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03.29.09

Fifth Sunday in Lent

SERMON SERIES: ON THE ROAD TO THE CROSS

PART 5: CAIAPHAS

PSALM 22:1-18; MATTHEW 26:57-68

• Nearing the End of the Road
• Face to Face with Destiny
• Jesus’ journey on the road to the cross is coming to an end
• This journey has been long and often difficult, yet it has been a journey filled with blessing
• From beginning to end, Jesus lived his life faithful to God
• He planted the seeds of God’s love and grace, touched and changed the lives of countless thousands of people, trained those who were closest to him to continue his ministry after he is gone, and set an example for faithful living for all those who come after him to follow
• The last part of his journey is the most treacherous of all
• There’s one more hill left to climb, and that climb will be difficult
• Bruised and beaten, Jesus will climb the hill called Calvary burdened with more than just the weight of the cross
• On that final ascent, he will be carrying the weight of the sins of the world
• In the House of Caiaphas
• On the night of his arrest—an arrest made possible by the betrayal of one of his own and sealed with a kiss—Jesus is taken from the Garden of Gethsemane to the home of the high priest
• It is there that his trial begins
• Through the perversion of justice, Jesus is ultimately brought to his final destiny
• The man who set the wheels of fate in motion was the man who owned the house to which Jesus was taken
• That man’s name was Caiaphas
• While we so often blame the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, for the execution of Jesus because Pilate publicly washed his hands of him, Caiaphas was the man behind the plot
• He was the one who put this entire scheme together and made certain that everything went according to his plan
• If there is one person to blame for the suffering Jesus endured, that person is Caiaphas
• A Portrait of Caiaphas
• Caiaphas served as high priest in Jerusalem from AD 18 to AD 37
• He was the longest serving high priest during the time the Romans occupied and controlled Israel
• The position of high priest was appointed by the Roman governor, and the fact that Caiaphas was able to maintain his position for twenty years testifies to the fact that he worked well with the Roman government
• He was able to survive for twenty years in that position because he placed the interests of Rome ahead of the interests of his own people
• There is little that we know about this man
• We know that he married into a family of high priests, for his father-in-law Annas served as high priest before him
• After Caiaphas’ demise as high priest in AD 37, several of Annas’ sons succeeded him in that position until the destruction of the temple in AD 70
• We also know that, after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, Caiaphas continued to be active in the persecution of Christians
• In Acts 4, we are told that he presided over the trial of Peter and John after they miraculously healed a crippled man in the temple
• It’s also likely that Caiaphas was the high priest who gave Saul his written orders to arrest and execute the Christians residing in Damascus
• The most striking fact that we know about Caiaphas is recorded in John 11 after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead
• The chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin to figure out what to do with this man called Jesus who was threatening their positions of authority
• In the midst of their deliberations, Caiaphas rose to speak: “You do not realize,” he said, “that it is better for you that one man die for the people than for the whole nation to perish.”
• John goes on to add the comment that Caiaphas’ words were a prophecy about the purpose for which Christ came, yet Caiaphas did not intend them to be prophetic (see John 11:45-53)
• He intended them to be a sentence of death for this prophet from Galilee, and, John tells us, “from that day on the plotted to take his life.” (John 11:53)
• As high priest, Caiaphas held many other responsibilities
• He was in charge of controlling the temple treasury and presiding over the sacrificial rituals, so Jesus’ action of overturning the tables of the money-changers and driving the sacrificial animals out of the temple was a direct affront to Caiaphas’ authority
• Since Caiaphas controlled the temple treasury, it was he who paid the thirty pieces of silver to Judas Iscariot for his betrayal
• Caiaphas was also in charge of the temple police, and it was the temple police, not the Roman soldiers, who arrested Jesus in the garden
• And as high priest, Caiaphas was the president of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Supreme Court, so it was he who presided over Jesus’ trial and influenced the court to arrive at the trumped up charge of blasphemy against him
• The Mockery of a Trial
• The trial of Jesus was a mockery, for the Sanhedrin violated many of its own laws in the conduct of this trial
• It was illegal for the Sanhedrin to hold court at night, yet the court was convened under the cover of darkness
• The law required that the Sanhedrin meet in the temple and not in the home of the high priest, yet this trial was held in Caiaphas’ living room
• The law required a 24-hour waiting period before a death sentence could be handed down, yet Jesus’ sentence was pronounced immediately
• We have to wonder what the motivation was for all of this
• That answer is found in another function the high priest was charged to perform
• He was to serve as liaison between the Roman authority and the Jewish people
• That meant that it was the responsibility of the high priest to keep the peace in Jerusalem and to quell any uprisings among the Jewish people
• If word reached Rome of any hint of insurrection, the high priest would immediately be removed from power for allowing a threat to the security of Rome
• If Jesus wasn’t dealt with swiftly, Caiaphas’ own security and power would be taken from him
• To protect his own self-interest, Caiaphas acted the way he did by allowing Jesus to suffer the cruelest of human fates
• The Road of Suffering
• The Picture of Human Cruelty
• On the road to the cross, we come face-to-face with suffering
• On the road to the cross, we see the vilest form of human behavior—we see humanity at it’s worst
• We see the effects of self-interest, greed, hatred, pride, prejudice, abuse of power, and oppression
• In the trial and crucifixion of Jesus we see the stark reality of the influence that sin has upon this world
• The result of this sin is that Jesus suffered and died
• And yet, it is because of sin that Jesus came into the world
• His mission was to redeem humanity from the ravages of sin, so Jesus willingly endured the suffering of sin so that humanity might be redeemed
• Jesus could have spared himself this suffering when Caiaphas asked, “Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.”
• If Jesus had denied that claim, he would have been set free, for there would have been no basis on which to charge him
• By answering Caiaphas with “Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus sealed his fate
• Fulfilling the Prophecy of Suffering
• We hear echoes of the suffering Jesus was to endure in the words of Psalm 22
• The opening words of this psalm were on the lips of Jesus as he prayed from the cross
• This psalm foretells the mockery Jesus was to endure, and the strong-willed people who arrested and executed him
• It foretells the nailing of his hands and feet to the cross, and even the raffling off of his robe
• Perhaps Jesus recited this entire psalm as he hung there on that cross to die
• There is one point from this psalm and the suffering of Jesus we must not miss
• While Jesus prayed, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” never did he ever actually believe that God had forsaken him
• In the midst of all that suffering and agony, he knew that God was there, that God had a plan for him even in the suffering he was called upon to endure
• The Psalmist captures this hope in the words of verses 3-5
• Throughout the whole of his life, Jesus knew the presence of God with him and the power of God upon him
• Since God was faithful throughout his life, God would still be present with him in his suffering and death
• The Victory of the Cross
• This is part of the victory of the cross
• No matter what we might be called upon to endure, God will never abandon us
• God rejoices when we rejoice and suffers when we suffer
• When that moment of death comes for each of us, God will not abandon us to the grave
• God will be with us in death just as God has been with us in life, and at that moment of death, God will bring us into new life because of the victory over sin and death Jesus won for us on the cross
• While Jesus’ death and resurrection sets us free from sin, it does not set us free from suffering until we enter the final glory of heaven
• As long as we abide in this world, there will be suffering we will have to face
• Jesus told his disciples that this would be the case
• Suffering is part of the journey to the cross; it’s part of the journey of faithful living
• But this suffering is not without purpose
• In the experience of suffering, we experience the deepening of our faith and trust
• In the experience of suffering, growth occurs
• In the experience of suffering, we experience the presence and power of God to resurrect us to new life and make us whole
• Because Jesus suffered, we will suffer too, but we will not suffer alone—Jesus will suffer with us
• Because Jesus was fully human, he knows what it’s like to suffer and identifies with us in our suffering
• And because Jesus is fully God, he has the power to help us overcome and raise us to new life
• Caiaphas initiated the suffering that Jesus was to endure
• As brutal as his suffering was, it was part of the plan of God
• If Jesus walked away from suffering (and he had many opportunities to do so), he would have walked away from the will of God
• If he walked away from the will of God, sin and death would have the victory
• Because he willingly endured the suffering and the agony of the cross, sin and death have been defeated and our salvation is secure