"The Cost of our Redemption:
Caiaphas -- Religious Custom"
March 10/02 Jn.11:45-53
Intro: Whodunnit?
Murder mysteries have been catching since long before the days of Sherlock Holmes. Recently, mystery dinner theatres have become popular. Arriving at the home of the host, you discover you're part of a crime scene, and you actually take a part as a character in the fictitious murder investigation. Or, there's the board game Clue, which is popular with our own family. The challenge is to find out who committed the crime, how, and where. For example: maybe it was "Mrs Peacock" with the lampstand in the billiard room. Or maybe "Colonel Mustard" with the revolver in the kitchen. The winner of the game succeeds in being the first to identify who the guilty party is, and the circumstances surrounding the crime.
Between now and Easter, let's embark on a "murder mystery" case with a religious twist. As we seek to understand who was involved in arranging Jesus' death, we'll come to appreciate more the cost and value of our redemption. Each suspect has a motive, some factor so important to them that they choose to pursue that even if it means that Jesus has to die. By choosing this motive instead of what Jesus offered, they became a contributor in some way to Jesus' death. They were saying, in effect, "I want THIS, I value this, more than this supposed Saviour;" Jesus' death becomes the price they're willing to pay to have this objective. As we compare these choices, we begin to appreciate more the worth of our Saviour's sacrifice, the value of His life compared to the counterfeits or idols these other folks were trying so desperately to hang on to. In the end, no earthly treasure compares to the cross; each of these alternatives winds up disappointing those who sought them, trusted them, pursued them. And the New Testament describes how, in Jesus, God offers us something better.
Who are the prime suspects and their motives? One was Caiaphas, seeking to maintain religious customs. Another, Judas, knuckled under for more money. Pilate was after power and control. Peter clung to security, particularly life itself. And for Mary, Jesus' mother, the value she had to learn to release was family, her own son. Yet in all these areas, the Lord offers something better. We are redeemed, bought back, with precious blood; and in our Saviour we discover alternatives, something that is ours in Christ that outweighs anything we have to give up in yielding to Him. Jesus calls us to prize Him more than these things, and holds out to us a better alternative when we receive His Sovereign Lordship over our keenest desires.
Caiaphas: Profile of a Murder Suspect
We begin this week with Caiaphas, the high priest who condemned Jesus as deserving death. Surely he's a prime suspect, being instrumental in arranging Jesus' conviction. What do we know about Caiaphas? What were his possible motives for the crime?
Caiaphas was a Sadducee as well as high priest. Who were the Sadducees? Did they have a record like the Hells Angels or the Mafia? A Bible dictionary tells us Sadducees were "the political party of the Jewish aristocratic priesthood...Under the Romans, they became the party favourable to the government. As aristocrats, they were naturally very conservative, and were more interested in maintaining the status quo than in the religious purity of the nation. Since they were satisfied with the present, they did not look forward to a future Messianic age." Josephus, a Jewish historian, laid great stress upon the aristocratic nature of the Sadducees; he wrote, "They only gain the well-to-do; they have not the people on their side."
Whenever I think of the Sadducees, I'm reminded that they didn't believe in the resurrection: that's why they were so sad-you-see! They held that only the written laws of the first five books of the Bible were permanently valid; they believed the soul died with the body, there were no angels or demons, eternal rewards or punishment; and they believed people have free choice between good and evil. Another Bible dictionary states, "In manner the Sadducees were rather boorish, being rude to their peers as to aliens, and counting it a virtue to dispute with their teachers." Under King Herod and the Romans, the Sadducees predominated in the Sanhedrin, the ruling Jewish council. After the temple was destroyed in 70 AD, the party died out. Caiaphas was a Sadducee.
And not just any Sadducee, but the high priest. He presided over the 71-member Sanhedrin. After 66 BC the Romans appointed not only the civl officers (such as Herod) but also the high priests, with the result, we're told, "that the office declined spiritually". "The high-priesthood was almost a political office, the priests still coming from the descendants of Aaron, but being generally appointed for worldly considerations." Annas served as high priest AD 7-14; his son-in-law Caiaphas succeeded him from AD 18-36, although Annas continued to be in the picture as kind of a "high priest emeritus". (After all, don't we like to be consulted in our son-in-law's decisions? Hmmm?)
We get a little insight into Caiaphas' personality in John 11:49 when his peers are wondering what to do and he blusters forth, "You know nothing at all!" Obviously he was not one for the diplomatic approach or finesse. He probably didn't care about other people's feelings: after all, he'd made it to the top of the religious establishment. What comes to mind is the type of burly municipal reeve who speaks his mind and has no time for petty annoyances (which in his mind sums up just about everybody else's agenda). Commentator BW Johnson describes Caiaphas as "crafty, cruel, sensual". He was deposed three years later.
Motive: Eliminate Jesus' Threat to Religious Customs
So that's a quick take, a mug shot, of this murder suspect. Character- and association-wise, we wouldn't be surprised if such a guy might "take out" someone perceived to be a threat. So, why might Jesus become a target in the crosshairs of Caiaphas' sight?
The Sadducees were unhappily yoked to the Pharisees because they needed the latter's popular support. Both groups had a vested interest in maintaining the religious customs and limited freedoms they held tentatively under Roman supervision. The Pharisees were unquestionably the more religious or devout of the two groups. Caiaphas was more concerned with maintaining the status quo than with religious purity, but along with all the Sanhedrin he sensed the need to maintain some kind of religious order if the Romans were to not interfere and impose their own customs. Having carefully brokered an arrangement of compromise with their political overlords, the President and ruling council assumed there was a connection between religious orderliness and their security as a nation. Anyone who threatened that orderliness, the status quo, would not be tolerated.
Enter Jesus of Nazareth onto the scene. One of the first recorded acts in his ministry in John's gospel is a clearing of the temple (John 2:14-16). He drove out cattle, sheep, and doves, and overturned tables of the money-changers, denouncing them for turning His Father's house "into a market". The leaders demanded, "What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?" Jesus answered, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days." The Jews replied, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?" (John 2:18-20) You can sense their pride in the magnificent building: "This thing took 46 years to build; it didn't just spring up overnight, y'know!" They were very defensive of their bustling religious enterprise, and took a dim view of radical prophets who questioned it. Yet Jesus went on to clear the temple near the end of his ministry, too (Mt.21:12,23). Again the powers-that-be challenged His authority to do this.
Today we consider Jesus' raising of Lazarus after he'd been dead several days a wonderful miracle. But to the Sanhedrin, it was bad news. They worried, "If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation." (John 11:48) Can you hear the fear in their voice? "This upstart! The world is going after Him! We'll be ruined when Caesar finds out!" It was at this point that Caiaphas took initiative and spoke up; his words sealed Jesus' doom. He concluded, "It is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish." Caiaphas was a practical, cut-to-the-chase, end-justifies-the-means kinda guy. He was willing to eliminate Jesus because in his mind that might preserve the religious customs the nation and its bosses had come to expect. John adds, "So from that day one they plotted to take his life." Jesus was a marked man. It's ironic that Caiaphas' words introduce clearly the idea of Jesus' substitutionary death for others. The Sanhedrin didn't realize that the sacrifices of sheep and cattle -- the very religious customs they were so intent on preserving -- were only a sign, a type, a foreshadowing of the death of the real innocent Lamb Jesus to make atonement for the sins of the whole world.
The invisible noose around Jesus' neck began to tighten. When the religious authorities failed to trap Him by tricky questions, He in turn told some parables that were directly aimed at them, and they knew it. They looked for a way to arrest Him, though they feared the crowd who considered Him a prophet (Mt.21:45f)
When they nabbed Him secretly and rushed through a mock trial, palms were greased and false witnesses testified. They were having trouble getting any charges to stick, though Matthew notes two declared, "This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days.’" (Matthew 26:61) Jesus was perceived to be a significant threat to their established religious ways and icon, the temple. Finally Caiaphas cornered Jesus by charging Him by an oath to say if He was the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus could not deny that. But instead of bowing before the Lord, or checking out the wrong information about Jesus being from Nazareth instead of Bethlehem, Caiaphas declared Jesus a blasphemer, an impostor, and worthy of death. "Get this trash out of my way! Why waste any more time with this fake?"
Caiaphas did not want a Messiah. That would mess too much with his own plans. The temple system HAD to continue. The Sanhedrin HAD to keep authority, with Caiaphas at its head. He couldn't imagine any other religious or political set-up. Jesus had to go. Even when Jesus was hanging on the cross, the chief priests and other leaders mocked him. "He saved others," they said, "but he can’t save himself! He’s the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.He trusts in God.Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’" (Matthew 27:41-43) The champions of Jewish religious custom sneered at the thought that this might be the Messiah. Messiahs don't get crucified, they thought. Messiahs save others so they must at least be able to save themselves. Jesus just didn't fit their religious expectations.
As additional evidence of the motives of Caiaphas and cohorts, the same charges appear when Stephen is arrested in Acts 6(13-14). There the false witnesses testify, "This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law.For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us."
Incidentally, did killing Jesus, Stephen, and other early Christians secure the protection of Jewish religious customs? Barely 40 years later, in 70 AD, the Temple was destroyed by the Romans. The Sadducees disappeared from the scene, not to resurface again.
Jesus' Alternative: Breathes New Life into Religious Customs
Caiaphas clung desperately to his idol or god, religious customs, as the most important thing in life. He sacrificed Jesus to that god. But that did not save him; soon after, Caiaphas was deposed, his name associated forever with a blatant miscarriage of justice and blindness to the One faithful Jews had been awaiting for centuries. Jesus offers a better alternative than getting stuck in religious customs which can never satisfy in themselves. He breathes new life into worship. Jesus puts the "real" into "religion". With Him, no longer is faith just about an outward place or performance, but a living, portable, spiritual connectedness to God who is present everywhere.
Note Jesus' misinterpreted response when he cleanses the Temple in John 2. "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days." But the temple he had spoken of was his body, John adds (2:19,21). Jesus was proposing a quantum leap from religion as "going to a place out there" to "being God's dwelling - in here, in oneself". Paul told the Corinthians, "Don’t you know that you yourselves [the group collectively] are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?" And, "Do you not know that your body [personally] is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?" As well: "We are the temple of the living God." (1Cor.3:16;6:19; 2Cor.6:16) Jesus was unfolding the project or "new covenant" hinted at by Jeremiah (31:33) speaking of God putting his law within us, knowing each one; and by God's promise through Ezekiel, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws." (Ezekiel 36:26-27)
Jesus countered the assumptions of the woman at the well. She focused on location and said, "Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem." He said, "A time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem...a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." (John 4:20-24) Religion isn't about routine sacrifices or going-through-the-motions at a certain spot, but relating to God on His terms.
The Feast of Tabernacles was a harvest festival which commemorated the Israelites' camping out in the desert, supplied by heavenly manna, with water gushing from the rock. At the high point in the festivities, water was brought from the Pool of Siloam in a golden pitcher and poured out on the altar, recalling God's miraculous provision of water for the thirsty desert wanderers. Quite possibly it was at this time in the ceremony that Jesus interrupted and diverted attention to Himself. We read in John 7 (verses that are key to our identity as Living Water Christian Fellowship): "On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, 'If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.' By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive..."(John 7:37-39) Over against a ritual, a repeated religious custom, Jesus offered an experience of HIMSELF by the Holy Spirit. Religion not as ceremony, but the celebration of an endless living relationship in oneness with God, the barrier of sin swept away by Jesus' gift of Himself having born the consequences of our sin.
Paul expressed this well in Philippians 3 when he goes through the long list of his religious "credentials" - circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, yada yada yada - and declares all that is rubbish, refuse, junk. That's outward stuff, performance based on human effort. But what really makes us God's people, the true circumcision? "We who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence (no stock, place no importance or significance) in the flesh." Paul considers everything - his stack of badges and certificate from the school of Gamaliel - loss, rubbish, "compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord..." Religion is real when it's a living relationship, day by day, with our Saviour.
"Who, me?" - How not to be an Accomplice to the Murder
We don't want to get nailed with Caiaphas as guilty of murder. Here are three applications to help us escape the trap of valuing religious custom more highly than Jesus.
1) Don't get hung up on superficial issues / customs
The Enemy chuckles when his minions succeed in getting Christians embroiled in conflict over nonessential matters. For example, will the new building have pews or chairs? Carpet or plain cement? And debating over style of worship music has to be the all-time favourite. Let's not harp on issues that aren't all that important to our mission. The Sanhedrin clung to the temple when God was trying to introduce something earth-shakingly new; and they shot the messenger, His own Son. You may have heard of "the seven last words from the cross"; have you heard of "the seven last words of the church"? They are - "We never did it that way before."
The latest edition of Christian Week reports that a church in Belleville has installed an Interac machine that allows people to use their debit cards to give their tithes or purchase items from special events. Unthinkable? At Desert Stream Christian Fellowship (what a wierd name for a church!) the pastor asks, "How is it any different from writing a cheque? ...It's another way we use technology to make life easier for those who have such busy and hectic lives to start with." It may also have been a significant factor in turning a projected $40,000 deficit last year into a $50,000 surplus. It's estimated 40% of the weekly offerings come through Interac.
Also in the "unheard of" department, a Pentecostal church in Calgary donated $100,000 to the building fund of a congregation affiliated with (guess who?) the Evangelical Missionary Church of Canada. Seems the EMC church is bulging at the seams with 5 weekend services and plans a new $13.5 million building that will boost its capacity to 10,000 people on a weekend. The Pentecostal pastor said the decision to contribute to the building fund of a church of another denomination wasn't difficult: "We have a mandate to see the church in Calgary move forward - the church corporate, I mean - and Centre Street [the EMC church] has been doing God's work in this city." An elder at a Baptist church in the city said, "It's past time that we put denominational differences aside and worked together like these churches have done, thereby promoting the kind of unity that Jesus prayed would exist among His people." Praise God for vision that doesn't get hung up on customs or affiliations!
2) Are my habits inhibiting the Spirit's habitation?
Caiaphas was comfortable in a religious "rut", and chose not to change. It's easy for us to fall into spiritual "ruts" or habits that quench God's Spirit Who indwells us when we come to put our trust in Christ. Perhaps we figure that if we go to church once a week and give our tithe, that's enough. But that's not growth. Then there's our bad habits -- too much of questionable things. Try not to intoxicate the temple by alcohol, drugs, tobacco; even coffee can be addicting. What pulls you too much? Food, TV, sports, computer? What's your compulsion? We all need someone to ask us periodically (as someone asked me when I turned on the computer later one evening), "Are you obsessed?" Jesus died and rose so we can stay free from having something take over. He's out to grow your whole life, that you may "be found in Him" as Paul says (Php 3:9). Sample a new discipline, let the Spirit guide you to delve deeper. You'll avoid the misery the counterfeits bring on.
3) Don't dismiss people - discover their spiritual thirst
Caiaphas and the Sandhedrin dismissed Jesus because they thought he was from Galilee. Don't write people off just because they don't fit your categories. Engage them and discover the thirst, the spiritual longings that motivate them.
Many people would have ignored the woman at the well in Samaria if they knew she'd had five failed marriages. But Jesus saw that unfulfilment as an opportunity for ministry. As a "teaser" he hinted, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." (John 4:10) Because He cared about her, she shared with the whole village how wonderful He was. He saw not a mistress but a missionary.
You might fear for your safety if Claude Legris rode his motorcycle up to you. But he's more likely to pull out a tract for you than a gun or a knife. He might start telling you how he used to spend his days dealing drugs and stealing, his nights sleeping with a gun at his side. He wondered about the meaning of true freedom. Legris' dad used to be his drinking buddy; but then his dad started talking about Jesus and the Bible and the God-sized emptiness in people's hearts. The son was impressed by the change in his father. Next time he visited, Legris Senior told his son he needed to pray and ask for forgiveness and God would fill his emptiness.
After Claude's conversion, he started to read the Bible. He says, "I found the story of Jesus so fascinating that I stopped drinking. I didn't have time." He founded the Maranatha Biker Club which shares the gospel with bikers, addicts, and outlaws in prisons, detox centres and on the streets. From May to September about 40 members spend their weekends riding their bikes and doing evangelism. They publish pamphlets with biker testimonies and a small newspaper that also goes into prisons. Now, who'd have thought...
Jesus offers something much better than religious custom. He whom Caiaphas condemned invites us to share God's very Spirit and life, the real thing. Are you convicted? What's your motive? Is there enough evidence to convict you of being His follower? Let's pray.