Backing the Wrong Horse
A Jewish father was concerned about his son. He had not truly raised him to be grounded in the faith of Judaism… So, hoping to remedy this he sent his son to Israel so the boy could experience his heritage. A year later the young man returned home.
He said, "Father, thank you for sending me to the land of our Fathers. It was wonderful and enlightening. However, I must confess that while in Israel I converted to Christianity."
"Oh (groan) what have I done?" the father thought. So in the tradition of the patriarchs he went to his best friend and sought his advice and solace.
"It is amazing that you should come to me," stated his friend, "I too sent my son to Israel and he returned a Christian."
So in the traditions of the Patriarchs they went to the Rabbi. "It is amazing that you should come to me," stated the Rabbi, "I too sent my son to Israel and he returned a Christian. What is happening to our sons?
“Brothers, we must take this to the Lord," said the Rabbi. They fell to their knees and began to wail and pour out their hearts to the Almighty.
As they prayed, the clouds above opened and a mighty voice stated, "Amazing that you should come to Me. I, too, sent My Son to Israel..."
The event that split time in two took place when God sent His Son to Israel. Gentiles and Jews, all were transformed by His presence, His power and His words. It seemed that whoever came into contact with Him became His follower… People loved Him.
Well……not everyone. Some didn’t like Him. Some turned away from Him. AND some even reacted violently to Jesus.
In John 8:58, Jesus declared, "…before Abraham was born, I am!" In the very next verse we’re told, "At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds."
In John 10:30, Jesus proclaimed, “I and the Father are one." Next verse, "again the Jews picked up stones to stone him."
And now, here in Matthew, Caiaphas and his court erupt with the same kind of anger and tendency to violence we read about in those other passages. They yell at Him. They spit on Him. They slap Him & beat Him.
I don’t know about you, but there are times when Wendy and I might be watching a movie or TV show together and I’ll miss an important line. And I’ll ask her, “What did he say?”
It’s not that I am hard of hearing, well, okay, maybe I am. I just wasn’t paying attention right then, or thinking about something else. But I missed it.
Have you ever had that happen to you? I can imagine someone reading this text for the first time might ask that very same question – “What happened?” “What did Jesus say?” What made them so angry? What set them off?
It was the question, “Are you … the Son of God?” I’ve never read where Jesus ever referred to Himself by that phrase. He always calls Himself "the Son of Man." Never the Son of God. However, others use this term – Son of God. And when they do it’s usually pretty significant.
The angel that announced Jesus’ birth said to Mary, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God." Luke 1:35
When Satan tried to tempt Jesus in the desert, he said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."
There’s something about this phrase – Son of God – that really gets people worked up. When Caiaphas hears Jesus accept the claim…he literally shouts "BLASPHEMY!" AND it would have been blasphemy - if Jesus HADN’T Been God. BUT… He was.
Because they realized that “I am” was the answer God gave Moses when asked what his name was. “Tell them ‘I am” sent you”, God said. So, when Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am…” they knew exactly what He was saying.
Now, almost every film that you see has a villain of some sort, a bad character to offset the guy in the white hat. In the movie “The Passion of the Christ”, you could have your choice of villains, Pilate, Judas, the lurking figure representing Satan, the Roman soldiers, or the high priest Caiaphas. Lots of choices.
The movie chooses Caiaphas as the "hand-fits-the-glove" villain. That is probably where much of the “anti-Semitic” criticism comes from, the simplistic linking of evil to the Jewish high priest. Regardless of the fact that the Romans, Jews and yes, WE, are ALL to blame for what transpired.
But still, the movie has a villain, and the villain’s name is Caiaphas. But there always 2 sides to very story. So let’s play Paul Harvey and look at the “rest of the story”.
You don’t think Caiaphas was a good man? Think again. Consider this: For starters, he opposed Jesus because he wanted to protect the people of God. Part of his job description, as “high priest”, was the keeper of all things sacred and the guardian of the temple and temple worship.
Caiaphas is portrayed in the movie as a villain but I believe it’s very probable that he and his followers were acting out of religious conviction instead of out of hatred. Often people do the greatest damage when they are most zealous for their faith.
Jesus is suffering in this ordeal. But the priest is going through a passion of his own, obviously not the physical kind Jesus experienced, but a passion nonetheless. And the priest, in his passion, has a problem. Namely, Jesus.
Caiaphas in his passion saw his problem, Jesus, as a temple terrorist who had already created a riot in the Temple, who was on record as being able to destroy the temple, and who had broken many of the temple and ritual laws.
Plus, Caiaphas believed that if Jesus attracted a powerful following, then the Romans would destroy his temple and his nation. He wasn’t an idiot. He understood his role in negotiating and maintaining both political and religious peace while living in an occupied territory.
In John’s gospel, Caiaphas makes the point to the crowd that, "it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed" (11:50).
Well, duh. If you think about it, God took exact approach with the death of Jesus on the cross. God knew that it was better to have one man die for all people, so that not all people would have to be destroyed by sin and death.
The death of Jesus is not about blame. After all, who can blame Caiaphas for being offended by what he perceived to be blasphemy? "The Father and I are one". These are outrageous words to a Jew who grew up believing that "The LORD is our God, the LORD alone" (Deuteronomy 6:4).
The key words here are "the LORD alone" also translated "the LORD is one." Only the LORD is the LORD to a faithful Jew, and it is absurd for any human to claim that he is one with God, especially some lowly carpenter from Nazareth.
So Caiaphas had very valid political and especially religious reasons for wanting Jesus out of the picture. He was afraid of Jesus upsetting the apple cart and he was offended by what he perceived to be blasphemy.
Sure, the high priest missed the fact that Jesus was thinking only of the kingdom of God, and he failed to understand that Jesus was truly the “Son of God”.
But clearly, Caiaphas, in his passion, had good intentions, but good intentions and honorable mentions don’t cut it. He blew it. He made the wrong choice. He backed the wrong horse. The temple that he was protecting? Destroyed in 70 A.D.
Are we so different from Caiaphas? Yes. We are different because we understand who Jesus is. We’ve embraced his claims. We’ve agreed to follow him.
And yet No. Like Caiaphas, we ignore what Jesus taught us. We walk around ignoring the love and the compassion of the one we claim to follow.
Caiaphas was not a bad guy. He was misguided in his convictions and he backed the wrong horse. We’re not bad people, either. Sometimes we just are misguided in our convictions, as well. We make the wrong choices. We back the wrong horse.
Often, like Caiaphas, we do the greatest damage when we are most zealous for our faith. We run the risk of being like Caiaphas when we focus more on defending the status quo, on maintaining our “traditions”, than on opening ourselves to the new ideas and possibilities that God is presenting to us.
Our challenge today is to accept God’s graceful detours, and to guard against making the mistakes that Caiaphas did, allowing a focus on worldly matters, religious tradition, and self-righteousness to prevent us from following God in a new direction.
As we continue on our “journey of grace”, God doesn’t want us to make the same mistake that Caiaphas made. He wants us to put aside our focus on the broken down nag of tradition and misguided zealousness and put our money on Jesus, the surefire winner.
