Tonight’s text brings us to the fourth phase of Jesus’ six phase trial. He was arrested unjustly in the garden, thanks to Judas’ betrayal He was bound by a crowd of as many as a thousand Roman soldiers and officers from the Jewish high priests. He was taken to the home of Annas, a man who had been the high priest in the past, but had been deposed by the Roman government. There, at Annas’ house, Jesus was unjustly interrogated and then he was struck in the face when he questioned the injustice of what they were doing to him. Annas sent Jesus to Caiaphas, the actual high priest at the time. There, at Caiaphas’ house, Jesus was lied about, spat upon, slapped in the face and openly mocked. And as soon as the sun rose, the Sanhedrin, which was the governing body of Israel, seventy scribes, priests and Pharisees, all gathered to give their official verdict against Jesus…while blasphemy was what they charged him with, they had to figure out something to kill him with. After all of this, they took him to Pilate because Israel was under Rome’s authority and while they were free to govern according to the law of God, they were not free to take anyone’s life. Every phase, every step of Jesus’s arrest, his trial and every single part of it leading to his execution was unjust. He deserved none of it, but he chose all of it.
In this week’s sermon, Pastor Abie Kulynych talks about Jesus’ purpose in coming into this world, namely to bear witness to “The Truth.”