“THE RIGHT CHARGE” – Mar. 29

“But he remained silent and made no answer. Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?”  And Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”  Mark 14:61-62

The trial of Jesus was a sham.  The whole trial of Jesus was unjust according to their own law.  How they did it; where they did it; when they did it; the witness alone; all were against their own law.  Those who prosecuted and convicted Jesus broke their own law in their passionate pursuit to kill Jesus.

However, they got something right.

Remember, Jesus is in complete control of these events.  They did not turn Judas; Jesus sent him.  They did not forcibly arrest Jesus; He allowed them to arrest him.  In His trial, He did not answer any question that He did not want to answer.

He answered only one question in His trial.  Have you considered why?  I believe the reason that He answered this question from the high priest was because He wanted to.  So, why would He want to answer this specific question?  Jesus could have been convicted by any of those other questions in his trial.  I don’t think Jesus answered those questions because He did not want to be convicted on any abstraction of the law.  Remember, Jesus intends to be convicted.  Jesus was not answering questions so that somehow He will not be convicted.  He came to Jerusalem with the intention of being convicted.

What is very important if you plan on being convicted?  The charge!  Jesus wants to be convicted under the correct charge.  That means the question has to be the right question.  Jesus had done a lot of things in his ministry that they could have convicted Him on.  I think He was waiting for the right charge, which means He was waiting for the right question.

He was waiting for this question.  Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?

Jesus had been waiting for the direct question, this is the first legitimate aspect in the trial, it is a legitimate question. It does not call for self-incrimination, but merely a truthful response. Jesus knows the intent of the question but He answers because He has a higher purpose and that time has come.

“Are You the Messiah, the anointed One, the promised One, and the Son of the blessed One?” Jesus answers with, Yahweh, the name of God; I AM.  He says clearly “I AM”;  It is an answer to the direct question and at the same time it is a proclamation of who He is.  However, He does not just leave it there.   He does not try to reduce the impact of what He just said, rather He escalates the reality of it. “Yes I AM the Messiah. Yes I AM the Son of God. And you will see Me sitting at the right hand of power, that is at the right hand of God, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”

There are some people out there who assert that Jesus never claimed to the Messiah, the Son of God.  That is a lie; there are some who say that Jesus never said He was God; that Jesus was a good teacher and a peaceful, loving, and moral man, but He never said he was God.

He did. He repeatedly, emphatically, clearly said He’s the only God.  You cannot get clearer than His intentional statement in His own trial.  I think that Jesus was waiting for this particular question so that there would no question about who He claimed to be.  The Sanhedrin understood what He was saying.  He was not speaking in parables; He was making it very clear as to who He was.

The Sanhedrin’s goal for this trial was to get a conviction.  This entire trial was a sham.  It was a complete miscarriage of justice.  However, there is one sliver of legitimacy to this trial.  “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?”  The Sanhedrin had to make a judgment on Jesus’ answer to that one question and so do we.  We all have to make a judgment upon Jesus’ answer to the trial question.

This is the most important judgment that anyone can make, “is Jesus the Christ?”  The way you answer that question is the most important decision that any person can make. There are some who will deny that He is… there are some who will believe what He says… there are some who will say that they don’t know… there are some who will say that it doesn’t matter.

Thomas Freidman wrote in an op-ed piece for the New York Times about what many try to assert: ”All faiths that come out of the biblical tradition — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — have the tendency to believe that they have the exclusive truth… The opposite of religious totalitarianism is an ideology of pluralism — an ideology that embraces religious diversity and the idea that my faith can be nurtured without claiming exclusive truth… Can Islam, Christianity and Judaism know that God speaks Arabic on Fridays, Hebrew on Saturdays and Latin on Sundays, and that he welcomes different human beings approaching him through their own history, out of their language and cultural heritage?”

What that denies is the truth of Jesus’ statement.

Jesus’ answer leaves us all with only two choices regarding what we believe about Him.

1. His claims were false and He was not god.  If the claims of Jesus are false and He knew they were false but knowingly misled people, taught them things He knew were untrue, then He is the greatest liar the world has ever seen.
2. His claims were true and He is God.  If the claims of Jesus are false and He believed them to be true, then He needed medication. It would take someone of great mental imbalance to do the things that Jesus did and say the things that Jesus said.

Neither of those options are a person who anyone should follow.

If the claims of Jesus are true then He truly is God and He is Lord. This reality forces us to make a judgment. Either we accept Him or we reject Him. The choice that all of mankind has.  It is a choice that you and I have.  Everything that we read in our Bibles leads up to this moment.  Are the actions described in the Gospels the actions of a mad-man?  Are they the actions of a master con-artist?  Or are they the actions of the Son of God?

Who is this Jesus?

He is the Son of David, the Son of man and the Son of God. Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last, God almighty, the Great I Am and the great Amen.

Who is this Jesus?

Bread of life, the resurrection and the life, the way, the truth, Prince of peace, wonderful counselor, Immanuel – God with us, the righteous one, the Lamb of God, the lion of Judah, the light of the world, the living water, living stone and the living word of God

Who is this Jesus?

The Savior of the world, the suffering servant, One who died and rose again, one who was and is and is to come, He is the eternal image of God , Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ and the anointed one of God. Jesus is the king of kings and Lord of Lords.

Who is this Jesus?  That question is before us all; just like the question that was asked Peter and the Disciples.  Christ is asking all of us, “who do you say that I am?”  We can read how Jesus answered that question.

Do you believe Him; do you trust Him; do you know Him; will you follow Him; the Son of God, the great I AM

PRAYER: Lord, thank you for being so clear as to who You are.  Thank you for your obedience to the Father.  Thank you for coming to bear the punishment of my sin.  Lord, you are the Son of God who will be seated at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.  I look forward to seeing you in all of your glory.  Amen