Thursday Evening after Passover
Mark 14:53-72
Rev. Dr. Michael Koplitz
53 They led Jesus away to the high priest, and all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes gathered together. 54 Peter had followed Him at a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest; and he was sitting with the officers and warming himself at the fire. 55 Now the chief priests and the whole Council kept trying to obtain testimony against Jesus to put Him to death, and they were not finding any. 56 For many were giving false testimony against Him, but their testimony was not consistent. 57 Some stood up and began to give false testimony against Him, saying, 58 "We heard Him say, 'I will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands.'" 59 Not even in this respect was their testimony consistent. 60 The high priest stood up and came forward and questioned Jesus, saying, "Do You not answer? 1What is it that these men are testifying against You?" 61 But He kept silent and did not answer. Again the high priest was questioning Him, and saying to Him, "Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?" 62 And Jesus said, "I am; and you shall see THE SON OF MAN SITTING AT THE RIGHT HAND OF POWER, and COMING WITH THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN." 63 Tearing his clothes, the high priest said, "What further need do we have of witnesses? 64 "You have heard the blasphemy; how does it seem to you?" And they all condemned Him to be deserving of death. 65 Some began to spit at Him, and to blindfold Him, and to beat Him with their fists, and to say to Him, "cProphesy!" And the officers received Him with slaps in the face. 66 As Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant-girls of the high priest came, 67 and seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said, "You also were with Jesus the Nazarene." 68 But he denied it, saying, "I neither know nor understand what you are talking about." And he went out onto the porch. 69 The servant-girl saw him, and began once more to say to the bystanders, "This is one of them!" 70 But again he denied it. And after a little while the bystanders were again saying to Peter, "Surely you are one of them, for you are a Galilean too." 71 But he began to curse and swear, "I do not know this man you are talking about!" 72 Immediately a rooster crowed a second time. And Peter remembered how Jesus had made the remark to him, "Before a rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times." And he began to weep.
Jesus stood his ground and to His conviction. When He was arrested, He said nothing. Jesus went willingly with the guards knowing that He was facing execution. In front of Caiaphas, he was quiet about His situation. Jesus walked the walk and talked the talk. He allowed the LORD's will to be "in charge" of Him to the very end. The Sanhedrin could not convict Him as a revolutionary, so they had to develop some other trumped upcharge. Blasphemy was undoubtedly the easiest to accuse Jesus of and the one that needed the least amount of credible facts.
If we use the church timeline as a basis of the narratives of Holy Week, this event occurred on Thursday evening. I forgot to mention that I am using the synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, for the timeline. John's Gospel has a slightly different event schedule.
So, let's recap the week, OK? Jesus was doing his ministry for a while, mainly in the Galilee area. There were times He ventured out of that area but not that often. The religious leaders in Jerusalem knew of Him in the same way they knew about John the Baptist. However, Jesus was no big threat to them. There were plenty of itinerant preachers that said they were the Messiah.
However, then Palm Sunday occurred. When Jesus entered Jerusalem on that Sunday, people were cheering for Him. Honestly, we don't know if the people were His traveling crowd or people from the city. It does not matter. The celebration of a holy man entering the city and receiving the praise of a parade alerted the religious and government overseers to Jesus' presence.
During the Passover, the Zealots started riots. It was a time that many pilgrims traveled to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. The city was bulging with people. Jesus and His followers had to sleep in the Garden of Gethsemane because there were no rooms available. They secured a room for Jesus to celebrate the Passover with them is remarkable. Things were going well for Jesus and His entourage. The evening after the Passover meal, they turned from celebration to aggravation.
Pontius Pilate was assigned as the governor of Judea because he was a ruthless leader. His orders were to restore order in Judea so that the Roman Legion in North Galilee could be freed up to join the war against the Parthians. Pilate knew that if he could not accomplish this, he would be removed as governor and executed by the Emperor. Pilate had no choice but to use every resource at his disposal to maintain order.
Then Jesus enters Jerusalem with fanfare. Pilate, Herod, Caiaphas, and just about everyone in the city must have known that the preacher from the Galilee had arrived. The spotlight was now on Jesus. He was now known to all three levels of authority. There is no doubt that Pilate discussed with Herod and Caiphas telling them that it was their responsibility to stop any riots. Pilate was not a man who would die alone if the order was not maintained. All three leaders had skin in the game.
An interesting question is why Caiphas waited until Thursday evening to grab Jesus. That's a great question that has no answers in scholarly books or even on the internet. So, I will speculate why? Caiaphus had no reason to arrest Jesus. Sunday's entrance did not give him a reason to arrest Jesus. Therefore, he had to wait. Jesus had to do something to build a case against Himself. During the week, Jesus gave Caiaphus the reason to arrest Him.
Jesus' went into the Temple and overturned the money changer tables. Yes, the merchants were cheating people—no question about that. However, nobody ever did anything about it until Jesus.
The Passover is a celebration of the remembrance of when the Hebrew people were freed from the slavery of the Egyptians. Jesus was a free man like any other Jew of His day. When the guards in Gethsemane arrested him, he lost His freedom and essentially became a slave to the religious leaders. Caiaphus violated the sanctity of the Passover. Why would he do this? As I noted earlier, he would have forfeited his life and wealth if a riot broke out in Jerusalem. His personal safety and wealth were more important to him than one of the most significant events in human history. What the LORD did for His people, which we call the Exodus, is why the Jewish people have been together for all these centuries. The LORD's freedom from slavery is the heart of the Jewish people. The man leading the religion violated that sacred trust to save his own skin. That is what happened that night. Jesus lost His freedom.
The religious leaders had to develop a scheme of lies to charge Jesus with a crime. Caiaphus knew that rabbis like Jesus used parables and metaphors to teach ethics and morals. When Jesus was accused of saying that He would destroy the Temple, Caiaphus knew what that meant. He knew that Jesus did not mean to destroy the Temple physically. For that moment, the leaders tossed all their understanding of Semitic teachings out the window. They wanted to save themselves.
The events of that evening demonstrated that politics were embedded in the religious system. Politics were more important than the truth. It happened then, and it has been happening for centuries. If the church today wants to get back on track, politics have to go. The mainline denominations operate on politics. They have quota systems that the leaders hold close to the vest so that the rest of us cannot see them. When quotas and politics run an organization, the best people are overlooked, and unqualified persons are often given positions of power. How can I say this about mainline churches? I say it because of the rapid decline in membership and attendance and the lack of creative ideas to stop this bleeding.
Independent churches that give positions in the church to qualified members are doing great! They know that they must have the best people in the proper positions to survive and thrive. These churches had to keep the politics to a minimum because you can never get rid of it entirely, but you can slow its growth. A lesson from these events of Thursday evening is that the church must examine who is in charge and why? Caiaphas got to his position through government politics and his family's politics. Apparently, he was not the most qualified man for the job. We can see that in the way he dealt with his Jesus problem.
We must find the best people for the church's growth at the local level and in our hierarchy. It is time to promote clergy to positions based on their skills and proven abilities. This is necessary to return Christianity to its once lofty position in our culture and society. It begins with you in the pews. Find the best people to lead the church into the future.
