Jerusalem, 30 A.D.

Charges: (1) Blasphemy, (2) Treason

During the Jewish holiday of Passover, the preceding week is one of festivals in Jerusalem. In A.D. 30, around 300,000 pilgrims from all around the Roman province of Judea converged on the city. Jesus was among them, and when he arrived, people cheered and threw palm branches at his feet as he came through the city gate. The authorities at the Temple of Solomon, built 900 years before Christ, destroyed by the Babylonians 500 years before Christ, and rebuilt by King Herod Antipas 50 years before Christ, center of faith and donation, had some consternation about how and why Jesus was so popular as a teacher. His message of peace and goodwill, kindness and love for one’s fellow man, even the lowliest wretches of the earth, resonated with many. Some of what he said deviated from traditional Jewish teaching. Why might the Temple authorities and rabbis see Jesus as a threat to their power if he only taught about love and compassion, to the point his followers called him the Prince of Peace?

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During the week, Jesus did some things that agitated the Temple authorities. He did not think it moral, godly and just for moneychangers to sit at tables outside the Temple and charge pilgrims interest to exchange their Roman money for Jewish money, which was what was accepted by the Temple as donations. This he called usury. In the only time in the Bible Jesus did anything remotely violent, he flipped the moneychangers’ tables and lectured them on their poor ethics. They were becoming rich on the donations of the poor to God’s holy place, which they were giving in good faith. When a rich man laughed at an old widow giving a couple mites (pennies) to the Temple, belittling the paltry gift, Jesus admonished him saying, “God values her sacrifice more than the extravagant donations of the rich, for what she gave was everything she had.” When you have received gifts from people in the past, do any stick out as special? What made them so?

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One of the Temple authorities, Josephus Caiaphas, who oversaw administrative functions, was responsible for keeping the city peaceful during Passover week. He had big job. There were Orthodox Jews who followed the letter of the law to the T. There were Pharisees who considered sacred the Torah, the historical writings, the wisdom writings, and the books of the prophets (that is to say, the entire Old Testament). The Pharisees also were against Roman rule, and generally disliked Greco-Roman culture. There were Sadducees who denied the oral tradition accepted by the Pharisees and only accepted the five books of the Torah, and also didn’t mind Roman rule as much. There were Zealots who advocated violent rebellion against Rome and were ready to kill to make Israel an independent, theocratic state. There were Essenes who were very pious as well, chaste, and lived together in communal dwellings. They believed, unlike the other groups, that the human soul was or could be immortal, as Jesus also taught when he taught the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, and that God promised eternal life to those who repent for their sins and strive to be moral and righteous. There were Samaritans who were distrusted by the other groups because they were ethnically part-Assyrian and made sacrifices at Mt. Gerizim in Samaria instead of at the Temple. Within these groups there were also a smattering of Hellenistic Greeks, Canaanites who had been around forever, Philistines, Phoenicians, and others, not to mention Romans. Why might such a mix of diverse yet serious beliefs cause issues for the administrators of Judea?

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Into this mix came those who followed Jesus. They had seen Jesus transform water into wine, heal sick people, restore vision to blind men, walk upon water from the shore of the Sea of Galilee to a fishing boat caught in a storm, and raise a man from the dead. They were becoming a group of their own, believers that Jesus was the Messiah, the anointed one of God. Caiaphas looked with suspicion on them and on their teacher. If any kind of disturbance occurred between these groups, the governor of the province, Pontius Pilate, could and would call in Roman soldiers to retain order. The Romans were big on order, even in faraway Judea. And the Romans were not nice when they were annoyed. How might Jesus preaching about the Kingdom of Heaven being all around us and yet invisible, or teaching the Great Commandment (“Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God, The Lord is One; Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind", and love thy neighbor as thyself"), provoke Caiaphas and more traditional rabbis?

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As the week progressed, Caiaphas did not want to arrest Jesus in public because he was so popular. Arresting him might cause the very disturbance the Temple authorities were seeking to avoid. So the authorities came up with a plan. They conspired to bribe one of Jesus’ disciples, Judas Iscariot, to betray him. Judas accepted thirty pieces of silver (about $300 if you take the literal worth of 30 oz. of low-grade silver today, but certainly less back then) from the authorities. On the night he was betrayed, Jesus had the last supper with his disciples. Afterward, he went to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane on the outskirts of town. Judas led the Temple authorities to the secret garden. After a hug and a kiss of betrayal to identify him to the guards, the guards seized Jesus and arrested him. He went willingly to be questioned by Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, a Jewish religious court made up of 70 councilmembers. At Caiaphas’ house, some from among them met. They charged Jesus with blasphemy for not denying he was God’s Son. Before which holiday to Christians reenact the events of that week 2,000 years ago?

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According to John, Caiaphas secured most of the Sanhedrin to condemn Jesus, as well as Annas, the high priest, who asked him if he was the Christ, Son of God. When he answered, “You have said so,” they had him beaten and mocked him as “king of the Jews” into the night. They blindfolded him and took turns slapping him, bidding he guess which one did it that time. One notable dissenter was Joseph of Arimathea. But in the morning, Caiaphas was unsure how to proceed. Jesus’ followers wanted him released, but instead the Sanhedrin sent him to Pilate, who was usually based in Caesarea, but was in Jerusalem to monitor the festival. A Roman Olympian, Pilate did not much care about Jewish religious disputes, so the blasphemy charge would not get very far with him. So the Temple authorities brought a charge against Jesus that Pilate would care about: treason against the Roman state. Perturbed, Pilate questioned Jesus on this charge, was not convinced he was guilty, and sent him to yet a third court, or rather person, that being Herod Antipas, son of Jewish king Herod who built the Second Temple. As the top official in Galilee, Jesus’ home, Pilate figured he would know how best to deal with him. Herod ordered Jesus to perform a miracle in front of him, to substantiate the claims his followers made that he could indeed make miracles, and he refused. Then he interrogated him, and Jesus remained silent. Herod became angry and had his soldiers take Jesus back to Pilate, dressing him in rags but calling them his royal robe. Why do you think Jesus refrained from doing what Herod demanded?

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Pilate was interested in Jesus’ message philosophically. Desiring to have a discussion on morals, his line of questioning is reputed to have been as follows: Pilate: Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done? Are you the King of the Jews as they say you claim to be? (If so, that would be an affront to the Roman state). Jesus: My kingdom is not of this world. P: So you are a king? J: You say that I am a king. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice. P: What is the truth? Jesus remained silent once again. What did Jesus mean by saying his kingdom was not of this world?

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Every Passover since Pilate arrived as governor of Judea; he pardoned and released a prisoner as a sign of mercy and good faith. There were not many to pick from, as punishments usually did not involve incarceration at public expense in ancient times. A regular crowd of people arrived wondering who would be released this year. Pilate gave them a choice. He could release Barabbas, who was guilty and locked up for stirring up revolt and committing murder during the insurrection, or Jesus. In the Gospel of John, Pilate was not really interested in punishing Jesus, let alone executing him. It is possible he was offering up a nasty person figuring the crowd would pick Jesus to be released. But the crowd shouted for Barabbas instead, and that is when Pilate, frustrated, took the bowl of water and symbolically washed his hands in it, telling the people that he would not be responsible anymore for this affair. In effect, that Jesus’ blood was on their hands. He set Barabbas free, and handed Jesus over to the Temple authorities. He was declared guilty of treason and blasphemy, and sentenced to death by crucifixion. Did Jesus get a fair trial by modern standards?

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The passion of Jesus, called so because he suffered great torment in the march down the Via Dolorosa, is well known to history. The Temple authorities flanked Roman soldiers as they and people from the mob scourged Christ whilst he carried the crossbar upon his back. The Christians in fear and sorrow were bullied to the sidelines as Jesus went through the Stations of the Cross bearing a crown of thorns, bearing whip marks, and bleeding. Then a series of events transpired: Jesus fell with the cross, was approached by his grieving mother Mary, was helped by Simon Cyrene who bore with him the cross as he struggled under its weight, was succored by Veronica, who wiped his face with a wet towel, fell a second time, met a group of women from Jerusalem who prayed, fell a third time, had his garments torn off, and was made to ascend up Calvary Hill outside the gate. He was forced to the ground under the post while nails were driven through his hands into the crossbar. Above the post a sign was affixed that read INRI, Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. The Temple authorities asked Pilate to make the sign, which he did, as a kind of advertisement of the sentencing. Interestingly, instead of writing that he claimed this title falsely, as the Temple authorities asked, Pilate simply wrote the acronym itself. The beam was then lifted up, with Jesus on it, and attached to the post. Jesus feet are nailed to the post as well, and the crucifixion was complete. In your opinion, was this a fair sentence?

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Pilate would serve as governor for another six years before being recalled to Rome, and Caiaphas, who accused Jesus of “perverting our nation and saying he himself is the Messiah, our king,” were both probably glad they had avoided unrest. But that was not the end of the story of Jesus. According to the Bible, on the third day he rose from the grave. For forty days he stayed among his disciples, and their experience of his resurrection and ascension into heaven in glory, to judge the living and the dead, so profoundly affected them that they would rather die for their belief in him as martyrs than deny him. Their belief in their own future of eternal life, forged Jesus’ disciples into people willing to proclaim his teaching throughout the world, and they have been ever since. It is possible the most famous trial in history has never really ended.

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