“When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, 2 ‘As you know, the Passover is two days away – and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.’ 3 Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, 4 and they plotted to arrest Jesus in some sly way and kill him. 5 ‘But not during the feast,’ they said, ‘or there may be a riot among the people.’”
- Matthew 26:1-5 In preparing this message I remembered a thoughtful quote from Brennan Manning, from his book The Ragamuffin Gospel. “The choice usually presented to Christians is not between Jesus and Barabbas [referring to Matthew 27:15-26]. No one wants to appear an obvious murderer. The choice to be careful about is between Jesus and Caiaphas. And Caiaphas can fool us. He is a very ‘religious’ man.” Life has unpleasant surprises in this category. Matthew 26:3-5 describe an assembly of religious leaders. I tend to think of that as a good thing. As long as God has been leading people, there have always been leadership offices of one kind or another. The priesthood from the Old Testament was distinct because it emphasized the mediatorial role of the clergy: These are the people you go to who will connect you with God. It is different in the new covenant, where we have what Protestant Christians call “the priesthood of all believers” Viz. we understand that we all have direct access to God through Jesus. But either way there’s an air of godliness about it. And the gathering place was in the palace of Caiaphas. Those of us who watched Adam Hamilton’s 24 Hours That Changed the World might remember seeing this in the video. It was a well-fortified, elevated place. It’s easy to think of this as a good thing: religious leaders gathering to make godly plans, right? But in this case they were discussing a deliberate act of cruelty. They were making plans to arrest Jesus – i.e. to take Him into custody. And they were making plans to have Him killed – this in order to get him out of the way. And this was Jesus – not some mafia thug. This was the man who had healed the sick, fed the hungry masses, exorcised the demons, and taught a message of love for God and humankind. Why would they target Him? Many reasons have been explored in both scripture and in history. One political variable that deserves mention was the tense relations between Rome and Israel at the time. Jerusalem had a reputation of a contentious populace. They were used to their own tradition of having an independent Davidic monarchy. They yearned for this freedom. So there was an independent streak rooted in popular sentiment that was dangerous. And it was close enough to the Palm Sunday parade. People loved Jesus; the religious leaders didn’t want some kind of backlash from them – and especially if it would trigger a crackdown from Rome. (And that’s exactly what happened in the year 70 A.D.). But at this stage there was some hesitation since all that was seen as avoidable. The text says that these men wanted to do it “in a sly way” or “with stealth”. And that’s not much of a qualifier. Violence against Jesus was the ultimate goal. This was a conspiracy for an unreligious act by very religious people – a notion that is both surprising and tragic. It’s both sad and amazing when the people you expect to be doing good and right in the world are actually doing things that are evil. Yet in the larger gospel narrative all of this is subsumed by the larger working of the will of God. This is one meaning of the grace of God: nothing catches Him by surprise. You and I may be stunned, but God has an eternal plan that’s always at work. Jesus own words indicate that He saw what was coming. Matthew 26:1-2 are Jesus’ words at the conclusion of His final body of teaching. Back in chapter 23 He thoroughly denounced the Pharisees in a series of seven woes. Then in chapter 24 He gave his apocalyptic discourse, which segued into His three parables of judgment in chapter 25. A common theme in all of this is faithfulness in tribulation. What does this mean? We heed the warnings against hypocrisy. We keep our lamps lit. We persevere in trial. We do the works of righteousness, which include feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting prisoners and the sick, welcoming the stranger, etc. And we persist in faith even amidst trials until Jesus returns. Then after all this Jesus gave a reminder to His disciples of what was to come. Previously (in 20:25-28) Jesus had contrasted this with the worldly tendencies for accumulating power: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 26 It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; 28 just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many”. So in Matthew 26:2 Jesus makes reference to the Passover. This was a festive Jewish holiday – sort of like the combined meaning of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the 4th of July all put together. Like Thanksgiving, there was a feast – not with turkey and mashed potatoes, but with unleavened bread, roasted lamb, bitter herbs, and wine to drink. Like Christmas, there was lots of holiday travel, with pilgrims migrating into Jerusalem to celebrate. And like July 4th it was a day to remember national deliverance, looking back to the exodus from slavery in Egypt and the miracle that followed the anointing of the Hebrew homes with the blood of the paschal lamb. It was a celebration of their liberation from Egypt and their journey to the Promised Land. One Passover tradition that still carries on is the singing of Hallel psalms, which are Psalms 113 through 118. (We read these psalms in worship back during Lent.) They give a sense of setting. It was a season of light, beauty, and all the festivity of a great holiday in a celebratory environment. Yet in the midst of it there was this dark conspiracy against the Son of God. It involved violence; it involved plotting and trickery – and all by “good religious people”. This all can be very confusing, but the key to understanding it is to know that the suffering has redemptive value. It was John the Baptist who used Passover language to point out that the Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world (in John 1:29, 36). As it was in the Passover, where the lamb was slain, His blood was applied, and deliverance came by the grace of God – so it is with Jesus in the New Covenant. He’s the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This gives a better perspective on what Jesus endured. Another quote I found for this message is from Marva Dawn’s book Powers, Weakness, and the Tabernacling of God: "In faith, we believe that the terrors of Lent and of our lives are purifying terrors, confounding clauses in a covenant we may nonetheless trust. While they are washing all our certainties away, it is hard to believe they may also be cleansing us of our illusions, but that is the dare." So we take this dare. One illusion is the cloak of religious respect and authority – as it was with Caiaphas. Another is the perceived infallibility of certain of Jesus’ disciples. And another is the supposed vanity of undeserved suffering. And that all is rooted in the myth of the ultimate dominance of evil and violence in the world – as if evil were ultimately greater than good. But we take the dare. We believe in the atoning death of Jesus. And when we look on the cross we prepare to absorb a great act of violence that was (and is) surprising in so many ways. But it didn’t catch God by surprise.
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Andrew McHenryI am a husband, a Congregational pastor, and a native Kansan currently living in Thermalito, California. In the past I have also been a prison chaplain and a youth pastor. Interests include reading, railroads, prog rock, KU, and the KC Royals. Archives
February 2024
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