Ep. 6: The Judgement of Caiaphas | The Crucifixion of Jesus

In the events of Good Friday, Jesus comes across so many different people who can become stereotypes in our minds. Take Caiaphas, for example. He's the high priest, the one who's the leader of the religious people who grabbed Jesus and set this whole chain of events into motion. He's evil, right? One dimensional. Well, not quite so fast. See, Caiaphas delivers a line that the Bible holds as prophecy. What was it? My friend Josh is gonna explain it to us right now. I'm here in a courtroom today, which is similar to the setting that Jesus is in. Not as modern, but similar. Jesus was brought before the high priests who were led by a man named Caiaphas. Caiaphas' role was similar to that of the Supreme Court Chief Justice of the United States. He was the person that gave the final judgment and the final say in matters that were brought before the high priests. When we look at the story of Jesus, it's easy for us to look at Caiaphas and skip past him, paint him as the villain, as the bad guy who made a bad judgment. We can say that because we know the full story now.

When we stop and look at the story of Caiaphas, who he was, we can have empathy for him. We can see that he was a man who had a job to do and he was doing that to the best of his abilities. He was the leader of the high priests. That means he was the final judge that had the final say in what happened to anyone that was brought before him. He had studied the Jewish law and knew the history. And just like judges like him in the past, who've had to make hard judgments, judgments that he wanted to make to protect the Jewish people, often to protect them from the wrath of God. We've seen prophets in the Old Testament who made similar claims or statements. Judges were brought and given by God to make calls to protect the Jewish people. And Caiaphas was in a similar situation. This case was brought before Caiaphas as the high priest. Many think that he had political motivations in his decision. His main motivation was upholding the Jewish law, preserving his nation. In addition to being the high priest, he was also appointed by Rome as the leader of the Jewish people, which means he had a responsibility to maintain the integrity of the Jewish nation under the law of Rome. It would have been easy for him to look

at what was happening with Jesus and think that Rome would sweep in at any point in time and wipe out the Jewish people. Not only did he want to preserve the Jewish law and the Jewish nation, he also wants to preserve them being wiped out by Rome. He was in a really tough spot. And it's easy for us to judge him as a man who was a villain, who made the wrong decision. We look at his story, we see a little bit differently. We also can look at the text in Matthew 27. We see as Jesus was brought before him, he asked him multiple questions. And for the first few questions, Jesus is silent. And finally, Caiaphas asked him one final question. He pushes him to the limits. And when Jesus responds, Caiaphas responds, that's blasphemy. And the only thing I can do is sentence you to death. He was a man that was pushed to the limits in his role as the high priest. And he did what he felt like he had to do to preserve his people, to preserve his nation and the Jewish law. When I look at the story of Caiaphas and I put myself in his shoes, I realized that I may have made the same exact decision that he did. And in that moment,

I realized that I've been given extreme grace from God. And I have grace and compassion and empathy for him as well.