...the Kingdom of God has come...

Jesus before the Sanhedrin

“66 When the day broke, the assembly of the elders of the people, both chief priests and scribes, gathered together, and they brought him to their council. 67 They said, ‘If you are the Messiah, tell us.’ He replied, ‘If I tell you, you will not believe; 68 and if I question you, you will not answer. 69 But from now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God.’ 70 All of them asked, ‘Are you, then, the Son of God?’ He said to them, ‘You say that I am.’ 71 Then they said, ‘What further testimony do we need? We have heard it ourselves from his own lips!’”

Jesus before Pilate

“1 Then the assembly rose as a body and brought Jesus before Pilate” Luke 22: 66-71; 23:1.

The Sanhedrin are meeting, let’s remind ourselves, because over the course of the previous few days – and, before that, over the previous year or two – Jesus had been doing and saying things that were, frankly, outrageous in terms of the world-views and hopes of those in power in Jerusalem, especially the Sanhedrin.

All of that had come to a head when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem on a donkey to challenge their power-base by going to the Temple and throwing out the traders. The best explanation for that is that, like Jeremiah or one of the other old prophets, Jesus was acting out a powerful symbol, which He then explained to His followers. The Temple was under God’s judgment. All its meaning and history, particularly its significance as the place where God met with His people, was now being drawn to a different place. To a person.

But there’s only one person, other than the high priest, who has rights over the Temple. As you hide in the corner and watch the scene, you realize how the connection has been made. It is the king who builds the Temple (think of Solomon), or who has the right to declare its future. But now the king means the Messiah, the anointed one. And the Messiah, according to the scriptures, will be ‘Son of God’. That’s what Psalm 2 said:

“1 Why do the nations conspire, and the peoples plot in vain?

2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together,    

against the Lord and his anointed, saying,

3 ‘Let us burst their bonds asunder, and cast their cords from us.’

4 He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord has them in derision.

5 Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying,

6 ‘I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.’

7 I will tell of the decree of the Lord:   He said to me,

‘You are my son; today I have begotten you.

8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,    

and the ends of the earth your possession.

9 You shall break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel’” Psalm 2:1-9.

These connections would be obvious to them, though we have to think through them to catch their full force. But it all adds up to an explosive mix of false accusations. And Jesus does nothing to deflect them. In fact, He makes matters worse. He alludes to the famous Old Testament passage (in Daniel 7) where ‘one like a son of man’ is brought to sit at the right hand of God himself. In other words, He is given authority, under God, over the whole world.

This is the coming of the kingdom of God.

As Jesus said, He wouldn’t be drinking with His friends again until God’s kingdom came. This is how He believed it had to happen.

In the scene in Daniel, four mythological monsters come up out of the sea to attack God’s people. The last one is the most arrogant. Then God acts, snatching up the ‘one like a Son of Man’ and vindicating Him, setting Him in authority. Jesus had hinted darkly, several times before and in various ways, that all this would come true in His own life story. Now the hour had come.

And so dear friends, remember there are many people in the world today who face unfair courts with state prosecutors whose sole concern is to catch them out and discredit them or put them to death. Today, our country is gathering up illegal immigrants, most of whom have never been criminals, flying them to airports in distant foreign countries and dumping them in strange airports, alone. Pray for them, and for God’s justice to flourish throughout the world.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.