Jesus, the Disrupter

Mark 14:53-65

53 And they led Jesus to the high priest. And all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes came together. 54 And Peter had followed him at a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest. And he was sitting with the guards and warming himself at the fire. 55 Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking testimony against Jesus to put him to death, but they found none. 56 For many bore false witness against him, but their testimony did not agree. 57 And some stood up and bore false witness against him, saying, 58 “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.’ ” 59 Yet even about this their testimony did not agree. 60 And the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus, “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?” 61 But he remained silent and made no answer. Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” 62 And Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” 63 And the high priest tore his garments and said, “What further witnesses do we need? 64 You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision?” And they all condemned him as deserving death. 65 And some began to spit on him and to cover his face and to strike him, saying to him, “Prophesy!” And the guards received him with blows.

Pray

I was watching a television program the other day and a woman said something that I have been thinking about ever since. She said, “The truth will set you free, but first… it will make you mad.”

We have this recovery ministry that some men in the church and myself are a part of called Regeneration. I have talked about it from the pulpit in the past and without going into a lot of detail, it is mainly a ministry that draws you closer to Jesus and allows Christ access to all of those dark places in your heart so you can surrender those to Him so that he can shine a light in there and help us walk in the new life we are promised. It is a wonderful ministry that will kick off again in the fall so any of you interested will be able to jump into.

If you have ever done any self discovery, finding the truth about yourself is part of it. If you have come here trying to grasp a better understanding of God from the instruction that the Lord allows me to give every Sunday, you may have left here mad that a certain part of your life had been offended by the Gospel. The Gospel is offensive. It goes into your heart and it shines a light on all of your weaknesses. If you have been offended by the Gospel, It is great that you have come back, because that means that you want to be different. You want that change. You want what Christ has to offer, You want to believe what He has said about you.

Wanting to find the truth is not something that everyone wants. Some people want to actively suppress the truth and some people want to live exactly as they have been living without anybody trying to poke holes in their boat. Their minds are made up and nothing new can come in.

Maybe you know people like this. Maybe this is you. Here are some questions to see if you are in this camp. Are you constantly questioning things that you think you know? Are you listening and trying to learn from different opinions? Are you able to learn from someone that has a different view on politics than you or someone you think is polar opposite from you? Listen, not all opinions are equal, some opinions are bad. If you understand this, is it possible that your opinions also may be some of the bad ones?

Today we are confronted with this problem in our text. Jesus was arrested in the middle of the night in the garden by a group of men that were certain about their beliefs and they were certain that there was one way to get rid of Jesus and that was to kill him. This is not a new thought, the religious elites of the day were looking to kill Jesus all the way back in Mark 3, when Jesus heals the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath. The Pharisees left the synagogue and held a counsel to see if they could find a way to destroy Him. This was a long time in the making.

Why do away with Jesus and not just ignore Him? It is very strange to me to see people that have a negative opinion about Jesus be so outspoken about Him. If you believe that He isn’t who He claimed to be then why can’t He just be ignored?

Jesus is a disrupter. When you have an encounter with Him, He changes your life. If you think that you are a good person, He shows you His perfect life and makes what you think is good look like what Paul calls, “filthy rags”. He was the best kind of disrupter because He caused the religious people of His day to look at what they had been doing, examining their lives and their ways of worshipping and seeing if they really knew and were really teaching the heart of God. He wanted them to see the truth. In doing so, He exposed the depths of their depravity and sin. He exposed their empty faith and their religious works that had no ground in love for God, but only their love for power and the perks of their high positions.

Back in October we were in Mark 11 and we talked about Jesus going into the Temple and turning over the tables and driving out the money changers, I realize that was months ago, but in the timeline of this text we are in today, it had just beed a few days ago that this took place. That disruption hit at the heart of one high priest and his father-in-law.

53 And they led Jesus to the high priest. And all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes came together.

Mark’s gospel does not tell us the names of these people, but John’s gospel tells us that Jesus is first taken to Annas, the previous high priest and then on to his son-in-law, Caiphas, the current high priest. The high priest is in charge of all of the workings of the temple and he and his father-in-law were likely receiving money from the abundant trade that was happening that Jesus had just brought an end. While the high priest had, no doubt, probably heard about Jesus, this act likely sealed their convictions that they wanted him gone by any means.

Jesus showed them the truth by quoting from Isaiah 56:7, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” This should have shaken the religious officials. They should have heard this and wept like we see in Nehemiah, when God’s people were not obeying the life He had commanded. They heard the words of the law and they wept because they had grieved the Lord.

There are a few ways that you can react when faced with the truth. It can inspire you and bring about change in your heart and mind, or you can double down on the lie that you are living in by justifying the sin and you can try to suppress the truth and put it away. This is what happened with this pretrial of Jesus.

55 Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking testimony against Jesus to put him to death, but they found none. 56 For many bore false witness against him, but their testimony did not agree. 57 And some stood up and bore false witness against him, saying, 58 “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.’ ” 59 Yet even about this their testimony did not agree.

This counsel of men knew the outcome they wanted, but they had to find justification for their verdict. Maybe some of you in here are more familiar with the legal system than I am, but I am pretty sure you are not supposed to start a trial as the judge knowing exactly the verdict you are going to hand out. They knew they wanted to kill him, they just needed to find something, anything.

This is not a handful of devilish people, but more than 70 men who are trying to trump up charges on Jesus. I don’t know how they went about trying to find witnesses, maybe they went around that night and grabbed anyone they could from the market square, but when they sought these people out they could not find anyone that could give them testimony that would be enough to put Jesus to death.

In Deuteronomy 19:15, it lays out what is lawful for a witness statement.

“A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established.”

In verse 56 of our text today, “56 For many bore false witness against him, but their testimony did not agree.” The counsel needed more than one person to corroborate the story of the other false witness and they could not find one and even as we go to vers 57 and 58, they could not agree on what was said.

In fact verse 58, they said, “We heard him say, “I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.” This statement from Jesus is mentioned in John 2:19, but they have misrepresented his words. In this particular story He says to the Jews who just asked for a sign from him as to why he has the authority to cleanse the temple and Jesus responds, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” In His response Jesus is not saying that He will destroy the temple but YOU destroy this temple, meaning his body and Jesus will raise it up again.

This is a great reminder that Jesus is not in front of this counsel against His will. He is not a helpless victim. In His guiltlessness, He is showing them the truth of who He is.

This is a wonderful example of the character of Jesus. When there was a large crowd trying to find something to convict Him on, not one person could even corroborate a lie. It reminded me of a quote I’ve heard many times, “Live in such a way that if someone should speak badly of you, no one would believe it.” This is just a side note, but living in light of the truth of the Gospel should shine so bright in our lives that we would be people so far above reproach that there would never be an instance when someone would bring a case against us that could ever stand regarding our ethics.

The fact that not even two people could get a lie straight against Jesus shows of the perfection of our Lord. He is the spotless lamb, Jesus is the one that was made to be sin who knew no sin. This enrages the counsel even further because if the roles had been reversed and any one of those other men had been in Jesus’ spot, they probably would have been convicted without false witnesses. If any one of us had been standing there, we would have the same fate. There is no trap you can set of Jesus and there is no way you can take Jesus to places that He doesn’t want to go.

60 And the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus, “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?” 61 But he remained silent and made no answer. Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?”

Not only did they try to get false witnesses to testify against Jesus, which was against the law, and not only was this trial held during Passover, which was against the law, and not only was the trial held at night, which was against the law, and they did not allow Jesus to have representation, which was against the law, and they did not have the authority to hand out a death sentence, but they were also not allowed to ask Jesus incriminating questions.

If they could not get a false witness testimony to condemn Jesus then they were going to see if His own words would trip him up, so they asked Him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?”

In other words, are you the anointed or chosen by God? Are you the one sent to redeem the world? Are you the Prophet, Priest and King that is to come?

And Jesus said, “I am.”

This is the question that matters. This is the response that matters. Jesus does not have to give any credence to lies or false accusations, but this answer is important to give to these men. It is one last shot at trying to reach their heart. Jesus answers, “I am the Christ, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”

I had always read this as Jesus being defiant to this group of hard hearted men, but this morning I don’t see it that way. This morning I see it as God trying to reach His people. These men studied the Scriptures since they were little children. They continued their studies and the Word was tattooed in their mind. It was written on tiny scrolls on their body and they read aloud the Scriptures in the synagogues each week. They dealt with manners of the law every day. When Jesus tells them that He is the one who was promised and that they would see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven, these men would have known exactly what Jesus was saying.

Daniel 7:13–14 (ESV)

“I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

We can’t know the emotions of Jesus at this time, but it was probably not like ours. We would be filled with anger and fear, but with Jesus it was probably said as a father may plead with a son that is going down a bad path that will cause them great pain. He is probably standing in awe thinking, “you have examined me for three years, you cannot even bring false testimony to condemn me and I am bringing you Scripture to show who I am.” How much proof did they need?

Surely today we are different. When this disrupter, Jesus comes into our lives, sometimes the earthly cost is great. Sometimes it will make you quit your job, thats what happened to me. Sometimes it will make you have to leave some friends and family behind until God softens their hearts. It can strain relationships in households and every time it will make you confront sin in your life.

This is a big deal because we build our identities around our sin. Musicians often times build their identity around drinking or drugs and if they quit they may lose fans. Some people build their identity on being the funny guy that tells inappropriate jokes. In a more drastic example, this past week there was a woman I saw that had found a relationship with Christ who was in the adult entertainment business and praise God, she walked away from that industry that was paying her $9 million dollars a year.

There is a cost to following Jesus. If these men who were trying to condemn Jesus heard His message and repented and believed they would have lost their status, their money and possibly their lives, but they would have gained. They would have known the heart of God. They would have found comfort and peace. They would have had eternal life. This life is a vapor, like these spring time flowers, they will be here and gone by summer when the water dries up. Then what? Eternity is a long time. This life is a blink compared to forever. Jesus gave that offer to the High Priest and the whole counsel and to us today. You tested me and found that I have passed the test, will you believe?

We know that the men of this counsel did not and they continued on with their plan that would eventually lead to the cross with the blood being on their hands, but what will you do with Him? Will you believe that He is who He says He is? Will you welcome His disruption?