The Book of Mark #95 chapter 14:53-65, pt. 2
The Book of Mark
The Ultimate Miscarriage of Justice, Pt. 2
Mark 14:53-65
 
When we left Jesus last week in our study of Mark, He has made an initial appearance before Annas who has formerly served as High Priest of Israel and is father-in-law to the current high priest, Caiaphas. 
 
The reason Jesus is there is an attempt to find some reason to charge Him with a crime worthy of death and they need to find it quickly, before sunup, to avoid any confrontation with the crowds that hold Jesus in such high esteem. 
 
We pick up the story in
 
Mark 14:55
 
We’ve had an illegal arraignment; we now have
 
2.  Illegal Testimonies
 
They had already determined the outcome and the sentence.  They just need to find a crime. In order to find a crime, they had to have somebody give testimony to a crime.
 
So keep in mind, you have these religious leaders who were so fastidious and particular about the keeping of the Law now trying to find liars in the middle of the night. In fact, Matthew 26:59 says, “They were bribing them,” the very thing that Deuteronomy 16 forbid.
 
They were going around in the middle of the night trying to drum up false witnesses who would lie so they could kill Jesus on false pretenses. I’ve never tried to find any illegal witnesses to accept a bribe in the middle of the night in Jerusalem, but I would guess that would be a tough task. 
 
But eventually they found some, in fact, many, who were willing to take the bribe and lie about Jesus.  I think it safe to speculate that the money paid to the witnesses came from the same place they money came that bought Judas.  It came from the temple treasury.  And it is the same money that will pay off the Roman soldiers to lie about where the body of Jesus went after the resurrection. 
 
It all came out of the temple treasury.  That’s something isn’t it?  To take money given in obedience and worship to God and use it to murder His Son and cover up the crime is about as low as you can get!
 
And at first, they couldn’t find people that would lie or at least they wouldn’t give any kind of testimony that would be connected to a death penalty. After all, if you were found guilty of perjury, you got the same punishment the accused did.  And those that did agree to be witnesses all told conflicting stories. 
 
Verse 56-59
 
They had no time to get together. They had not time for collusion. They had no time to meet with people and get the same story. They had no time to plot everything out.  Their stories were all confused. 
 
They said He said He was going to destroy the temple.  He never said that.  That is a confusion of what our Lord said three years before, recorded in John 2:19 to 22 when He said, “Destroy this temple,” meaning His body, “and in three days I’ll raise it up.”
 
He never said that He would destroy THE temple, and three days later build another one without using His hands.” They had that confused.
 
He did say, however, back in the thirteenth chapter, to His disciples that God was going to bring judgment on Jerusalem, and the temple would be destroyed, but He said nothing about it being rebuilt.  It was all half truths and confused statement. 

And by the way, one must wonder where the witnesses for the defense were.  No was seeking witnesses to defend the Lord, which was another illegal aspect of the trial.  And Jesus has already alluded to that in His statement to Annas.  Everything He did was done in public.  There were plenty of witnesses around to speak in defense of the Lord. 
 
It’s easy to see this is not a trial, this is a conspiracy. you have an illegal arraignment based on illegal testimony. And thirdly, you have
 
3. An Illegal Interrogation
 
verse 60
 
“The High Priest stood up.” He’s getting frustrated.  This idea of bringing in these bribed witnesses isn’t working.
So the High Priest begins to directly question Jesus.  Do you see the irony in that?  This arrogant priest dares to stand up, come forward and question Jesus as if Jesus had any legal duty to respond to liars who, by virtue of their own law should have all been executed themselves. 
 
And rightly, Jesus refuses to answer.
 
Verse 61
 
I couldn’t help but think of what we studied Sunday evening from the Lord’s Sermon of the Mount when He said, “Don’t give the holy things of God to the dogs and don’t cast your pearls to the swine.”
 
Don’t you know that was a deafening silence?   After all, these men are used to being respected and feared and awed.  People know they are the men of God and when they talk, people listen and respond.  But Jesus says nothing. 
 
And we will also read that later in the trial Luke 23 that He was silent before Herod and in John 19 that He was silent before Pilate. He is majestic in His silence. 
 
That leads us to
 
4.  An Illegal Sentencing
 
verse 61
 
By the way, Matthew 26:63 adds that. “The High Priest began by saying ‘I put you under oath by the Living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the son of God.”
Now that is the heaviest oath possible to a Jew.  That’s like a “triple-dog dare ya’”
 
It’s as if the High Priest is saying, “You know God punishes liars, so I am ordering you to tell the truth before God.”  It’s as if he can’t see the hypocrisy of that.  They’ve just paid witnesses to lie so they can kill a man, and now, he’s speaking on behalf the God who punishes liars!
 
What an amazing paradox that is. They demand truth from Christ while perpetrating lies against Him. And for the first time, they ask a legitimate question, and Jesus responds.  Jesus knows the intent of the question and what will be the outcome, but He answers it any way.
 
And He answers by calling identifying Himself as God, I AM, and not only that, you shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven.”
 
Instead of saying, “I AM, but let Me explain,” and trying to reduce the impact of that, He says, “I AM,” and escalates the reality of it. “Yes I AM the Messiah. Yes I AM the Son of God. And you will see Me sitting at the right hand of power, that is at the right hand of God, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”
 
Psalm 110:1 pictures the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of God. “The Lord said unto My Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand.’” Power refers to God. He is the power. He extends His power to the exalted One, the Lord at His right hand. Jesus is saying, “Yes I am equal to God, I sit at His right hand.”
 
He is the powerful expression of God. The express image of God, Hebrews 1 says, perfect manifestation of His person. When Stephen was stoned in Acts chapter 7, he looked up as he was dying and he saw the Lord Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
 
Not only that, He says, “I’m the one coming with the clouds of heaven, I’m the Son of Man,” that’s a term taken out of Daniel 7:13 and 14, a messianic term, and also it says in that same portion of Scripture that He will come with the clouds of heaven. “I am not only God, I am the one who sits at His right hand and reigns and rules, and will come one day in the future back to this world to judge and to reign and to receive the dominion and the Kingdom promised to Me.”
 
They knew those scriptures. They knew Psalm 110 and they certainly knew Daniel 7:13 and 14. What He is saying is, “Yes I AM and My death is not the end, I will be exalted to the throne of God. I will return in glory to judge and reign over the earth.”
 
What a glorious moment for our Lord. I think in that moment, as He speaks, there is a trmednous emotion that must have risen in His soul as He thinks about the fact that soon He will be back in Heaven, back in His rightful place, back in the presence of His Father. 
 
And even as He faces horrors of facing the cross, His mind moves forward to what’s coming after the cross. He sees past the cross, past the burial, past the resurrection, past the intercession to His coronation and His exaltation.
 
Today He stands before them as they judge Him unjustly.  But the time will come when they will stand before Him as He judges them with justice and truth. 
 
He knows these words will bring about His death, but He is ready. He has been through the Garden agony and He will do the Father’s will all the way to the cross.  The time has come. 
 
And in verse 63, the verdict comes. 
 
Verses 63
 
Tearing clothes is a ceremonial display of indignation. It was usually a sign of grief. You find it in Genesis, Leviticus, the book of Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Joel, even in the book of Acts. Jews would tear their garments as an expression of immense grief.
 
However, it was not allowed for a High Priest to do that. According to Leviticus 21, a High Priest could never do that unless God was blasphemed. And if God was blasphemed, then one would expect the High Priest to do it. He knows that, so he theatrically starts ripping his clothes.
 
By the way, all Jews could tear their clothes at blasphemy. Judges in the courts could do so and then later sew them up to be torn again if the occasion called for. The High Priest’s response is Jesus is blaspheming by claiming to be Messiah, Son of God, sitting at the right hand of God, returning to judge and reign.
 
And according to Leviticus 24:16, the penalty for the one who blasphemes the name of the Lord was death. 
 
So, the High Priest says, “What further need do we have of witnesses?” Caiaphas at this moment calls an end to all the legalities with an illegal sentence and asks for a decision by the Sanhedrin. 
 
Verse 64
 
And without hesitation, they all condemned Him to be deserving of death. It is unanimous.
 
By the way, in the normal course of voting, there was a scribe who tabulated the votes one at a time and each person had to give his vote at the end of the court case personally and singularly. So everyone took responsibility for it. And the junior members of the Sanhedrin, the younger ones, voted first so that they would not be tempted to follow the vote of their mentors.
 
In this case, the junior members are not voting first, nobody is voting first, they are all a mob and they all together, collectively, want Him dead.
 
Everything is illegal. The arraignment is illegal. The testimony is illegal. The interrogation is illegal and the sentence is illegal. And just to make sure the law of God is observed, Luke 22:66 to 71 tells us how the met again after sunrise to make it all official. 
 
 
 
 
 
Then He will be brought before Pilate to accuse Him of leading an insurrection against Rome.  They said He was misleading the nation and encouraging people to not pay their taxes and usurping the place of Caesar, all of it lies.
 
So all those centuries and all those years of carefully observing the Law of God is thrown away, just so they could kill Jesus.  And to show you their attitude, after they all condemned Him to be deserving of death,
 
Verse 65
 
Now keep in mind these are the religious leaders, the keepers of the Law of God, 24 chief priests, 24 elders, 24 scribes and a High Priest. We could never imagine someone being treated like this in an American court and it is beyond comprehension that it could happen in a Jewish court. 
 
Not only to be treated like this, but to be blindfolded and beaten and spat upon.  Mark says they beat Him. Matthew says, “Others hit Him with the palms of their hand, and dared Him to prophesy of whom was hitting Him. 
 
And with that, the mockery begins. It’s a joke now. It’s a horrible scene that allows us to see the very worst in the human heart and mind. 
 
But remember, way back in chapter 10 verse 34, He said that’s what they’re going to do. “They’re going to arrest Me. They’re going to spit on Me. They’re going to mock Me. They’re going to kill Me. I’m going to rise again.”
 
And in the closing verse of this section, there is an ominous phrase.   
 
verse 65b
 
The Sanhedrin turns Him back over to the temple police and the Roman guards and they follow the example of their noble leaders and they slap Him in the face as well.
 
And reading between the lines, it’s as if they turn their backs so the Romans can do what they want.  They turn a blind eye to justice and in so doing, they turn their backs on their Messiah.
 
Soon Jesus will be on the cross and the irony of it all is that He will be there dying for people like them and us. 
 
Before we sit in judgment of Judas and them, we must remember that they are us.  That kind of people is our kind of people, and it is for people like us that Jesus went to the cross to provide salvation for those who repent and profess Him as Savior and Lord.
 
Let’s pray.