Kangaroo Court - Matthew 26:57-68

In the United States, our justice system is predicated on the right of every human being to be assumed innocent until proven guilty. We have a system of laws in place to try to ensure justice is served by those who are accused of criminal activity. When arrested, you must be informed of your right to have an attorney present and your right to remain silent. Under the 5th amendment, you have the right to not testify if your testimony might incriminate you. And you have the right to due process, meaning a fair trial. And trials themselves have their own series of laws designed to ensure justice is served.

Similar protections exist in many other cultures, though in some they are far less common. Some places are known for what are called “kangaroo courts”, where legal proceedings jump (like a kangaroo) to conclusions rather than going through a rigorous process to determine the truth. A person is given the appearance of a fair trial, when in fact the outcome of their case was determined before the trial ever began. These kinds of proceedings are a mockery of justice because they are an attempt to appear fair while actually railroading the accused.

In our passage this morning we see Jesus being tried in what can rightly be called a kangaroo court. He stands trial before the legal institution of his day, but nothing about what happened can be considered just. The irony is that the Jewish laws this court claimed to uphold were designed to prevent exactly such a miscarriage of justice…and yet these laws were ignored in order to attack and ultimately kill Jesus.

Background

We turn our attention this morning to the account of Jesus being tried before the high priest and the Sanhedrin at the end of Matthew 26. Here’s how the account begins,

57Then the people who had arrested Jesus led him to the home of Caiaphas, the high priest, where the teachers of religious law and the elders had gathered. 58Meanwhile, Peter followed him at a distance and came to the high priest’s courtyard. He went in and sat with the guards and waited to see how it would all end.

If you recall, Judas had betrayed Jesus to the religious leaders and they, along with an army, went to go arrest him. Jesus went quietly with them, and it seems that all the disciples fled except for Peter (and possibly John). They followed at a safe distance and tried to find out what was going on. Peter hoped to remain anonymous, but was unable to do so. We’ll look at Peter’s experience in greater detail next week.

If you compare the gospel accounts of this night, it might seem somewhat confusing (some have even claimed the accounts are contradictory, but they are not.) In John’s gospel we are told that Jesus first appears before a man named Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest. Throughout John’s account, Annas is referred to as the high priest, but the Bible also clearly says that Caiaphas is the high priest. So what’s the deal?

The tradition in Israel was that a high priest held the office for life. But Rome had begun to meddle in the affairs of the Israelites and they apparently didn’t like Annas, who was the appointed high priest. So they replaced him with a new one, a man named Caiaphas, who just happened to be Annas’ son-in-law. So both Annas and Caiaphas could rightly be called the high priest. Many Jews would have seen Annas as the true high priest, which is likely why Jesus appeared before both men.

But what is the significance of the high priest and this gathering of teachers and elders? The high priest was the highest religious leader among the Jews. As such, he wielded enormous power. He was also the leader of a group called the Sanhedrin, which was made up of religious leaders and teachers (71 in total). This group essentially functioned as a kind of Supreme Court in those days. They were asked to make rulings on difficult questions, and their authority was viewed as absolute. So Jesus was standing trial before some very powerful men.

It would be tempting to conclude that because these men were religious leaders, they were trustworthy and primarily concerned with how best to honor God. But unfortunately the process of ascending to positions of religious power then was quite similar to the process of gaining political power now. It was usually about having money, about knowing the right people, and about making the right people happy. This was probably not the most devout group of men you could find. They were likely more concerned with keeping their position and power than they were with justice. And yet, this was the group that put Jesus on trial.

The Trial

Now that we know a little bit about who the major players are in this account, let’s turn our attention to the trial itself.

59Inside, the leading priests and the entire high council were trying to find witnesses who would lie about Jesus, so they could put him to death. 60But even though they found many who agreed to give false witness, they could not use anyone’s testimony. Finally, two men came forward 61who declared, “This man said, ‘I am able to destroy the Temple of God and rebuild it in three days.’”

62Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, “Well, aren’t you going to answer these charges? What do you have to say for yourself?” 63But Jesus remained silent. Then the high priest said to him, “I demand in the name of the living God—tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” 64Jesus replied, “You have said it. And in the future you will see the Son of Man seated in the place of power at God’s right hand and coming on the clouds of heaven.” 65Then the high priest tore his clothing to show his horror and said, “Blasphemy! Why do we need other witnesses? You have all heard his blasphemy. 66What is your verdict?” “Guilty!” they shouted. “He deserves to die!” 67Then they began to spit in Jesus’ face and beat him with their fists. And some slapped him, 68jeering, “Prophesy to us, you Messiah! Who hit you that time?”

The religious leaders put Jesus on trial, looking for some way they could have grounds to execute him. Of course, this is not how a genuine legal proceeding is supposed to go. Were they really concerned about justice, they would have been looking for the truth, not looking for an excuse to condemn Jesus.

Nonetheless, these men understood the letter of the law, which said no one could be condemned to death on the testimony of just one witness. You had to have two witnesses who could independently verify the accused had committed a crime worthy of death. Apparently these leaders were not prepared to make their case against Jesus, because they were scrambling to find witnesses. They were able to find many people willing to make up stories about Jesus; the problem was their stories didn’t match each other! So their testimonies could not serve as grounds to convict Jesus of a crime. Finally they found two people who both claimed Jesus said He would destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days. Both men’s testimony agreed Jesus had said this. And in fact, he had said something very much like this. We see it at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in John 2, just after Jesus had cleared the temple.

18But the Jewish leaders demanded, “What are you doing? If God gave you authority to do this, show us a miraculous sign to prove it.” 19“All right,” Jesus replied. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20“What!” they exclaimed. “It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple, and you can rebuild it in three days?” 21But when Jesus said “this temple,” he meant his own body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered he had said this, and they believed both the Scriptures and what Jesus had said. (John 2:18-22, NLT)

Jesus never claimed that he would destroy the temple in Jerusalem. He said that if the religious leaders destroyed “this temple” (meaning his body, not the building), then He would raise it up three days later. Ironically, the testimony of these men actually fulfilled Jesus’ words! Nonetheless, the leaders found this testimony enough to condemn Jesus, because even under Roman law, plotting to destroy a temple was a capital offense.

The high priest was pretty sure he had enough evidence to condemn Jesus, but he wanted more, so he questioned Jesus directly, taunting him to answer the allegations made against him. Jesus remained silent (because sometimes, no matter what you say, responding to people whose minds are made up will do no good). Finally Caiaphas put Jesus under a solemn oath and asked him a direct question.

“I demand in the name of the living God—tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” (Matthew 27:63, NLT)

Jesus’ response has sometimes been criticized as being evasive. He simply responds with, “You have said it.” Some have taken this to mean that Jesus didn’t believe himself to be God, and that he was a victim of a cruel institution that falsely accused him of believing that. Or they believe that Jesus’ deity was invented at a later date. If Jesus really believed himself to be deity, they argue, He would have answered with a simple yes. But Jesus didn’t stop after saying, “You have said it.” We need to pay attention to the rest of His answer.

Jesus replied, “You have said it. And in the future you will see the Son of Man seated in the place of power at God’s right hand and coming on the clouds of heaven.” (Matthew 27:64, NLT)

The second part of his answer is the clincher. He describes himself as the Son of Man prophesied about in the book of Daniel. This Son of Man in Daniel is clearly equal with God Himself! And here Jesus was saying that yes, he was the Messiah, the Son of God, but even more than that, He was God in the flesh! Jesus was not being evasive in his answer at all, He was making it very clear who He was, and that one day these men who stood in judgment over him would be judged by Him.

No one in that room was confused by what Jesus was saying. These men were all familiar with the scriptures. They knew exactly what Jesus was claiming. And that is why the high priest responded as he did. He tore his robes (a sign of grief) and cried “blasphemy!” He had all the evidence he needed. This man had claimed to be God himself. And any man who claims to be God is committing the sin of blasphemy…unless of course that person was Jesus, who really was God!

Caiaphas declared that no more witnesses were necessary, because Jesus had given testimony enough to condemn himself. So he asked the council (mob might be a better word at this point), what their verdict was. And they cried he was guilty and worthy of death. They now began to mock him, spitting on him, blindfolding him and then daring him to identify who was hitting him. Sadly, this was just the beginning of the indignity Jesus would suffer in the next few hours.

The Jews didn’t actually have the authority to execute anyone, so though they had declared Jesus to be guilty, they next had to convince the Roman leaders to agree to impose a sentence of death. We will look at that process in the coming weeks.

Application

The question is what can we learn from all of this? Certainly this is a story of great tragedy, and one that stands as one of the great miscarriages of justice in all of history, but we must ask ourselves what lessons we can glean from this account. There are several.

First, it is possible to appear religious while doing evil. These religious leaders were very careful to make sure they were toeing the line on their laws about what was necessary to convict a person and sentence them to death…but they were also ignoring a great many of their own laws as well. Commentator William Barclay shares several ways in which the Sanhedrin violated their own laws.

No trial was ever to be conducted at night.

A trial was not to be conducted during the Passover week.

Trials were only to take place in the Hall of Hewn Stone in the Temple complex.

Witnesses were to be examined separately to ensure there was no collusion.

Evidence in favor of the accused person’s innocence must be presented before any evidence of their guilt.

A sentence of death could not be carried out on the same day as the trial. There was a mandatory waiting period of at least one full night to allow people to give careful thought over whether they should extend mercy or not.[1]

These men were emphasizing the laws that would help them get what they wanted, while overlooking the ones that would stand in their way. We must be careful not to fall into the same trap. Lest you think we are immune to this, let me give you some ways in which we sometimes do the same thing.

We want to condemn others when they do something that hurts us or that we find grievous, but we want those same people to extend grace to us when we mess up.

We tend to be very harsh in condemning sins in others that we don’t struggle with personally, while downplaying the sins we do struggle with.

We can find endless ways to justify our own greed, as opposed to giving to the Lord or those in need.

We are masters at convincing ourselves that we just don’t have time for the things of God (like worship, Bible study, prayer, service, etc.) when the truth is we don’t value the things of God.

We take scripture out of context to justify the things we want, rather than searching the scriptures to see what God actually teaches and then submitting to that teaching.

We may support a particular position or a candidate in ways that are contrary to God’s commands.

We may resort to ungodly tactics in an effort to ensure we get “justice”.

There are myriad ways in which we are much more like the men of the Sanhedrin than we would like to admit. This account should serve as a cautionary tale to us. We should learn from these men to really examine our hearts. When you make decisions or are faced with difficult situations, ask yourself what you want most. Be honest in your answer. If it is anything other than to honor God in all your actions, you are in danger of going down the same path as the Sanhedrin.

Second, God’s plan is not thwarted by evil people. God was not surprised by the actions of Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin. That is not the same as saying He approved of them either. And yet, God used the actions of sinful men to accomplish His good purpose.

Often we are tempted to resort to the tactics of the world when things don’t seem to be going our way. When we feel like we’re being treated unfairly or like the deck is stacked against us, it is easy for us to lash out at others in an attempt to get our way. We must trust God enough to be obedient to Him, even when it seems like we will get hammered for it. We have to look at the big picture rather than just the here and now. Jesus was willing to endure the shame and indignity and pain of his trial and crucifixion because He trusted that God’s plan would make it all worth it. And He was right. Just as God’s plan was perfect for Jesus, it’s perfect for you and me. The question is whether you will trust Him enough to actually do what He says, or whether you will lean on your own judgment and tactics instead. Will you obediently wait for God’s plan to unfold or will you try to force your own agenda with sinful actions and tactics?

Finally, we too must render a judgment on Jesus. The trial of Jesus reminds us that each of us must answer for ourselves who we believe Jesus to be. There are many around the world who would tell you that Jesus was a great moral teacher, but that He would be appalled by people claiming He was God. I hope you have seen today that Jesus was very clear on who He was and is. The question you face is whether you will believe His testimony and the testimony of others about Him or whether you will ignore Him and treat Him as one voice among many competing voices of “truth”.

Who is Jesus to you? Is He simply a figure from history? Is He someone who can give you insight into how to live? Is He an example to emulate? Or is He something more?

Jesus’ message is clear. You are not good and you need His help. It is easy to convince ourselves that we are basically good people, but we are not. God calls us to be perfect, but that ship sailed long ago. Every one of us has sinned and deserves condemnation. Our only hope is for someone to volunteer to take our penalty—someone who is sinless, and whose life is of far greater value than ours. Jesus uniquely meets those requirements, but the question is what will you do with that knowledge?

The only way we can be forgiven is if we will turn to Jesus and ask Him to do what we can’t—to forgive us and to begin the process of changing us from the inside out. It means seeking to live our lives to honor Him; not because we can be good enough, but because we trust Him enough to follow Him, because we know that His way is right and good, and because we know that one day we will have to give an account before Him for our actions.

This is the real question we must all grapple with—who is Jesus to you? If Jesus is nothing more than a person you think of on Sunday; if He is not the One who is the focus of your life, be on guard, because you ignore Him at your own peril.

Jesus was tried in a kangaroo court. He was judged unfairly. The result was an incredible miscarriage of justice. We must remember that one day we too will stand trial, but unlike in Jesus’ trial justice will be served. So don’t make the same mistake as the religious leaders of the day. See Jesus for who he really is, and follow Him with everything you’ve got.

[1] Barclay, William. The Gospel of Matthew. Third Ed. The New Daily Study Bible. Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 2001.