The Sanhedrin were rabbis appointed to sit as judges of the Supreme Council in every city in Ancient Isreal. Most Pharisees were members of the Sanhedrin, & they hated Jesus so much. They were jealous of Jesus.
Here you have a Nazarene, the son of a carpenter, teaching a different kind of Gospel, different from the one the Pharisees were teaching, a deviation from the Laws of Moses embodied in the Torah.
Here you have a man, not of royalty, feeding the poor & healing the sick. He gave the people of Isreal the message of comfort, of peace & of hope. And the crowd followed himself wherever he went.
The people in 1st century Judea needed Jesus’s type of message at a time the Romans ruled with iron fist, & dominated Isreal’s public life. People needed something fresh, something to invigorate their hopes, & Jesus provided the answer.
This struck fear in the Pharisees. They were angry that Jesus did not recognize their authority. They feared they could lose their grip on the people of Isreal (that moral authority to tell the people what to do). They began to took notes of Jesus’s Ministry, & kept their watchful eye on him.
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However, a good number of them were beginning to love Jesus’s teachings. Joseph of Arimathea & Nicodemus were members of the Pharisee sect & of the Sanhedrin. They too wanted to enter the Kingdom of God. So they snuck around Jesus, they too wanted to hear the Good News.
In the council that presided over Jesus’s trial, Nicodemus & Jospeh of Arimathea vehemently opposed the plan to hand Jesus over to Pontius Pilate (the Romans). Joseph of Arimathea was the one who entombed Jesus, he was right there at the Crucifixion.
The Pharisees & the Sanhedrin were tasty for knowledge, but afraid of change. They are like your Nigerian political ‘rulers.’ They hated new ideas, they preferred the old ways. They saw Jesus as divisive, a man who had come to divide the people.
The leaders of the Pharisees whom Jesus called the ‘brood of vipers,’ could not get him to change his mind. By Jewish law, false prophets & blasphemy were forbidden throughout Judea & the Holy Land.
One could preach, but strictly according to the Laws of Moses written into the Torah. The Pharisees who were Rabbis, were teaching strictly by these laws, they believed that Israelites were chosen by God (the father of Abraham) himself. And so they must be pious at all times.
In truth, they were hypocrites, “they concerned themselves with looking good, rather than being good.” The battle line was drawn! It was Jesus put to death, or the people of Isreal may rise against them!
Jesus was no politician, & he was never pretentious about that. He was outspoken & direct. Diplomacy was not his strong suit. “How dare Jesus tell us the truth to our faces JUST LIKE THAT? Who does that?”
John the Baptist was allowed to preach his radical message, provided he never proclaimed himself as the Messiah. John could have been found guilty of blasphemy by the Sanhedrin, & handed to the Romans
Jesus never missed an opportunity to identify himself as the Messiah. So at the core of the debates & increasing spate of the hatred towards him, was the philosophical & liturgical questions “was Jesus truly the Son of God? Was he in fact, the one sitting at the right hand of God?”
The Pharisees & the Sanhedrin imagined that the Messiah would come to them in Glory, they imagined he would be revealed as a new Solomon, a new David, a King!
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They couldn’t reconcile themselves with the fact that the Messiah may already have come, & he is already with them, in the person of Jesus, right there in the flesh.
This was the crux of the matter, the reason they never accepted Jesus as the Messiah. The very thought of God choosing his son from among the lowest in the society, was to them, unthinkable, impossible, an abomination. So they looked for the Messiah in high places, places of authority
They believed that being the Son of God means “equal to God.” In that time, no prophet dared to say “I am the Son of God,” not even John the Baptist. Only God could forgive sins. But there, you had Jesus telling the people, “GO! your sins are forgiven!”
“Any prophet who dares to say, in the name of God, things that are not commanded by the God of Abraham & Moses, that prophet must die!” This was their understanding.
If Jesus was to be allowed to continue, the people may rally behind him & rise against the Pharisees, & ultimately, the Romans. They couldn’t wait for the Romans to do that which they themselves must do. “Is it not better for one man to perish, than for the whole Isreal to perish?”
But there was a catch. Under Roman Occupation, “the people of Isreal may put a goat to death, but not a man.” The Romans forbade the Jews from carrying out capital punishments under Roman rule. Therefore Jesus must be tried & found guilty by the Romans. Again, there was a catch!
The Laws of Isreal does not condemn a man before trial. A man must receive a hearing before condemnation. And you cannot simply handover one of your own to the Romans, no matter how serious the crime.
So it was agreed that Jesus must come before the Sanhedrin after the Passover, to defend himself. But haste was of great essence. So Zerah (one of the leaders) was charged to seek out Jesus with haste, & have him brought before the council.
That was the night of Jesus’s Last Super with his followers called the disciples.
In ancient Isreal, just saying you are “the Messiah, the Son of God,” could get you killed! But Jesus did not flinch. Undeterred by their threats, he maintained “he was the Son of God.” Caiaphas & Zerah (who themselves were among the leaders of the Sanhedrin) had Jesus drawn up.
They hatched a plot to bring Jesus before their council of the Sanhedrin for trial. In truth, they wanted him killed & forgotten.
Enter Judas Iscariot.
Judas was the victim of his own overzealousness. Judas, himself a Zealot, had entered into an arrangement with Zerah (to see Jesus brought before the council for trial). What Zerah never told Judas was that Jesus was never coming back.
He was in fact, going to face trial, even death. 1st century Judea was under Roman Occupation, Octavian or Augustus Caesar (Julius Caesar’s Great Nephew) was the emperor of Rome at that time.
Herod (himself a pawn of the Romans) ruled Judea in his place. Herod was of Jew, not of Roman, & the Jews hated him for that! They felt terribly betrayed that one of their own was in fact, working for the Romans.
Zealots were Jewish radicals up in arms against the Romans, & Judas was one of them. Was was highly educated as well.
Barabbas, the one the crowd chanted, “release him!!” was a Zealot as well. Barabbas tried to convince Jesus to join their armed struggle against the Romans. In fact, they wanted Jesus to lead them!
But Jesus came to establish the Kingdom of God in the hearts of men, not with the sword. Barabbas hated Jesus for that. In fact, the Pharisees convinced the crowd to scream Barabbas’s name, when it was time to choose between Barabbas & Jesus.
The disciples would later accuse Judas Iscariot of betraying their master, but they too betrayed him, most of all, Simon Peter. Even when Mary told them that Christ had risen, they couldn’t believe, but Peter did!
That was the beginning of Peter’s leadership, he understood that Jesus wanted everything to happen, just as they did. Peter felt terrible for denying Jesus 3x, but he always believed in Master Jesus.
The disciples took great risks to spread the Gospel of Jesus, & I appreciate them for that! Talking about Jesus in 1st Century Roman Empire could get you killed. If you haven’t been persecuted for Jesus, you may not truly understand the things I speak of.
How Jesus was able to make Matthew the Tax Collector (despised by the Jews) to leave all his wealth & status behind & follow him, was remarkable. “Jesus the Man” had the power of conviction, he could make anyone follow him, if he wanted.
How he was able to make Simon Peter to abandon his fishing boat & his wife & children & follow him, was something extraordinary. Matthew, Peter, John & the rest knew they were never coming back, & they will never see their wives & kids again.
“He that must follow me must abandon everything.” Matthew 16:24.
The Story of Jesus of Nazareth is the greatest story ever told. “Jesus the Man” was truly a remarkable man, he never flinched before earthly powers, not once!
Even at death’s door, our Saviour refused to denounce his kingship. That is the kind of man I will follow, forever!
– written by @Firstladyship
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