These studies will focus in on an aspect of the Cross and our Saviour's sufferings there that receives less attention than I think it ought.
It is that He not only bore our sins there, He also bore our griefs and carried our sorrows there. That He reconciled sinners to God in the body of His flesh through death is preached often. We ponder less often the fact that in the body of His flesh through death He reconciled sufferers to God - not those who have sinned only, but those who have been sinned against. He was 'numbered among the transgressors'; He was numbered also among the victims of transgressors.
The verse that stands like a caption over the whole series is Isaiah 63:7-9: "In all their afflictions he was Himself afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old."
For some, this may be an unfamiliar angle from which to view the Cross, but there is a Word spoken to us from it that addresses not only our guilt, but our need. Christ crucified speaks not only to our sins, but also to our hurts. And it seems to me that the one is almost as important as the other, for many of our sins grow out of our hurts … our most grievous sins out of our most grievous hurts.
To be treated with contempt, for example, makes us angry, and our anger leads us into sin. That simple observation, which our own experience confirms, accounts for so much of the lawlessness that bedevils our society. We have for so long scorned the traditional moral values of chastity and fidelity that the resulting breakdown of marriage and family has bred two, three generations of children, thousands of whom have been denied dependable love.
To be abandoned by those you trust and on whom you depend is to suffer - to be deeply wounded in spirit. Out of that hurt grows anger … and our society is filling up with hurt, angry people … jobless young people especially for whom the early rejection of childhood is being reinforced by the continuing rejection of society. That is a state of affairs that is brewing violence on an ever-increasing scale. If it is not remedied 'the lucky country' is heading for civil strife - somewhere down the track blood will run in our cities' streets. Laugh if we will; a day is coming when there will be laughter no longer.
It is no accident that questions of human rights are becoming more and more a social and international issue. When Cedric Johnson, the Queensland State Ombudsman, retired, I asked him what trends in society had impressed him during his term of office. Among other things, his observation was that the level of discontent, frustration, resentment and anger across the board in our society was noticeably rising. So the message of the Cross is as relevant to our life in society as it is to our personal lives.
It is my earnest prayer that this series may bring healing where healing is needed, emotional healing especially. And that is important, for many of our physical illnesses grow directly out of emotional ills. I remember being profoundly affected by an observation made by the Rev. George Bennett, an Anglican Rector who had for many years exercised a remarkable, though quiet, healing ministry at the Crowhurst Home of Healing in Sussex, where I attended a pastors' seminar once. Years of close, personal relations with visitors to the home had convinced him that cancer is often a consequence of harbouring a deep, unshared grief; that folk who nursed a bitter hatred against their own kin frequently developed multiple sclerosis; that arthritis and rheumatoid arthritis tended to develop in folk who nursed deep resentments, or angry frustrations; that folk who were obsessed with the need to catch up with what were felt to be impossible demands frequently developed asthma; that epilepsy sometimes developed as a symptom of deep, hidden tensions. That is not to say that these factors are the only ones that bring on these illnesses, but the connection was often enough established, he felt, to be significant.
"At first," I remember him saying, "a person and his illness are separate; but there comes a point when the person and his illness become inseparable; the illness now belongs to his psyche. When that point has been reached, no merely medical treatment will permanently succeed. If the person is unwilling for the hidden things that have precipitated the illness to be exposed and faced again, the prognosis is very poor indeed."
One of the most profound observations on our Lord's healing ministry made in Matthew's Gospel is his quotation, embedded in his summary of that healing ministry in ch. 8:17: 'This was to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah, "He took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses."' (Isaiah 53:4) We should never forget to place that alongside the more familiar affirmation of Peter's that "He bore our sins in His own person on the tree." (I Peter 2:24)
The element in our Lord's suffering to which we turn attention first is that justice was denied Him.
On the lips of those who suffer injustice the question "Why?" arises constantly. An experience of injustice always threatens to undermine our faith.
Christ was innocent. None of His judges could 'find any fault in this man.' Yet He was outlawed before He was judged, condemned without trial, and cursed before He was dead. His arrest, His so-called trial and His execution were as unjust as anything history records being done to a man. No-one ever did so much for others, only to be so absolutely rejected for it. In spite of all the good He did, the healing He wrought and the truth He spoke, He became the object of the most venomous and unreasoning rage.
If you have ever been shocked and hurt by having someone say to you, after you have been sincerely kind to them, "Oh, drop dead!", imagine what it was like for Jesus to recognise in the crowd faces of people He had loved and healed, contorted now with hate-filled rage, and yelling like animals, "Crucify Him!"
By law, there should have been a properly constituted trial, followed (if the prosecution proved the case) by condemnation, followed by the punishment. Among the Jews the crime of blasphemy led to the capital punishment of death by stoning. But here, the Roman punishment, crucifixion, ended the life of a man who had broken no Roman law.
Why? Because for Annas and Caiaphas, getting Jesus stoned was not bad enough. Stoning did not exhibit a man, did not expose him to public shame; it hid him rather, in the end, under the stones that crushed him. That was not cruel enough, not persecutory enough, for them. They wanted Him publicly disgraced.
Even common law and common justice were denied Him.
Those who are, or who are made, helpless continually suffer in this way. It is in their defence that the General Assembly of the United Nations drew up, in 1948, a Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Among its provisions are:
But look at the facts in Jesus' case. Annas, Caiaphas, Herod and Pilate were all guilty of gross injustice.
Why was Jesus taken first to him? Who was Annas?
In the Biblical record he first appears in the time of John the Baptist, where Luke says a simply extraordinary thing: that John's ministry began "during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas." It was quite impossible for there ever to be two high priests in office at the same time. What did Luke mean?
Over a long period of time the high priesthood in Israel had acquired, in addition to the religious authority it carried, considerable civil powers. Rome allowed the High Priest to retain those civil powers, provided he toed the line with Roman policy. To ensure that he did, Rome arrogated to herself the power to appoint or dismiss him … which mortally offended the Jews, for whom the office of High Priest was held to be an appointment by God, for life.
In AD 15 Rome deposed Annas. But such was the old man's cunning that his four successors, one after the other, were his own sons, and the fifth, Caiaphas, his son-in-law. He was still, in Jewish eyes, the real High Priest, and he was still the real power behind the scenes. That is why they took Jesus first to Annas for a preliminary unofficial trial, before they took him for the official trial to Caiaphas. No-one dared ignore the old man in a matter of such importance.
Annas had another reason, too, to insist that Jesus appear first before him. When Jesus cleansed the temple He had hit the old man where it hurt - in his pocket and in his pride. The sale of sacrificial animals in the temple with Jewish, not Roman money, which had to be exchanged at exorbitant rates there, was a blatant racket whose profits went into the coffers of the high priestly family. Everyone in Jerusalem referred to the Temple Market as "Annas' Bazaar." Jesus was the man - the only man - who had dared to expose and condemn the old scoundrel's wicked vested interests; and Annas wanted the sweet taste of revenge.
Jesus made His protest on the Monday of His last week in Jerusalem; He was in Annas' clutches by Thursday night. It had not taken Annas long to react! The man had manipulated the arm of the law like any Mafia boss.
It was not a legally constituted trial: it was a kangaroo court. Mark the gross injustice of the scene. In law, Jesus is an innocent man. No charge has yet been brought against Him; yet He has been arrested by the Temple police, and is already bound and in custody.
This was a flagrant violation, not only of human justice, but also of Jewish law. Jewish law as given by Moses laid it down that "a single witness shall not prevail against a man for any crime, or for any wrong in connection with an offence he has committed; only on the evidence of two witnesses, or of three, shall a charge be sustained." (Deut. 19:15) But here there is as yet neither charge nor witnesses. Instead, Annas "questioned Jesus about His teaching and His disciples."
Why? Did Annas not know? If he did not, why had he had Jesus arrested at all? Annas knew all right. He questioned Jesus for one reason only: to provoke Him by craft and cunning into saying something then and there to incriminate Himself. Many had tried to do that before. Where they all had failed, Annas thought to succeed. He had only to trap Him in cross-examination and Jesus would incriminate Himself.
This is the interrogation method used by the Gestapo on Jews, or by the KGB. Annas is in flagrant violation of the very law whose chief defender he is appointed - and pretends - to be.
And it angered Jesus. Jesus before Annas was an angry man; and in this He displayed both a true humanity, and the character of God. Before Caiaphas and Pilate, He will be strangely silent; but with Annas He was not silent at all. He spoke boldly and His words stung. That He spoke in anger is clear from the way the Temple guard who struck Him reacted to His words: "You answer the High Priest so?" Mark the "so" - Jesus openly rebuked the High Priest of Israel. In what He said all the emphasis falls on the personal pronoun. "I have spoken openly to the world. I have said all I have to say in public. In secret I've said nothing."
The implication was clear: "I have nothing to hide, Annas. What I did, I did out in the open; what you are doing now, you are having to do under cover of night. You think to accuse me under Moses' Law of enticing the people away from a true obedience to God so you can have me legally killed? It is you who are trying to entice me. Here, against all justice and law, you think to make me incriminate myself. I will not do it. If you have a case against me, bring forward evidence and witnesses, as the Law requires. Ask your own officers here what my teaching is. You sent a squad of them once to arrest me, remember? I recognise them. They heard me so well they forgot their mission."
So great a boldness had Jesus' anger lent his speech, one of the officers standing by said, "That's no way to speak to Israel's High Priest!" and struck Jesus on the mouth.
Quick as a flash, Jesus rounded on him, "If I have spoken wrongly, bear witness to the wrong. But if not, why do you strike me?"
Jesus utters no threat, He offers no retaliation; His anger is a righteous anger that does not lead Him to sin. Rather, He suffers - but not without protest. And by His protest their evil intent is exposed.
Annas had thought to gloat over Him. This impertinent, bogus rabbi would learn that no man challenged Annas and got away with it. But instead of humiliating the prisoner, the prisoner had humiliated him.
Annas finally fell silent. He realised he was helpless to do more and must acknowledge defeat. Jesus passes on, and the old man is left alone in the night, the memory scorched upon his mind of the exposure of his evil by the pure and righteous anger of the Son of God.
"Those who had seized Jesus led Him to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and elders had gathered" … like vultures, hovering over the awaited corpse. (Matthew 26:57)
The chief mark of the trial before Caiaphas was illegality, as the chief mark of the trial before Pilate will be injustice.
Presided over by the high priest, the Sanhedrin was the supreme court of the Jews. It numbered seventy-one members composed of Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees and elders of the people. It was bound in its procedures by clear regulations.
• All criminal cases must be tried during the daytime and must be completed during the daytime.
This one was hastily convened at night.
• Criminal cases must not be transacted during the Passover season at all.
This one was held on the eve of Passover.
• Only if the verdict was "NOT guilty" could a case be finished on the day it was begun; otherwise a night must elapse before the pronouncement of the verdict, so that feelings of mercy might have time to arise.
No such delay was allowed.
• Further, no decision of the Sanhedrin was valid unless it met in its official meeting place, the Hall of Hewn Stone in the temple precincts.
This trial was held in the high priest's house.
• As to witnesses, all evidence had to be guaranteed by two witnesses separately examined, and having no contact with each other.
Here the two witnesses were questioned together.
• Further, the evidence for the innocence of the accused must be laid before the court before the evidence for his guilt."
This provision was totally ignored.
The Sanhedrin proceeded that night with a total, cynical disregard for all considerations of legality. It was a villainous, vicious business.
In the end, since he was getting nowhere, Caiaphas did what the Law forbad - invited the prisoner to condemn himself out of his own mouth.
Pilate was quite convinced of the prisoner's innocence, and repeatedly said so. The first injustice he perpetrated was to order a flogging, even so, simply to satisfy the blood lust of His accusers.
The demand that Jesus be crucified he resisted, however … until it became clear that to do so was more than his job was worth. The priests threatened to report him to Caesar for failing to condemn a political rebel. He knew their threat was no idle one. If they reported unfavourably on him to Caesar it would not matter what sort of defence he presented - his inability to control the situation without recourse to higher authority would spell an end to his career; all hope of promotion would be finished.
That is what finally got to him - penetrated all his de-fences and stung him on the raw. Self-interest won the day, and, against all evidence and law, against even his own better judgment, he handed Jesus over.
"Take him then and crucify him."
To save his own skin he abandoned responsibility, murdered truth, trampled on innocence, violated justice, and yielded the day to mob rule. Truth, justice and honour fell in the public square …
Jesus refused to answer the charges Pilate relayed to Him. The only replies he gave were to questions that might have helped save Pilate's honour … and his soul: the questions about truth, the nature of His own kingship, and His evaluation of Pilate's guilt in the matter compared to the guilt of those who had handed Him over.
Jesus gave no answer, "not even to a single charge."
Why not? The answer is given succinctly by Peter: "When He was reviled He did not revile in return; when He suffered He did not threaten; but He trusted to Him Who judges justly." (I Peter 2:23)
No spirit of retaliatory self-justification, springing hot to His own defence out of a sense of outrage, was found in our Saviour; rather, He rested His case with God - "in God I trust, not in my own power of self-defence." That is real faith … in personal crisis: I rest my case wholly with God. He is there, and He is there for me.
What does all this mean for us?
Two things at least: to all who suffer injustice, Jesus is both a model, and a resource.
Being perfect man, God incarnate, our Lord's behaviour in the face of injustice establishes the standard for all men and women of faith.
It is right therefore to be angered by injustice and to protest against it. Only the anger and the protest must not be such as lead us on to sin. The two sins to be avoided to which injustice normally leads us, are …
1. to yield, ourselves, to the same injustice we condemn in our accusers, demanding their immediate punishment without further process of law.
2. to hate our enemy.
The gross injustice Jesus suffered did not turn Him to hate Annas or Caiaphas or Pilate: as we have seen, He strove for their salvation even while He suffered at their hands. Nor did He turn in hate on the mob, or later the soldiers who physically nailed Him to the Cross. He prayed for their forgiveness even as they hammered the nails through His wrists; and to the same mob He sent His disciples six weeks later, "to bless them, in turning them from their wickedness."
He suffered as those suffer who are sinned against.
And why? So that - to use language of Paul's from Ephesians 4:9 - "He might fill all things." He plumbed the depths of human injustice and misery so that there may be left no place in human experience where that misery and injustice do not contain Him … so that those experiences may themselves be the very means by which He comes to us and is given to us.
He was brought low so that all who are brought low, having no strength left to rise, may find Him there with them, where they are … where nothing more is required of them than they are able still to do: to fall into His embrace, so He may bear them and lift them into the resurrection of His new day.
Remember that the injustice He suffered was without remedy. His faith did not produce a deliverance miracle. They killed Him. He died. God, Who in His Son identified with those who suffer every kind of injustice, 'arranged' it so.
Let a man, a woman, contemplate Christ in all the stages of His progress to His final earthly hour, and contemplate Him long enough … and they will find that He has been where they have been, will understand that there is no human condition into which they can come where Christ is not present, until they find themselves crying out with the Psalmist (139:7-10): "Whither shall I flee from Thy Spirit, or go from Thy presence? If I ascend into heaven, Thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, Thou are there; if I dwell in the depths where all life's billows roll over me, even there Thy hand shall hold me."
And they will find that the presence of Christ with them in all these extremities of experience is a healing thing, a renewing thing, so that they will find themselves saying too, "When I awake I am still with Thee."
And if our protest is unavailing, then we suffer; we suffer with Christ - in His fellowship - the way Paul did who wrote, "I make up in my own flesh the full tale of Christ's afflictions, still to be endured, for the sake of those yet to find forgiveness for their sins."
And with Christ, we say, "The hate stops here."
This material is copyright; it may not be quoted, published or reproduced without the author's permission, nor preached without acknowledgment!
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