ninth commandment does not say, you shall not lie. It says you shall not bear false witness because the God who designed this system placed extreme emphasis on true witness truth.

Okay, so, this is the old. And the Old Testament. Of course, these are the inspired scriptures that give us the direction, the information from which we can understand something about the criminal justice system under which Jesus lived. Now, we could learn further if we were to look to some of the myriad of Old Testament civil laws.

And you know, the sections of your Bible that I'm talking about, the second half of Exodus, most of Deuteronomy, a big, big chunks of Leviticus, you know those really interesting sections of your Bible. We could look to some of those sections and we could learn about how it is that Israel put this criminal justice system into place.

However, that comes with challenges. And the challenges are that, well, all those are laws that are given by God for people who lived in a very different time under a very different culture. And so, we must span two bridges. To understand something about the civil law of the Old Testament, we must first span the bridge of time, two plus millennia.

In some cases, four or five millennia have passed, so, a lot of cultural changes have taken place. But even a greater difference than that is the difference between east and West. We are Western thinkers. These are laws written for Eastern thinkers. So, that type of looking into God's system of civil justice can be challenging and tedious.

I think that a better place to look would be something called the Mishnah. You may have heard of the Mishnah. What the Mishnah was is the Mishnah was a commentary on the scriptures. So, we know what commentaries are. We have commentaries today. We have lots of them today, and a commentary is just, the idea is that it's a godly person.

Who's writing comments or commentary about the inspired, infallible inherent scriptures? And they can be very helpful at times. Well, the mission is kind of like that. It's, it's a commentary on the scriptures. However, there's a key difference. It was authoritative. Our commentaries today, for example, if I'm preparing to teach or preach or anybody is preparing to teach or preach, then you, you probably consult some type of commentaries.

The idea there is that you're consulting godly people, their thoughts, their godly thoughts to help open the scriptures to you. But it's not authoritative. It's not divine scripture. It's not inspired scripture, nor is it even the only commentary, nor is it even the only viewpoint. And so, you must sort of weigh those against one another, not So, with the Mishnah, there was only one Mishnah.

Now the missioner wasn't always right. The missioner was often wrong. In fact, Jesus quotes from the missioner, not in an affirming sort of way, but he sometimes quotes from the missioner to disprove it, to show it wrong. Remember when Jesus would say things like, you've heard it said to love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

He was quoting the missioner, and he would do that from time to time. So, the missioner wasn't always right, but it always, always was authoritative. It was in essence and, and here's the value. Here's the value for of the missioner for us today, the missioner showed us how Old Testament Jews understood their scriptures, and that's very helpful because we can read the same scriptures they had and we can, with the spirit's power come to understand.

But that's not always the same thing as understanding them the same way they understood them. The Missioner shows us how they understood their scriptures, what they understood their scriptures to be saying. So, the missioner can sometimes be very helpful for us. And when it comes to understanding the ins and outs of the justice system under which Jesus stood trial, the missioner can be very helpful.

So, I just want to give us some details and you can look all these up on, on your own. You can go home and Google and just have fun looking up the mission of codes. But I just would like to share with us some of the codes from the Mishnah, some of the directives from the Mishnah that applied directly to what Jesus will endure this night.

And so, I'm going somewhere with this. There's a point to all of this, and you'll see in just a few minutes just how important of a point that might be. The Mishnah directed all areas of the criminal justice system. So, the Sanhedrin, they were the ones that conducted the juries and the, the trials, not the juries, but the, the trials and the evidence and everything.

But the Mishnah was what guided them. That was their sort of, their, their book that they looked to, to understand how they did what they did, how they went about, what they were to go about. And it governed all aspects of those who were said to be guilty. And then it was the job of Sanhedrin to figure out were they really guilty or were they not guilty?

And it governed the, the, the phases of accusing the person, bringing them to trial, sentencing the person and then carrying out the sentence. So, let me just share with us some of the things that the mission has to say to, uh, to, to these Jews living in Jesus' day about how they are to conduct, first of all, the trial.

And you're going to pick up real quickly on a theme, and I'll just go ahead and tell you what the theme is. The theme is every one of these was violated, not just a few, not just most, but the direction that we're headed is to see that this was the most unjust trial in the history of humanity. That violated not just many rules, but every single one of them.

First of all, No trial was to ever be held on a feast day. Jesus was tried on the feast day, the feast of unleavened bread. Secondly, every trial was to be public. It was to be a public affair held in a public place. Jesus, as we'll see in just a few minutes, stood trial in the home of the high priest. Third, every trial could must begin before noon and be held during the day.

It couldn't even begin in the afternoon. It had to begin during the day and be held in the day beginning before noon. Jesus was tried. In the middle of the night. Also, everyone was guaranteed. Everyone who was accused was guaranteed a defense. They were guaranteed to be able to call witnesses. This sounds familiar because this is not unlike our system in some ways, but everyone was guaranteed a defense.

They were guaranteed the opportunity to call their own witnesses. They're guaranteed the opportunity to cross-examine those who witnessed against them, all that sort of thing. Jesus was offered no opportunity to call any witnesses. In fact was as we'll see, Jesus asked for witnesses to be called and it wasn't done.

Also under this Jewish system of criminal justice. It was impossible for an accused person to indict themself. It was not admissible testimony for an accused person to testify against themself. Now, in our system today, we have what's known as the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees us the right. To not be forced to indict ourself if you're standing trial for whatever crime you may have committed.

Hopefully this is a theoretical question, but if you're standing trial for whatever crime you've committed and they ask you to testify against yourself, you have the right to not do it. To plead, or is it the Fifth Amendment? It's the fifth, yeah. To plead the Fifth Amendment. To not indict yourself. So, you have that option.

Under the Jewish system, you didn't have the option to do it. If you did indict yourself, if you did testify against yourself, it was thrown out as inadmissible. No one could confess to a crime and be convicted of it, of their own testimony. What was required was the witness of two or three witnesses that agreed.

So, if you stood trial and you said, yes, I did, that they would still have to find two witnesses to corroborate your testimony in order to convict you. This is what Jesus meant when they asked him, when they said came to Jesus and they said, your testimony doesn't count because you test testify about yourself.

Jesus said, no, I don't. The spirit testifies about me, man. The whole, that whole interchange, that's where that came from because one could not testify against himself under such a. Also whenever a witness took the stand, well, I don't think there was an actual stand, but whenever a witness testified in our system we hear something like, do you, do you swear or promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so, help you God?

That sort of thing. And the meaning of that. The intention is to sort of put a little bit of fear into you to make sure you tell the truth and not just part of it, but the whole story and don't, don't embellish it. Well, when a witness took or was about to give testimony under such a system as this, they heard something to this effect.

If your testimony convicts the innocent, then God will require their blood and all of their posterity's blood from. Just as he required the blood of Abel from Kane. Now go ahead and speak. So, then hears something like that, something to the effect that if your testimony helps to convict an innocent person, God will require his blood and all of his posterity's blood from you.

Now what are, what are you here to tell us? So, you can see just what a system it, it, it, it's not a system that's based on what I would say an even scale. It's based on a scale that's weighted toward truth in such a way to say we will get the truth or we'll get nothing. It's weighted toward mercy in such a way as to say if we make a mistake, it's going to be a mistake on the side of mercy, not the mis, not on the side of justice.

So, those are some things about the trial process and we can see just in going through the, through those, each of those were things that were violated. In Jesus' trial. Jesus stood trial. In the middle of the night. Jesus stood trial in the home of the high priest. Jesus stood trial on a feast day. He asked for witnesses to be brought, no witnesses were brought.

All these sorts of things help us to see just what an illegal trial this was, but we're just getting started. So, also this directed or instructed on how convictions were to be arrived at. If you are to convict the accused, then here's kind of what had to happen according to. The mission. First of all, when they were ready to take the vote, they always took the vote from the youngest of the Sanhedrin to the oldest.

The reason they did that was so, that the youngest would not be influenced by the oldest's vote, so, that a 32 year old member of the Sanhedrin wouldn't hear the 75 year old vote a certain way and say, well, I wasn't going to vote that way, but I, I can't go against him. Right? So, they went the other way, always youngest to oldest to prevent that sort of influence there.

Also to convict, we talked about a Sanhedrin of 23. Now, Jerusalem had a Sanhedrin of 70 plus one, but 23 was the quorum of the Sanhedrin and Jerusalem. We'll see that take place a little bit later. But 23 was the quorum. In order to convict, they required a vote of 13 to convict. So, a majority plus 1 23. A majority of 23 is 12, but that wouldn't convict.

It only took 11 to acquit. So, 11 out of 23 would acquit if 12 voted guilty. He was acquitted. It took a vote of 13, a majority plus one to convict. Not only that, but a unanimous vote of guilty meant get this an automatic acquittal. The idea there was that if the vote was unanimous guilty, that must mean that there's some sort of personal vendetta behind this.

You see, we are going to err on the side of mercy. We are going to make absolutely sure that the innocent aren't punished as the guilty. So, a unanimous vote of guilty, God said, well, just to make sure that that's not a sign, that this is a hated kind of a person, the person that the whole community disliked and there's sort of this vendetta against them.

That's an acquittal. Uh, furthermore, the witnesses, as we said before, it always took two or three witnesses in order to convict. We see this numerous times in the Old Testament. We see it repeated in the n in the New and Old Testament as well, that it took the witness of th two to three witnesses to convict.

Now that those witnesses had to, as you know, had to agree, but here's what it meant to agree to agree meant that you were asked these series of questions and that all your answers had to be the same. The questions had to do with where did you see this or hear this? What part of the city, what time of day was it?

What was the weather like on that day? What was the circumstance? What was the situation? So, all these factors were asked, and if your testimony didn't agree with the other fellas, it was both thrown out. You could both say the same thing. Yeah, we saw him kill that woman, but you could say he did it on the morning of so,-and-so,, and the other fellas say he did it on the afternoon of so,-and-so, thrown out.

Your testimony didn't agree. Mark specifically says that even after they found the false witnesses that were bribed, which we just read about in Deuteronomy, who were, as we'll talk about in a minute, people of bad character who shouldn't have been allowed to testify to begin with, mark says, well, their testimony didn't even agree yet it was received.

Uh, and then, like I said, if you were a person of bad known to be a person of poor character, bad character, that sort of thing, you were not allowed to testify. So, those are some things that are surrounding the, the process of convicting. How do, how is a guilty person convicted? Let's talk just a little bit lastly about how is the sentence carried out if you were convicted, if you were found guilty, what happened then?

Well, if you were found guilty, then what happened was there had to be a three day period. Between the guilty sentence and the sentence or, or the guilty conviction and the sentencing. So, if you were found guilty on Tuesday, then it had to be a, a night Tuesday night, all day Wednesday, Wednesday night, and you'd reconvene Thursday.

During that entire period, all the Sanhedrin had to fast and abstain from wine to make sure that they remain clearheaded. Also, they had to be in prayer throughout that entire time. Those three days, you, you see the correlation between those three days and Jesus', three days in the grave, because you see, his sinned didn't take the three days.

Jesus was in the tomb for those three days. So, they were required to take that night, the all day, the next day, and the next night, reconvene the following day, having fasted and abstained from wine the entire time as they reconvened. They then took a second. On that second vote, you could change your vote.

If your vote was guilty, you could change from guilty to innocent. You could not change from innocent to guilty. So, if you had voted initially that this person was innocent, your vote was done, you couldn't change it. If you had voted that they were guilty, you could reconsider the evidence and change your vote back to innocent now.

So, then they would take the vote again a second time they would revote. And then after taking the revote, they could, you could change your vote if your vote was guilty. And then if you were found guilty, your property was never confiscated. Your property was always given to your family. You remember how Jesus's, the only property he had was his undergarment.

That was gambled and taken away from him, or gambled over and taken away from him. So, then, let's say now the con convict, they've arrived at this conviction and the person's been found guilty and they voted that he was guilty. They voted a second time that he was guilty, and he's now been found to be guilty.

So, then at that point, they would then proceed to the place of carrying out the sentence, let's say it was a capital offense. They would then proceed to the place of execution. And the way that they would do that is there would be a person, an officer of the court that would have a flag, a brightly colored flag, and they would carry that flag out in front and they would walk very, very slowly behind.

That person would be another official of the court who was mounted on a horse, and they would both walk very slowly in front of the convicted the entire time the officer that was on the horse would shout out, this is so, and so, He has been convicted of this crime on this day. These people were the witnesses and this is what they said.

Does anybody have anything to say? If anybody in the crowd had anything to say, they went back in and did it all over again. They could do that as many as five times. Even if the accused who is now the convicted, even if the convicted were to on the way to the, to the execution, remember something he forgot, he could go back.

They could all go back as many as five times. If we're going to make a mistake, it's going to be on the side of mercy because the last thing we want to do is to put an innocent person to. So, if nobody came forward and they made it all the way down to the execution place, walking slowly and the whole crowd hearing the charges and who the witnesses were, right?

If, if your testimony wasn't true, I mean, your testimony is being broadcasted to the whole community on the way to the execution site in case you made something up. Everybody was there to hear it. But let's say you now made it there the entire time that you were encouraged to confess, if you confessed, you were immediately given a strong drugging drink that would then numb the mind and sort of numb the body so, that this is, by the way, this is why.

When Jesus was offered the drink, he wouldn't take it under that system. That was an admission of guilt. So, if you confessed, you got the drink, and then the sentence was carried out as the sentence was carried out, the witness whose testimony sealed the conviction was the one to who initiated the sentence.

So, if it was death by stoning, you know the phrase, you know the saying, the first stone, which is where that comes from in Jesus'. In, uh, John eight, the inter interchange with the woman caught in the act of adultery. He says, well, those among you without sin cast the first stone. What Jesus is saying is those who are sinless, you're in a position to convict her.

You're in a position to cast the first stone if you're sinless. But that was how it went. If you were the, if you were the one whose testimony sealed the conviction, you initiated the death sentence. Which by the way, we've all heard this, right? We've all heard that women were not allowed, their testimony was not allowed in the Jewish court.

And you've heard this and we've always heard the reason for that was what? It was such a patriarchal society and women were so, pushed down, which in many ways were true, was true there. There were ways in which women of that culture were taken advantage of. Not nearly as many, as many would like us to think today, but the reason that the, that a woman's testimony was not admissible in court was, guess what?

If her testimony seals the conviction, she's got to throw the first stone. And that society found that unacceptable to put a woman in that position to have to throw a stone, the first stone to kill the convicted person. So, that was the whole system of it all. And we can see you can go item by item and you can see how every point at every turn, Jesus' trial was an absolute violation of everything this system was based upon.

Jesus stood trial in what was probably, perhaps we could say the most unjust, the greatest perversion of justice ever to happen, especially we when we consider who it was that was on trial. Now, all of that is to say that gives us a good sort of background to think about Jesus's standing trial now. So, with that in mind, with that in mind, let's now look to John chapter 18, beginning from verse 19 and John chapter 18.

Where this begins is, this begins in the home of Annas. In the middle of the night. Jesus is arrested at some point after sundown on Thursday or some point in the early morning hours of Friday, what we would call morning hours. By the Jewish means of counting time. It was already Friday when the sun went down, but by our estimation, it was either in the late hours of Thursday or the early morning hours of Friday that Jesus was arrested.

So, remember all how all that happened. They come, Judas comes, there's the kiss. Jesus had just been praying and everything. His disciples couldn't stay awake. And the Roman armies there, they, they say, uh, Jesus says, who are you here for? Th they say, Jesus, the Nazarene. And Jesus says, I am clearly a, a reference back to Exodus chapter three.

I am that. I am. Jesus says I am. They all fall back. Jesus asks them again, who are you here for? They say, Jesus the Nazarene. Jesus says, I'm him. I told you. Now let all these others go. So, they sort of flee. But then there's the sword. Peter cuts off the ear. Jesus heals the ear. Then the, uh, Jesus is bound.

They bind Jesus. The, the disciples flee for the most part. Peter and John sort of get a little bit of a courage back, and they follow at a distance and they lead Jesus away. All of that brings us to John chapter 18, verse 19, because they lead Jesus away to the house of Annas. Now, who is this man? Annas.

Annas we're told was the high priest. However, we need to understand a little bit about the high priest. In Jesus' day, the high priest was supposed to be the high priest for life. However, that wasn't the case anymore. It's a long, convoluted story that we won't go through how that all came about. But suffice to say somewhere about Solomon's time, Solomon was the first one to depose a high priest and put somebody else in place.

But by the time the exile was over, Israel seemed to have adopted the practice that the high priest wasn't high priest for life anymore. But along came the Romans and the Romans want to make sure that nobody gets enough power to be dangerous. So, the Romans make sure that the high priest isn't high priests very long.

They make sure that it gets changed up. So, along comes this man, Annas. Annas was high priest about two decades before this story. He was high priest for about half a dozen years, but since the time he was high priest, five of his sons have been high priest. And now his son-in-law is high priest, another man by the name of Caiaphas.

So, Caiaphas is the son-in-law of Annas and he's the sixth son, the sixth relative of Annas to serve as high priest in a row after Annas. So, even though the Romans have sort of broken this up, clearly Annas is still in control. He's not officially the high priest, but he's called the high priest because guess what?

He really is, even though his son-in-law is the high priest, you kind-of get the picture. Now when we think about ans, the picture I want you to put in your mind is the, the perfect picture. Marlon Brando and the Godfather, because that is who Anna is. He's this elderly man, maybe in his seventies or eighties.

And he is just like the family mafia boss. He's got it all wrapped up. This is a family business. It is. He is corrupt as they come, and he is as wealthy as they come. And he's wealthy because mainly of two reasons. First of all, he's wealthy because of the temple money, because whenever you went to the temple, you know the Jews had to put an offering that was, they understood part of their salvation was to give arms to the poor.

But in the temple, you had to give temple money. You, you couldn't throw some piece of Roman money in the temple offering. You had to put Jewish shackles. Where did you get those? Because they weren't in wide circulation in Jesus' day. Where'd you get those? Well, guess what? There was a handy dandy money exchange in the temple, and the money was exchanged from Roman coinage to Hebrew coinage for a fee, a hefty fee, but for a fee.

And all of that money went to the high priests and it made them wealthy. So, when Jesus, that Tuesday morning, just a couple of days prior to this, that Tuesday morning when Jesus put his hand on the first money changers table, that's when his fate was.

I mean, we know his. We know his plan was sealed before the foundation of the world, but in a human sense, in an earthly sense, his fate was sealed when he turned over that first money changers table. Why? Because that was Anna's table. I don't think Annas really cared what Jesus taught. He cared about his money, and Jesus, when he turned that table over, got between Annas and his money, which he did on purpose, by the way.

That's why Jesus did that, because Jesus wants to be convicted. Don't think of Jesus as this person on trial who's hoping they'll be found in us. Jesus has brought all this about because he now desires to be found guilty. That's why he turned over the money changer. So, that was one way. The other way that the priest made money was through the sacrifices, because whenever, when you came to the temple, there had to be sacrifices.

Passover lambs, there was, there was the twice a day sacrifices that took place. Doves, all kinds of of animals were sacrificed. And guess what the scripture tells us those sacrifices have to be without blemish. And guess who decided if they were without blemish or not The priests. And by the way, the temple also had their own flocks and their own doves and their own animals.

Just in case somebody was there to offer sacrifice that didn't pass. Muster the temple had their own flocks of sheep and dove and all the sacrifices that were approved. Guess what? They were approved by the priest. And you could buy one if you came with the lamb and oh, you just had the unfortunate circumstance that your lamb wasn't approved by the priest.

Well then fortunately you could buy the temple's lamb, add an upcharge, kind of like who's ever been at the airport and had to eat something kind-of like that where you pay $12 for a cold sandwich because you have to, because you're a prisoner. That's kind of like this. You were a prisoner in the temple.

You, you had to sacrifice and it had to be a sacrifice the priest approved of, and well, somehow they only approved of their own animals. And so, eventually nobody even brought their own lambs because everybody knew you just, you're going to have to buy the temple's lamb. So, those two things made Anna and his family staggering.

Wealthy, unbelievably corrupt. Marlon Brando level corrupt. He's the family. Make you an offer you can't refuse. Family business kind of guy. Now that you got the picture of anon mine, let's begin from verse 19. So, Jesus is brought bound to his house in the middle of the night. The high priest then questioned Jesus, meaning the high priest here is referring to anus.

What this is, is this is the first trial that Jesus undergoes and the purpose of this trial is we'll see, is to find something to charge. Jesus of the high priest didn't question Jesus about his disciples and his teaching. What's going on there is Annas, is is trying to find something to charge him with, which wasn't the San Huron's job.

They didn't charge anybody. They evaluated charges that were brought to them. They didn't bring charges to anybody, but this is what Annas is doing. What can we charge him? We, we got to charge him with something because we're told they had already decided they were going toput him to death. They just had to figure out what they're going to put him to death for.

So, they come and they question Jesus about his teaching. Verse 20. Jesus answered them. I have spoken openly, openly to the world. I've always taught in synagogues and in the temple where all Jews come together. I've 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. In contrast to the secret trial, by night, by cover of night in Anna's house, Jesus says, well, everything I taught was in, in the open, in the public. Everybody heard me. So, what Jesus is essentially saying to Annas is, let's do this the right way. I cannot incriminate myself, but I'm given the right to defend myself.

So, call some witnesses. You want to know about my teaching call witnesses that heard my teaching. Let's do this the right way. Verse 22, when he had said these things, one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand, saying, is that how you answer the high priest? So, this is in fulfillment, of course, of Micah, chapter five, verse one.

With the rod. They strike the judge of Israel on the cheek. This is the beginning of Jesus's physical maltreatment. Perhaps he was treated roughly after he was bound and brought in this entirely likely. But this is the first blow that we read about, and this is the first of many Jesus'. Physical mistreatment is well known to us.

This was the beginning of it here. Notice what Peter says. He was reviled and he did not revile in return when he suffered. He did not threaten, but he continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. They strike him for answering in such a way. Verse 23. Jesus answered them. If what I said is wrong, bear witness about the wrong if, but if what I said is right while do you strike me, Annas then sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.

So, Anus is not able to come up with a charge. He asks Jesus some questions, doesn't really get anything that he can use, so, he then sends him to Caiaphas. What's Caiaphas been doing in the meantime? In the meantime, Caiaphas has been going around, waking up the San Heed. In the middle of the night to come in and take part of this trial.

But as we'll see, he's only waking up selective members of the San. He's not, he's not waking them all up. He's waking up selective members of the Sanhedrin, and he's collecting them at his house, which is part of the same palace. So, Annas gets done questioning him. Anna sort of hits a block in the road, sends him bound over to Caiaphas, his son-in-law.

It's at that point that we switch over to Matthew Chapter 26. Matthew picks up the events of J of this night. At that point, Matthew skips over the initial sort of arraignment type of a trial. He skips over that and just cuts to the second trial that Jesus endures that night. Beginning from verse 57.

Matthew chapter 26 and verse 57. Then those who had seized Jesus, meaning the temple guards. The palace guards, they lead him. They led him to Caiaphas, the high priest where the scribes and the elders had gathered. Caiaphas, had woken them up in the night, gathered everybody, we've got Jesus, we, we, we need to get together.

We need to convict him. Remember, a trial could not take place on a feast day. A trial had to take place during the day, and a trial, uh, could not take place in a private place. It had to be in a public place. All of those things are violated here. Verse 58. And Peter was following him at a distance as far as the courtyard of the high priest and going inside.

He sat with the guards to see the end. Now, the chief priest and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death. This is not a trial. We, we all know that they weren't looking for the truth. Plainly, Matthew says their point, their purpose is to find a reason that they can put him to death.

They've already decided to put him to death. The purpose of this now is to find some sort of reason to put him to death. They're seeking false witnesses. These false witnesses, by the way, should have immediately been had what done to them put to death themselves. All of these false witnesses that we said that we read or brought forth, all of them should have been put to death because their testimony was false and seeking to put someone else to death.

Verse 60, but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. It last two came forward and said, this man said I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days. So, that's a kind of like what Jesus said that's referencing all the way back to the beginning of Jesus' ministry in John two when Jesus said something along those lines.

But he said, not I will destroy this temple and rebuild it in three days. But he said, you will destroy this temple and rebuild and I'll rebuild it in three days. And then John goes on to tell us, and Jesus was talking about his body. Jesus was saying, because he's answering, they say, give us a sign. Jesus give us a sign.

Jesus says, here's your sign. You will destroy this temple and in three days I'll rebuild it. That's your sign. So, they take that and I mean, this happened three years ago, and they twist it and they pervert it and they bring it out and they say, well, we heard him say that he's going todestroy the temple and rebuild it in three days.

And Mark goes on to tell us. And even then, their testimony didn't agree. They couldn't agree on where, where Jesus said it when he said it, what the circumstances was, they couldn't even agree on what Jesus said. Didn't matter. Didn't matter because they've got an agenda, and the agenda is to put him to death.

Jesus, by the way, I'm convinced he said that in order to give them something later to convict him of, because again, he wants to be convicted, and so, I think Jesus, they said, here's, give us a sign. Jesus says, okay, here you go. And what he really meant is, here's something for you to use later on when you need to use something.

By the way, this is also the charge they brought against Steven. They said that Steven believes in this guy Jesus, who Jesus is that guy who said he's going to destroy the temple. They brought the same charge against Paul, et cetera, and that sort of thing. Now, Jesus of course didn't say that. He said something close to that, but it didn't matter.

They bring this charge against him anyway, which even if Jesus had said that, They're bringing a charge against Jesus of making the threat to destroy the temple, which wasn't a crime. There's nothing to convict him. Even if Jesus said that there was nothing to convict him of because all he did was make this threat to destroy the temple.

The only thing that you could say under the Jew, the Jewish criminal justice system, the only thing that you could say that would bring you a conviction was blasphemy. And you guessed it. That's where they're going to go. Continue reading verse 62. And the high priest stood up and said, have you no answer to make?

What is it that these men testify against you? But Jesus remained silent. Here we see just this amazing persistent silence of Jesus before his accusers. We think of course, of the prophet Isaiah who said, like a sheep before his shears was silent. They reviled him. They, they scorned him. They scandalized him, but he remained silent.

The persistent silence of Jesus. Do you know how hard it is to remain silent when someone is bringing allegations against you, particularly that are false? You know how hard that is to keep quiet, especially when those allegations are untrue and you could easily refute them. You could conclusively refute them.

Do you know how hard that is to remain silent? These accusations against Jesus were wildly untrue and could have been easily and conclusively refuted once and for all. Yet Jesus remains silent. I pray that God would give to us his people, this same type of meekness that allows us. To remain silent when we too are scandalized.

When we too are slandered. A friend told me this a long time ago, and I've tried to remember this. When you are accused by the enemies of God, only one person can defend you. Only one person will defend you, either you or God. And if you won't let God defend you, he won't push you out of the way to do it.

And so, one of the hard things for us as children of God to learn is to let God come to our defense. God is not often glorified by his children who are quick to defend the. But I tell you what, God is often glorified when he comes to the defense of his people. That's a hard thing to learn, and I'm spending a lifetime trying to learn that myself.

But that is biblical. That is scriptural, and this is our model. Jesus who was reviled and insulted and degraded in such ridiculous ways, remain silent before his accusers. So, then verse 63, but Jesus remains silent, and the high priest said to him, I adjure you by the living God to tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.

So, he puts Jesus under oath, swear by God are you God? Which is like saying, swear by yourself. Are you God? Can you imagine what's going through Jesus's head? These accusations? The truth is being trampled on so, blatantly. These accusations are so, ridiculous. And then the high priest says, swear by the living God.

And Jesus, maybe he so, much just wants to say I am. And I swear by myself that I am. I assure you, by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God. Verse 64, Jesus said to him, you have said so,. Now. That was Jesus' affirmation back in verse 25 of the same chapter. You remember the interchange with Judas, everybody saying is, is it me that's going to, that's going to betray you?

And then Judas says, is it me? And Jesus says the exact same words. You have said so, So, there we see the same thing. It's an affirmation. What you said is just right. Here's the same affirmation. What you said is correct and you just said, are you the son of God? Are you the son of the living God? Are you the Christ?

What you have said is correct Jesus, this is Jesus' first. Clear affirmation of his deity. Jesus, his entire ministry has danced around it. He has skated right up to the edge of it so, many times and always stopped short of a clear, unequivocal declaration of his divinity. He has called himself the son of man, and we know what he meant.

He has let himself be called the Son of David, and we know what that meant. He has referred to himself as the cornerstone that the builders rejected. He has talked about building his church. He has talked about before Abraham was I am. He said it in every way that he could say it without just flat out saying it.

Even in Samaria, when the Samaritan woman at the well asks him and says, when the Christ comes, he will teach us all things. And Jesus says, the one of whom you speak is the one speaking to you. That's pretty clear and that's pretty plain. But that was in Samaria. If the Jewish Messiah is going to declare himself to be the Messiah, he needs to do it in Israel, not Samaria.

So, Jesus has done everything except just openly say, I am the Christ. Here's where he says it. Here's where he declares it. What you have said is right, and you'll then see the at the, the son of man seated at the right hand of the power and coming on the clouds of heavens and of the heavens. And the high priest tore his robes.

Nevermind the Old Testament injunction found twice in Leviticus that says The high priest is never to tear his robes. But nevertheless, he has this display of grief, when in reality the high priest is elated. This was what he wanted. He just got it. Bingo. Bingo. We just got it. So, he's elated, but he has this display of grief.

He tears his clothes, which in reality, historians tell us that the priest would have what they would call tearing robes. Tearing robes were robes that had been torn and carefully sewn back together with very fragile thread so, that they could easily tear again. They were called tearing robes. And when you knew that you were going to have an occasion to tear your robes, you would wear your tearing robe so, that you wouldn't tear your good clothes.

So, the high priest in, in spite of the fact that the Old Testament said the high priest is never to tear his robes, he tears his robes in this display of grief, which is really happiness and relief, the high priest towards robes and said he has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? What further witnesses do we need?

Maybe the ones that scripture says you need, like the two or three like your own. Missioner says, no one can indict themself. What further witnesses do we need? Oh, you mean the Sanhedrin are the going tobe the witnesses you mean? The judges are now the witnesses. That's convenient. You see how at every step, at every possible avenue, this is the greatest travesty of justice.

The son of man, the holy one of God, the most innocent man to ever live stands in the most perverted, distorted, unjust trial that we can imagine. Not just some rules are broken, every rule is broken. You know when you feel like you've been treated unjustly.

Jesus knows

Jesus knows. There's no one treated more unjustly than him. He's uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You've now heard his blasphemy. What is your judgment? They answered. He deserves death. Now we'll go away and fast for three days and come back. Nope. They're going to carry out the sentence immediately In contradiction to their own law, to their own, to their own court system.

He deserves death. Mark tells us that the vote was unanimous, which again, should have meant that he was immediately acquitted according to their own code. It was unanimous. But then Luke tells us in Luke 23 that there was at least one who didn't agree that was Joseph of a Arimathea. The one the, the one of the Sanhedrin, who will bury Jesus' body.

Luke says he wasn't in agreement, which means that they so, carefully didn't wake him up and bring him in. I guess they knew. That he wasn't a reliable judge. He couldn't be counted on to give the right verdict because they seem to have gone and woken up the 23 that would give them the verdict that they, that they wanted.

So, they say he deserves death, then they spit in his face. Spitting in the face is the universal way to give maximum insult. There's, there's not a culture north, south, east, or West Africa, Asia North, south America. There's not a culture anywhere that doesn't get that and get it loud and clear. Spitting in the face is as insulting and degrading as you can get.

So, the son of God hands still bound, unable to reach up and wipe the spit off of his face. Dreaming down his cheeks. The sinless son of God who came as the embodiment of love and mercy and compassion, the one who came to give his very life and soul to save while his hands are tied and his eyes are black, and he bleeds from his mouth and from his ears and from his nose, he now has spit on his face.

Soul begins the mocking and the insulting of God. Such extreme injustice that our Lord is enduring such extreme hatred. That's one of the themes I think that all the gospel writers want us to see loud and clear is such extreme. Injustice and such extreme hatred. Isaiah wasn't kidding when Isaiah said that he was despised by men.

Their despicable attitude toward Jesus is just, it knows no bounds. It knows no limit. They, they are filled with such hatred for this man. So, they spit in his face and struck him and some slapped him, saying, prophesy to us, you Christ. Who is it that struck you? So, let the games begin. Let the entertainment begin.

Luke tells us that the ones who do this are the ones who bound Jesus. They're the temple guards, the temple police, the Sanhedrin aren't doing this. They're, they got what they wanted and they left. They're going to have to reconvene again. In order to make this official, but they're, they've got what they wanted now.

So, they let the palace guards have their own sort of fun, and they begin beating up on Jesus. They blindfold him and they're hitting him, saying, through their laughs, tell us, who is that? You are the Christ. You know, all things. Who was that that hit you? When in all reality, Jesus not only knew who hit him, but he knew everything about who hit him,

and he hadn't known everything about who hit him from before the world began.

In reality, Jesus knew their deepest fears. They're their greatest anxieties, that he knew their greatest hopes. He knew their greatest embarrassments. Think of what Jesus could have said. Oh, I'll tell you who hit me and let me tell you more about who. He just hit me. Let me tell you about what he did last night.

Let me tell you about this thing that he's obsessed over. Let me tell you about this thing in his past that he remains silent. The one who knew all things. And they mock him to say, well, whose hand was that? Whose fist was that one? The mocking, the injustice. He was truly despised. And then lastly, verse 69.

Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard and a servant girl came up to him and said to him, you also were with Judi. Jesus the gal land, and we'll stop there. What's taken place simultaneously is of course the story of Peter's. All the gospel writers go back and forth between Peter and the trial, which is really interesting.

Why do all the gospel writers do that? Why do they sort-of go back and forth between what's happening with Peter and the courtyard and what's happening with Jesus who's on trial? Well, you might say, well, because they're happening, these things are happening simultaneously, and they are. But there's other things that happened in the scripture simultaneously and and nowhere else do they do this sort of back and forth sort of narration, like, so, why are the go all of them?

Why are the gospel writers going back and forth between Peter and Jesus, Peter and Jesus, Peter and Jesus? I think it's because of this. I think it's to show Jesus is suffering because you see, Jesus was suffering in multiple ways. This is his night of suffering. He of course is suffering physically from the slaps, the blows, the bleeding, the, all those things, and that's, that tends to be what we really think of when we think of Jesus as suffering is this physical suffering.

And yes, he's suffering in that way, but that is the least of the ways in which Jesus is suffering. He's also suffering because the one who is truth is having to watch truth trampled under the feet of such despicable people. Imagine the heavenly high priest standing before Marlon Brando

and having the truth, the eternal truth of God, trodden under such wicked feet, how that must have hurt the one who says, I am. How he must have suffered to stay silent, to hear the truth trampled. But there's a third way, and this is, this is I think, the greatest way that Jesus is suffering in these moments.

He'll suffer more on the cross when he's made to be sin. But in these moments, I think Jesus' greatest suffering is his rejection. And that's why the gospel writers are back and forth between Jesus and Peter, Jesus and Peter. Jesus is suffering from their blows. Jesus is suffering from Peter. Jesus is suffering from the truth, being trampled.

Jesus is suffering from Peter. He's suffering from his own, who are rejecting him. In those moments, in those very moments, his own are rejecting him, and they had to, Jesus had to be alone. Jesus could not do this with anyone at his side. He could not do it with anyone showing any support for him, he had to be all alone.

He had to have his own people reject him. That I think is what Isaiah means. In Isaiah 53 and verse seven, when Isaiah says he was rejected by men. I don't think Isaiah only means men who didn't believe in him. I think Isaiah also means men who did believe in him. He was rejected by all, and that was probably his greatest suffering in those hours of the we mourning as he knows.

And then there's that one time where he even sees Peter and he hears the Roosted Crow and he knows he's all alone. He has to do this all alone. He was despised and he was truly rejected by men. The persistent silence before the accusations, the extreme injustice, which teaches us that in our most unjust moments, Jesus has been there, and Jesus knows the extreme hatred shown towards him.

Jesus has told his disciples earlier, if they hate me, they're going to hate you. Now, Jesus is showing us they could not possibly hate you more than they hate me.