Wednesday, April 1

Mark 14: 53-65 THE JEWISH TRIAL

Now the chief priests and the whole council were looking for testimony against Jesus to put him to death; but they found none.  For many gave false testimony against him, and their testimony did not agree.

Before he was crucified, Jesus was tried twice, first by the Jewish religious leaders of the Sanhedrin and second by the Roman military occupiers.  The Jewish Trial was a sham.  The law called for there to be two witnesses in agreement -- but two could not be found to tell the same false story that Jesus had spoken blasphemy.  The religious leaders who feared Jesus as a threat to their authority had already decided that he must die.  The crucifixion was a lynching -- and the trial was a trial not of Jesus but of the religious institution. 

Institutions have ways of protecting themselves through the misuse of power, promoting fear, encouraging divisiveness, and putting themselves above the way of God.     People of faith can -- people of faith must -- hold the institutions to the higher standard of our covenant with God.

God is eternal -- and it is to God  that we owe our trust and our loyalty.  Heaven and Earth shall pass away, but God . . .  endures.