Have you ever been accused of something you didn’t do?  I have, and it’s not fun.  But what if you were on trial for your life; you would probably do everything you could to “beat the charges.”  And that would be especially true if the charges and possible punishment were serious . . . like deathly serious.  That is exactly what Jesus was facing when He was arrested.

In Mark 14:53, after Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, He was brought before the high priest and the Sanhedrin.  The high priest was arguably the most powerful religious leader in Judea in the first century AD.  The Sanhedrin was a group of religious leaders who had taken on the responsibility(and power) of leading the Jews at the time.  So being brought before them with criminal charges was a very serious matter.

The high priest and Sanhedrin could punish some things, but they were not allowed to execute anyone.  The Roman government withheld that power and responsibility from those peoples they ruled over.  This was likely not a matter of concern for the rights of the accused, but probably had more to do with tax paying persons being kept from paying taxes to Rome, because they would be dead.

Many on the Sanhedrin wanted Jesus dead, but before they could accomplish that, they needed to be able to convict Him of a charge that called for the death penalty(Mark 13:55).  However, they were having all kinds of problems accomplishing their goal.  They brought in a variety of witnesses to testify against Jesus, but surprisingly, nobody could seem to keep their stories straight.  It sounds like they had people come in to testify falsely, but they kept contracting each other(Mark 13:56).  Mind you, these are the religious elite of the Jewish community.  And they were having people come in and intentionally provide false testimony.  That was a direct violation of the Law of Moses.  In Ex. 20:16, the ninth of the Ten Commandments, bearing false witness was specifically prohibited.  But I guess if you want something bad enough, breaking God’s law isn’t that important.

  Finally, in Mark 13:60, the high priest speaks up and asks Jesus if He has anything to say in His defense against these charges.  Were this a normal case, I would have strongly suggested that Jesus not say anything.  After all, the witnesses were so contradictory that nothing needed to be said in Jesus’ defense.  However, this is not a normal case; this trial had far greater implications than the guilt or innocence of one individual.

After Jesus declined to say anything in response to His accusers and their false testimony, the high priest asks Jesus if He is the Christ, the Son of the Blessed(Mark 13:61).   At this point, Jesus is probably in the clear.  Even this biased court of people who were out to get Him would have a difficult time exacting any punishment on Jesus.  But then Jesus spoke.  He admitted that He was the Christ, but further He quoted from Dan. 7:13-14(Jesus only quotes from verse 13, but verse 14 is part of the prophecy by Daniel).  The quoted passage from Daniel speaks of one who would be sitting at the right hand of God.  He would be given dominion over a kingdom, and all people would serve Him.  When the high priest heard this, he knew that he had what he wanted out of Jesus(Mark 13:63-64).  Jesus had just committed blasphemy, or at least He did if He was not God.  The Sanhedrin now felt confident that they had a charge for which Jesus could be executed, which is exactly what they had wanted all along(Mark 13:55).

I won’t go any further in the recitation of events that took place after that.  Instead, I would like to draw attention to the fact that without Jesus’ statement, He would not have been convicted and sentenced to die under the Law of Moses.  If any regular person had done this, we would think them a fool!  He could have had the charges dismissed, but instead He drove the nail into His own coffin, or in this case, the nails into His own hands and feet.  But why?

Put simply, Jesus came to this world to die, to be a sacrifice for our sins(John 1:36 and Heb. 9:28; 13:11-15).  So He couldn’t just “beat the charges” against Him.  He had to make certain that those charges, even though they were false, stuck.  He knew that without His sacrifice, we would die in our sin, and in doing so, we would be eternally separated from God.  Father and Son did not want that.  As such, a sacrifice was needed to pay for our guilt.  It was a high price to pay, but Jesus was willing to pay that price.  And to pay that price, He needed to have His blood shed(i.e. be killed) as a sacrifice for sin.  There was simply no other way to redeem us back to God.

As we live our lives, let’s remember just how much God was willing to pay so that we could be restored to Him.  He was willing to have His Son pay the price of our sins . . . for us.  Let’s use that as motivation to live our lives the way that God wants us to.  AND let’s be an example to others, so they can see the good work God has done in us and through us.