The conversation about “who killed Jesus” is a very electric topic that you don’t dive into hastily. With so much antisemitism that swirls under the surface, handling this question can be a ticking time bomb. Nevertheless, it is interesting to make some very basic observations about what gets Jesus in so much trouble.
Without a doubt, I will not let Rome off the hook in this story, but I want to deal with Rome and Pilate in a later post, so I won’t talk about them here. There is no question that Rome plays a part in the crucifixion of Jesus. They have to: The Jewish leadership does not have the judicial authority to execute prisoners by crucifixion. So, at the very least, Rome authorizes the death of Jesus.
But what gets Jesus in trouble is something far deeper than the Roman authorities. This would be the perfect place to go back and review our lesson that explained the context of the Sadducees and the chief priests.
There are a few things that should be stated right up front:
“The Jews” didn’t kill Jesus. This has been one of the most destructive misinterpretations of history the world has ever seen. Millions of Jews have been slaughtered in the name of this false idea. All throughout the gospels, it is clear the Jewish people loved, adored, and even revered Jesus. The plot to kill Jesus hinges completely upon executing Jesus outside the eye of the Jewish public so they won’t rebel against the Jewish leaders. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the phrase, “Jesus entered Jerusalem to cheers from the crowd only to be crucified by them a week later.” To be very clear, it was not the same crowd. Jesus is arrested, tried, and beaten by a corrupt body of ruling priests and their “mafia-style justice.”
Even though the Pharisees helped arrange this plot (at least a few of them did), the Pharisees were not the ones who led the charge in this execution. This is completely unappreciated in our teachings. The Pharisees and the Sadducees despised each other! That they would work together to conspire against Jesus is incredible culturally. It makes me think the Pharisees involved were as corrupt as the chief priests. One must keep in mind that the Pharisees tried to save Jesus’s life more than once earlier on in his ministry.
It is the chief priests who conspire against Jesus and arrange his execution. It’s worth noticing that Jesus spends three years confronting the Pharisees within every corner of their theology and survives to tell the tale, and even continues to engage them in their methods up until his death. Compare that to the fact Jesus spends less than one week confronting the corrupt rule of the chief priests and he gets himself killed. This is why Jesus knows he is going to die in Jerusalem. It’s not because he has his “God goggles” on, looking into the future; it’s because he knows he is headed into Jerusalem to confront the injustice of the religious mafia — and nobody survives to tell that tale.
Once we have an understanding of the corruption that lied behind the execution of Jesus, it helps us appreciate the story on so many levels.
Why Jesus is tried by the “Sanhedrin”? Josephus told us there were two groups of Sanhedrin: there was the formal ruling body made up of Sadducees and Pharisees, and there was the the informal back-door Sanhedrin who met in the home of the chief priest. They made decisions that were later “ratified” in the formal body. That’s how this corruption operated. Where was Jesus tried? In the home of the chief priest. This is not the formal Sanhedrin, but the informal one.
This helps us see why the trial of Jesus is so corrupt, breaking over fifteen commandments held by Jewish teaching about how to conduct an investigation and hold a trial appropriately. They break all of these rules because they don’t care. They are the chief priests.
This will help us understand the political sway that this group will hold over Pilate later.
This will help us understand many things. My recommendation would be to go back and read the story again, realizing that the “chief priests” are corrupt families running a completely corrupt Temple system.
But now we need to discuss the betrayer who assists in bringing this plan to action.
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