Now let’s continue our lesson. This is part “b” of the Roman trial of Christ. Pilate was the governor of Judea for ten years, from AD 26 to 36, and this was a rather long time, considering that the length of a governor’s tenure was normally about two years, and we know also from historical records that Pilate was recalled to Rome to answer charges of cruelty and oppression because he had killed a large number of Samaritans.
Showing posts with label Dr. Jeannie Constantinou. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dr. Jeannie Constantinou. Show all posts
Thursday, 13 April 2017
The Crucifixion of Christ, Part 1b. The Lamb of God
  Православие.Ru, 13 апреля 2017 г. http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/102630.htm Dr. Jeannie Constantinou Transcription by OrthoChristian.com See The Crucifixion of Christ, Part 1  Holy and Great Thursday. The Mystical (Last) Supper.
The Crucifixion of Christ, Part 1
Dr. Jeannie Constantinou
See The Roman Trial, Part 2  Holy and Great Friday.
Friday, 7 April 2017
The Jewish Trial, Part 2. Son of God, Son of Man
  Православие.Ru, 6 апреля 2017 г. http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/102487.htm
Dr. Jeannie Constantinou
See The Jewish Trial, Part 1 “In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Illumine our hearts, O Master Who loves mankind, with the pure light of Thy divine knowledge. Open the eyes of our mind to understand Thy gospel teachings. Implant in us also the fear of Thy blessed commandments, that trampling down all carnal desires, we may enter upon a spiritual manner of living, both thinking and doing such things that are well-pleasing unto Thee. For Thou art the illumination of our souls and bodies, O Christ our God, and unto Thee we ascribe glory, together with Thy Father, Who is from everlasting, and Thine all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.”  "Christ before Caiaphas". The High Priest is depicted tearing his robe in grief at Jesus' perceived blasphemy (Giotto, Life of Christ, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua). Photo: Wikipedia At this point we are approximately halfway through the Jewish trial. I want to read for you again this passage in Matthew and conclude it. When we last met, Caiaphas was just about to question Christ and we were going to hear the exchange between them. So now let’s hear this section of Matthew’s Gospel from chapter 26 verse 57 and then 59 through 66 (Revised Standard Version). Then those who had seized Jesus led Him to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered. Now the chief priests and the whole council sought false testimony against Jesus, that they might put Him to death. But they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last, two came forward and said: “This fellow said ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days’.” And the high priest stood up and said: “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?” but Jesus was silent. And the high priest said to Him: “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God?” Jesus said to you Him: “You have said so. But I tell you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming on the clouds of Heaven.” Then the high priest tore his robes and said: “He has uttered blasphemy! Why do we still need witnesses? You have now heard His blasphemy. What is your judgment?” They answered: “He deserves death.” So let’s take a look at the verse where we left off, verse 62. “And the high priest stood up and said: ‘Have you no answer to make?’”. The high priest, we all know, was Caiaphas. Matthew had told us this earlier in the narrative. Caiaphas was an extremely powerful man in his day. The high priest was the most powerful man in the nation and he exercised supreme authority in both the political and the religious realms. Under Jewish law the position of the high priest was supposed to pass through a specific family, much like a royal succession. However, long before the birth of Christ the position had become politicized and different families had managed to take control of the high priesthood. Some Jewish factions did not recognize the authority of Caiaphas or the other high priests of this period because they did not descend from the correct high priestly family. In addition, the high priest was supposed to serve a life tenure. Corruption in the Roman Empire Now let’s talk about the family question. I’ll just give you one example. One example is the Essenes, the Qumran community, the people on the shores of the Dead Sea, who wrote down the Dead Sea Scrolls. They were living there because they rejected the religious leadership in Jerusalem, because Caiaphas and other high priests did not come from the correct family lineage. Now let’s talk about the tenure. The high priest was supposed to serve for life, but the Romans preferred to change the high priest every year. When the Romans took control of Judea they began to appoint and to depose the high priests. Why did they do this? Because by controlling who held the office of the high priest and only choosing men who would protect Roman interests, the Romans could effectively control the Jews. And what is really surprising is that the Romans even kept in their possession the ceremonial robes, the vestments, of the high priest. They would give it to him when he needed to officiate for some major feasts such as the upcoming Passover. That was another way that they controlled the office. Now I don’t know if you recall, a few podcasts back I told you, how we know about these details. Who told us this? Because it’s quite shocking to imagine that the Jews had to give the sacred robes of the high priest over to the Romans, who just by touching them or keeping them within the Roman quarters, defiled them. So the Jews would have to go get the ceremonial robes in advance and go through some kind of ritual of purification before the priest could even put on the robes. How do we know about this? We know this from Flavius Josephus, the first century Jewish historian I had told you about a few weeks back. So the Romans not only controlled who became the high priest, but they created for themselves an opportunity for financial gain, because being assigned to the province of Judea was not exactly very appealing for procurators. Many of these provinces were in remote places of the Empire, and one reason to go to these places was for financial gain. The governors received bribes from people for appointing them to positions of power. And this was actually a very serious problem in the Roman Empire at this time—the corruption of the governors. So the appointment of high priests was a very lucrative source of income. Why appoint one for a lifetime? Why not appoint one every year? And this may be the reason why only a few families at this time controlled the ranks of the high priesthood, because only they could afford the cost that was involved. So men in Rome sought positions as procurators in these distant provinces so they could get rich, basically. Of course, this created a lot of corruption. And Pilate—we’ll talk about him later—was recalled to Rome for corruption and cruelty. We can assume that Caiaphas was not only powerful but also extremely wealthy, because he had to pay Pilate and the other governors for his position. Now Caiaphas held this office for 18 years, a very long time considering that he had to keep reapplying for it every year. That was much longer than Pilate was in Judea, so he was serving as high priest when Pilate arrived and he was there when Pilate left. And the fact that Pilate allowed Caiaphas to remain as high priest during his tenure suggests that Caiaphas had a tremendous amount of political power and savvy, and that he cooperated well with the Romans. Jesus’s silence So what does Caiaphas say to Christ? “Have you no answer?” Remember, there were two false witnesses who came forward and said that Jesus said He would destroy the Temple and in three days build it up again. And, of course, this is not correct because what he was really saying was that they would be destroying the Temple, that is, His body, and He would raise it again in three days. So although the charges about the Temple are serious because they thought Christ was claiming that He would destroy the Temple, this is really not a capital offense. Caiaphas wants something stronger, he wants something better to convict Christ with, and so he tries to elicit a statement that will result not only in a conviction but unequivocally call for the death penalty. Saying, “I’m going to destroy this Temple,” even though it was considered serious, really is not serious enough to kill someone. At this point Christ could have extricated Himself from the situation, He could have denied making that statement because He never made it, or at least not in the manner in which the witnesses said it. He could explain that He was referring to the destruction of His own body, not the destruction of the Temple, etc. But in verse 63 it says, “But Jesus was silent, and the high priest said to Him: ‘I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God’.” Let’s take that first part, “But Jesus was silent.” Christ maintains His dignity by His silence. Now some consider the silence itself an offense, but He is not intimidated by the high priest or the members of the Great Sanhedrin. He’s surrounded by the most powerful men in the entire nation, but having accepted the will of the Father He remains silent and makes no defense or attempt to save Himself. He is completely obedient to the Father’s will and answers only to the Father. Far from being a victim, Christ places Himself above the proceedings and shows that He is in control of His own destiny. St. John Chrysostom also notes that Jesus sees no point in defending Himself to people who are not interested in hearing the truth. I had mentioned this a few podcasts ago, when they asked Him about His authority. He simply did not engage in these kinds of discussions or proofs by miracles for people who were not open to the truth. And we see this in Luke’s Gospel when Christ responds to this question by the high priest by saying, “If I tell you ‘yes,’ you still won’t believe it.” So then the high priest uses another tactic, because Christ was silent. He now puts him under oath. “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” Now why is it that the statement about the Temple leads him to ask Christ whether He is the Messiah? That’s what it means when he says, “Tell us if you are the Christ.” This is because at that time a promise to destroy and rebuild the Temple was associated in the Jewish mind with the coming of a Messiah king, a descendent of David who would reign as wise and just and righteous. Christ entered Jerusalem on a donkey, an obvious fulfilment of the prophecy of Zachariah, and He was acclaimed by the people as Son of David and King of Israel, which are Messianic titles. The Jewish leaders recognized that many of the people perceived Christ as the Messiah because of His amazing teaching and miraculous powers. It’s a natural conclusion to make because of the testimony about the Temple, so it leads to this question at the trial: “Tell us if you are the Christ.”  Christ Before Caiaphas, by Matthias Stom. Photo: Wikipedia “I adjure you” he asks. Now the ordinary word for causing someone to swear is the verb “orkizo.” This comes from the Greek word for “oath,” which is “orkos.” “Orkizo” is, “I cause you to swear.” But here the word is even stronger “exorkizo”. It is a hapax in the New Testament. A hapax is a word that occurs only once. That’s terminology used by Biblical scholars. In Greek we would say “apax”, but in English they pronounce the breath mark and say “hapax.” And this word, “exorkizo,” “I adjure you,” means, “I place you under oath” in a formal swearing ceremony, in a trial situation. This word is also found in the Old Testament in two places, but here it is unique in the New Testament. It was a common Rabbinic formula for placing someone under an oath. This precise form is also found in the Mishnah, which was the Jewish legal code. To place someone under an oath with the word “exorkizo,” “I adjure you,” means that the defendant was compelled to respond. Do you see how they didn’t have the witness lift up his hand and ask, “Do you swear to tell the truth”? They could be silent unless they were forced to answer by means of this formula. This is the opposite of the American Fifth Amendment, which is the right against self-incrimination. In America you’re allowed not to speak, because you have a right not to say something against your own interests. You have a right to be silent. Here, the defendant didn’t take an oath, but He is being compelled, by the use of this formula, to answer. And the reason why this was done was that the Jews believed that having invoked the name of God a defendant would be too afraid of the wrath of God to lie. So they believed that when someone responded to this formal oath, the truthfulness of the answer was guaranteed, and that is why they used this formula “exorkizo.” Of course, Christ responds to this question although He was silent before. Why does He do this? Because if the defendant did not respond, his silence was taken as an admission of the accusation against him. Jesus decides to speak since by remaining silent it would be considered an admission anyhow, and He would be condemned. He now openly acknowledges His identity and He further clarifies it. The question was, “Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” He’s been placed under oath to answer the question at to whether He is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Now, for the most part, Christ had avoided the title “Messiah.” That’s a Jewish word meaning “anointed one.” The “anointed one” could be the king, he could be the high priest, but this came to mean the person who is expected to be the deliverer or the savior of the people. The term was “Messiah.” In Greek “anointed one” was the word “Christos,” so that’s where we get our word “Christ” from. He avoided this title because there were many different messianic expectations among the Jews at that time. Some Jews had given up on the idea of a Messiah. That’s the case with many Jews today. Many Jews do not expect any kind of a Messiah. Others expected a political savior. In the Qumran community (those are the people at the Dead Sea, the Essenes who produced the Dead Sea scrolls) they expected two Messiahs, one a prophet, and one a priest. Yet other people had perhaps a more spiritual understanding of who the Messiah would be. But Christ is not condemned for claiming to be the Messiah. There were many “Messianic pretenders” before Him and there were a number after Him. There are some around even today. This was not considered a crime. These people were never charged with blasphemy or condemned for having committed a crime. Christ was condemned for claiming to be the Son of God. It’s the second part of the question that leads to his condemnation. The Son of God Now listen to the way the high priest phrases the question. “Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” It is extremely ironic that the question of the high priest exactly echoes Peter’s confession of faith earlier in the Gospel for which Peter was praised and rewarded. When Christ asked, “Who do men say that I am,” then “Who do you say that I am?”, Peter said, “You are the Messiah, the Son of God,” right? And this is now the question being posed. Peter was praised for recognizing who Christ is and being bold enough to say it. Let’s talk about the title “Son of God.” This title arose early in the ministry of Christ. We see it in the mouth of the devil at the temptation of Christ in the wilderness in Matthew chapter 4. What does he say? “If you are the Son of God,” and other places He is acknowledged the Son of God by the demons. “Why are you bothering us now, Son of God? Have you come to bother us before the time?” It’s not infrequent that the demons use this title “Son of God.” The centurion says it in the Gospel of Matthew when Christ dies. “Truly He was the Son of God.” As we mentioned, St. Peter says it. So this is a very important title in the Gospel of Matthew. He brings out this title quite frequently. “Son of God” was a title found in the Old Testament, but there it was equivalent to calling someone a child of God, the way we do today—all believers are “children of God.” We see this, for example, in the Psalm that says, “You are all the sons of the Most High God.” But Christ was not called a son of God, the way we are called “children of God.” He was called the Son of God. And this title has never been applied to anyone else. It was also not applied to Christ by others, but it was His own self-designation. He referred to Himself as “the Son.” When He spoke about God being our Father, He would say, “Your Father in Heaven knows what you need,” but He never included Himself with our group. When he spoke to us about God He would say, “your Father,” but when He spoke about His relationship to God He said “my Father,” not “our Father.” “My Father is working and so am I,” etc. So, “Son of David” was a Messianic title, but “Son of God” was not. It was not something that the Jews used as a title or would have expected. It was not something that Christians or the Church would’ve thought later to apply to Christ. It would not have naturally flowed from the idea of Jesus as the Messiah. So why did the early Christians call Jesus the Son of God? Because it’s not something that they invented later. Many people like to say, “Well, in order to make Christianity appealing to the masses they invented the idea that Jesus was divine.” Early Christians would never have done that because all of the first Christians were Jews. There was no conception that the Messiah would be divine. Now think back: remember the discussion about the psalm in which Christ challenges them, “The Lord said to my Lord”? Remember how He points out His divinity in a very subtle way when He asks the Jewish leaders about David’s son. “Whose son is the Messiah?” They said, “David’s son,” and He tries to lead them to the understanding that He has to be more than David’s son. The early Christians would never have invented that. They recognized that Jesus is the Son of God because He referred to Himself in that way. So the Gospel accounts reflect the true historical memory of the Church. He called Himself “the Son.” It’s not something that was invented later. All of the Gospels agree that Christ was condemned not because He claimed to be the Messiah, but because He claimed to be the Son of God. Even in the Gospel of John the Jewish leaders insist to Pilate that Jesus must be crucified. And what do they say? “We have a law, and by that law He ought to die because He claimed to be the Son of God.” That’s John 19:7. So when Jesus is rejected by the Jewish leaders, finally and fully now at His trial, He is rejected precisely for who He is, not on the basis of a misunderstanding or failure to observe the Sabbath or failure to fully reveal the truth about Himself. He’s rejected on the basis of this title, which expresses the deepest mystery of His person and which was the most exalted confession of the Church. He’s not just Messiah, but the Son of God. In verse 64 Christ answers: “Jesus said to him: ‘You have said so.’” Remember, the question was, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the living God?” Jesus said, “You have said so. But I tell you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming on the clouds of Heaven.” Let’s take the first part of that response, “You have said so.” This response to the high priest’s question strikes the modern reader as rather evasive. It has been interpreted by modern commentators in a variety of ways. Some say it’s an affirmative answer, some say it’s a negative answer, and others say it’s neutral or ambiguous. I don’t know how they arrive at all these opinions. It’s clearly an affirmative answer. And not only that, it seems to have been a characteristic expression of Jesus to say, “You have said so.” And Christ, being true and authentic, would have responded affirmatively to the truth. He knows He’s going to be condemned, might as well say the truth. How do we know that this is an affirmative response: “You said so”? Because even in English you can understand it in different ways depending upon the inflection. “Are you the Messiah, the Son of God”? You can say, “You said so.” Or you could say “You said it!” Right? In other words, you are acknowledging it. How do we know that it is an affirmative answer? Earlier Jesus says the same thing when He announced that someone is going to betray Him. The best way to understand how an Evangelist uses a word or intends to use a word is by how he uses in his own writings, elsewhere in his own writings. Earlier in the Gospel of Matthew we have this same exact expression. When Christ announced to the disciples that someone was going to betray Him, they were saying “Is it me Lord”? They go around asking, “Is it me Lord?”, “Is it me Lord?” And when Judas asks the question “Is it me?” Christ answers, “You said so.” Obviously it’s a “yes” answer there. It’s not ambiguous. Then later He says the same thing to Pilate when Pilate says, “Are you the king of Jews?” Jesus gives not exactly the same words in Greek but it’s the same kind of reply: “You say so.” That’s also in the Gospel of Matthew. The same thing is in the Gospel of John—when He’s asked a question he replies, “You say that I am a king.” So obviously this was a very characteristic expression on the part of Christ. Another reason why we know that “You said so” is clearly an affirmative response, is by what Christ says following it. Now there is a lot of power and irony in the response. It’s a much stronger response than simply saying, “yes,” because by saying “You said it,” Christ is turning the statement back towards the high priest, and He affirms that the confession of Christ’s true identify has just come out of mouth of the high priest. And the judge, the high priest, has become a witness for the defense, a witness to the truth, the truth of who Christ is, even though that was never his intention. So what does He add to this statement, “You said so,” that makes it clearly an affirmative answer, “Yes I am the Messiah, the Son of God”? He adds “But I say to you that from now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming on the clouds of Heaven.” This is a key statement, and with it, the Lord seals His fate. And after hearing the statement the high priest tears his robes and the whole assembly pronounces Jesus guilty of blasphemy.  Duccio Di Buoninsegna. Christ Before Caiaphas. 1308-11 The Son of Man. So what did He say that was so shocking? Because to us it doesn’t seem so terrible. Let’s start with “Son of Man.” “You will see the Son of Man,” this was not an uncommon substitution for “I”. Most of the time that was just a substitution for the word “I,” the way we might say “yours truly,” or “my person.” It was considered an indirect or less egocentric way to refer to oneself and Christ uses this a lot. It’s the most common title He uses to refer to Himself. It’s interesting that it was never really used by the early Church. Only Christ called Himself, “the Son of Man.” He often referred to Himself as the Son of Man rather than saying, “I”, because, you know, people get annoyed when you say “me”, “me”, “me”, “I”, “I”, I”. So it was an indirect way to refer to yourself as the “son of man.” These “Son of Man” sayings can be grouped into three categories. First, those that express His view of Himself as the Suffering Servant. So whenever He talks about His coming crucifixion, He’ll say the “Son of Man will be arrested by the chief priests,” “the Son of Man will be crucified,” etc. The second way this term is used is in His role in the future judgment, and that’s an apocalyptic use of the term, “Son of Man.” “When He comes in His glory the Son of Man will separate the sheep from the goats.” This is an expression of judgement. Also this term, “Son of Man”, is used whenever He refers to His divine authority. For example, His authority to forgive sins: “That you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” etc. “The Son of Man” was also a way of calling someone a human being or simply a “person.” It’s just as we say, “I’m human,” “a daughter of a human being,” “I’m a son of a human”; in other words, you’re human. And the term “Son of Man” is found in the Prophets, for example in Ezekiel. “Prophesy to the dry bones, son of man, say to this to the people.” It’s a way of saying “little man,” “insignificant person,” “human being.” It emphasizes the insignificance of man in comparison to God. But “Son of Man” is also found in the book of Daniel where Daniel has the vision of the coming Messiah, who is called the Son of Man. And then we see this again the book of Revelation, that John saw “one like a Son of Man.” Now what it does not mean is Jesus acting in or referring to His human nature. “Son of Man” never means that. It never means His human nature vs. His divine nature—so get that out of your mind. The Jewish leaders understand, because this was an ordinary expression and of course it takes on greater meaning when Christ uses the term the way the prophets did. But they understand when He says, “You will see the Son of Man,” that He’s talking about Himself. He’s telling them, “You will see the Son of Man,” in other words, “me,” “sitting at the right hand of the Power.” Now “the Power” was a euphemism for God. Matthew is a Jewish writer and he had a Jewish audience, obviously I mean Jewish Christian. He’s a Jewish Christian writer writing to a Jewish Christian audience and this is why he consistently almost never says, “the Kingdom of God.” Matthew always writes the “Kingdom of Heaven.” The Jews tried to avoid even using the word “God.” They tried to avoid referring to God directly, because Jews considered that very inappropriate. They certainly never spoke the divine name, the Tetragrammaton, (YHWH) Yahweh. Instead they used expressions that were indirect references to God, such as, “the Power,” “the Lord Almighty,” “Heaven.” So, rather than saying, “May God bless you,” they would say “may Heaven bless you,” or they might say “the Mighty One of Jacob.” The “Mighty One” is God. In Mark’s trial account, Christ says He will sit at the right hand of the “Blessed One.” That’s another euphemism for God; but notice how they don’t say the word “God.” However, all of these expressions mean the same thing. Jesus claims that He will come and sit at the right hand of God, and He uses same language to describe the Second Coming, when the Son of Man will come to judge the world. So we might say, “So what?” We’re accustomed to hearing that Jesus is “sitting at the right hand of the Father.” We say this every time we say the Creed, right? He’s “sitting at the right hand.” But we have really lost an appreciation for how powerful that statement was. But it was not lost on the early Christians. That’s why it is in the Creed. Think of how important it must be for it to have been included in the Creed. To “sit at the right hand” is to share power equally, to have complete authority, to co-reign. So by saying, “I will sit at the right hand of the Power,” or “You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power,” Jesus is claiming to be equal to God. No one reigns with God unless he himself is God. So “sit at the right hand of God,” from Psalm 109/110, was a very powerful biblical image, and it meant complete authority and co-ruling with God. There is no question—He is claiming divinity. Now the Jewish leaders have the incriminating statement that they hoped He would provide. So, anyone who tells you Jesus never claimed to be divine certainly does not understand the Bible. He consistently claims divine prerogative, to forgive sins, to speak for God, to judge. He calls himself, “the Son.” He claims that He’s the only way to the Father, and here, of course, there is no question that He is claiming divinity. Otherwise the Jews would really have no real grounds for having him put to death. Then there’s one more detail added. “You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming on the clouds of Heaven.” Now the reference to clouds here is not just for poetic embellishment. This is an allusion to Daniel 7:13, the apocalyptic vision of the coming of the Messiah. The Jews always associated clouds with divine revelations and theophanies, appearances of God. At the Transfiguration of Christ the voice of God comes from the cloud, right? When the Israelites are wandering through the wilderness for forty years, they are accompanied by God in the form of a cloud. The Psalmist says things such as, “you make the clouds your chariot and your ministers a flame of fire.” At His ascension, Christ disappears into the clouds, and the disciples are told He will return in the same manner. St. Paul echoes this same idea when He describes the coming of the Lord with clouds in 1 Thessalonians 4. So, clouds are a powerful symbol of the presence of divinity. This just bolsters what he previously said, that He will be sitting at the right hand of the Power. It is a statement of divinity. Then we come to verse 65. “And the high priest tore his robes and said, ‘He has uttered blasphemy! Why do we still need witnesses? You have now heard His blasphemy’.” Chrysostom says that the high priest does not give the sentence from himself, but invites it from them, as in the case of confessed sins and manifest blasphemy. He anticipates the sentence by saying, “You have heard the blasphemy,” but necessitating and forcing them to deliver the sentence, themselves accusing, themselves judging, themselves passing sentence, themselves being everything. And of course the high priest tears his robes. There is one response to the statement, “it is blasphemy”; and, Chrysostom says the high priest rent his clothes to add force to the accusation. It is a very dramatic act, to aggravate the accusation of blasphemy by this act. Chrysostom asks, why does Christ respond to them at all? It’s a great question. He says, “in order to take away all their excuse, because until the very last day He taught that He was the Christ, that He sits at the right hand of the Father and that He will come again to judge the world.” But of course this elicits the response of the tearing of the high priest’s robe. This was a ritual expression of grief and anguish, that the Majesty of God has been egregiously violated. The high priest was not permitted to rend his garments even upon the death of his own parents. It was typical that if someone learned that his parent had died he would tear his garments as an expression of grief. The high priest was not allowed to do that. So the fact that he does so in response to Jesus’ statement underscores blasphemy in the most dramatic fashion. Furthermore, when the high priest would rend his garments they were never allowed to be mended. So what does he say? He says “He has committed blasphemy,” and blasphemy of course was one of the most serious crimes in the Old Testament, and it carried with it the death penalty. In earlier times, blasphemy only occurred if the offender pronounced the divine name of God, Yahweh, since this was strictly forbidden. But here Jesus did not pronounce the name of God and instead used a typical reverential substitute when He called God “the Power.” And since we often see the Pharisees accusing Christ of blasphemy when He pronounced that someone’s sins were forgiven, it seems that by the first century blasphemy could refer to a violation of the power or the majesty of God, not just saying the name of God. So when you violate the majesty or the power of God, in other words, when you’re claiming to interfere in the sphere of God, you’re placing yourself where you don’t belong, either directly or indirectly, thereby claiming divinity, then it was blasphemy—even though Christ did not pronounce the name of God. “He deserves death.” So, the high priest asks in verse 66, “What is your judgement? And they answered ‘He deserves death’.” Of course, this is hardly surprising. Any observant Jew would consider it his duty to have Jesus put to death after hearing this very shocking statement. So the high priest’s question, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of God?” had exactly echoed Peter’s confession of faith when Jesus had asked His disciples, “Who do men say that I am?” and Peter replied “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” This happened earlier in the Gospel, Matthew 16:16. Now, at His trial, Jesus is rejected by the Jewish leaders for precisely who He is. He’s rejected on the basis of this title; Christ affirmed His identify before the Jewish leaders, He never shrank from saying the truth, and now He is condemned to death—not for any crime, but for who He is. Next time we’ll talk about the Roman trial before Pilate. Now let’s close with our prayer: “Lord, now let Thy servants depart in peace according to Thy word, for our eyes have seen Thy salvation which Thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to enlighten the Gentiles and the glory of Thy people Israel. Amen.” Presbytera and Dr. Jeannie Constantinou’s podcasts can be found here.
Trials and Crucifixion of Christ, Part 2b The Traps
  Православие.Ru, 29 марта 2017 г. http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/102237.htm
Dr. Jeannie Constantinou
See Part 2a  Jesus Talks with the Pharisees. K Lebedev. Photo: /biblia-zhivopis.ru Now continuing our discussion of the Gospel readings in early Holy Week, let’s look at Great and Holy Monday evening. Monday evening contains the questions asked by the Pharisees, Sadducees and Scribes to trick or to humiliate Christ. This is a continuation from Matthew, and comes from chapter 22 of Matthew. The first question they ask Him is the one we’re all familiar with about paying taxes to Caesar. It tells us that the Pharisees went and took council how they might entangle Him in His talk (and you can understand how after that insulting reference to them as the wicked tenants, they really wanted to try to trap Him), so the Pharisees sent their disciples to Him with the Herodians to ask Him this question about paying taxes to Caesar. The Herodians and rendering unto Caesar I haven’t really talked to you too much about the Herodians. This is another group of Jews. They were supporters of the Herodian dynasty and basically the kings, the Herods, and their courtiers. The Herodians remained in power only at the consent of the Romans. When we do our introduction to the Bible, when we get to the New Testament, I will tell you why some parts of Palestine were ruled by Roman procurators and other parts had kings named “Herod,” and who these various Herods were. We’ll talk about that in the future, but basically, Jesus was a subject of king Herod because he was a Galilean. So the Herodians would be very much in favor of a tax because that’s how they remained in power by consent of the Romans. So if they paid the tax and they rendered the tax to Romans, they got to keep their power. But the tax represented Roman domination and it was a source of great controversy among the Jews. There were many radicals, such as zealots, (the zealots were yet another group that I didn’t tell you about), but the zealots were people who wanted to overthrow Roman rule in the holy land by force, by the use of violence. So the Zealots opposed the paying of the tax, while the Herodians favored the tax since that’s how they got to rule—they collected the tax and Rome allowed them to rule. The Pharisees generally went ahead and paid the tax because they were realists and they knew that they had to cooperate with the Romans if the nation was to survive. But nonetheless, there was something rather unsavory in the mind of the Pharisees toward paying the tax, and the most radical Jews opposed it, as I said. So they ask Him this question: “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God and truth and you care for no one, nor do you regard anyone’s position. Tell us what you think: Is it lawful to pay the tax to Caesar or not?” So you see how they start? They begin by attempting to lull Christ into making a statement contrary to His interests by flattery. They flatter Him before they ask the question. And the irony that Chrysostom points out is that everything they say about Him is true. He is a teacher, they know He’s true, that he teaches the way of God, and that He doesn’t care about anyone’s opinion nor regards anyone’s position. So everything they say is true, but they don’t believe their own words. And the flattery is so obvious. They come addressing Him as “teacher,” and say “we know you’re from God,” and, “you say the truth.” But, previously they showed that they despise Him, they insulted Him, and they don’t consider Him a teacher because they have no respect for Him. Now they call Him teacher and come to ask Him a question? This is very similar to the case of the woman accused of adultery. Why did they bring the woman accused of adultery before Christ to ask Him whether or not she ought to be stoned? Why did they ask Him for a legal ruling (because that’s what they’re doing)? They have no respect for Him. It’s a trap, and it’s quite obviously a trap.  A denarius of Caesar. Author unknown (school of A. Matveev). 1730s. Tyumen Museum of Fine Arts. Photo: www.christianart.ru “So tell us what you think? Is it lawful to pay the tax or not?” Does God permit the paying of the tax? They’re not asking whether it’s lawful from a Roman perspective, of Roman law—of course it is, it’s required by Roman law—but whether it was acceptable in the eyes of God for the Jews to submit to a pagan emperor by means of a tax, because by doing so you’re recognizing the role of the emperor, that he is supreme; you’re recognizing his authority by paying tax to him. Now if Christ told them not to pay the tax, of course He’d be marked as a rebel and He would be considered a threat to Roman order. That would be perfect. He could be charged with sedition right away. But if He tells them that they ought to pay the tax, then other people would say, “Look He’s with the Romans and He’s really not one of us.” Either way the Pharisees and the Herodians believed that Jesus was in a trap. No matter what He answered, He was going to answer in some manner that would create a charge against Him. Either He supported the Romans or He was against the Romans, and either way it was not good for Him. Now this tax was a large amount of money. It was one denarius, which was one day’s wage. But it had to be paid in a Roman coin, which bore the image of the emperor. The emperor at that time was Tiberius Caesar, who ruled from 14 AD to 37, and on the coin was not only the picture of the emperor (and by the way picture of the emperor was pretty realistic, it actually looked like the person) But around the coin, the way we have “in God we trust” or “United States of America”, it read “Tiberius Caesar Divi Augusti Filius Augustus, Pontifix Maximus” (“Tiberius Caesar August Son of the Divine Augustus, High Priest”), which is basically saying he’s the son of god. He’s the son of “the divine Augustus” (because Augustus was dead he had been proclaimed a god), and he’s the high priest. Christ is very aware of their malice and He responds to them very severely; Chrysostom says that He addresses them as “hypocrites” because their malice is so obvious due to their flattery. The Lord denounces them as hypocrites, which is more than the usual severity, since their wickedness was complete and so manifest that He reveals their thoughts. So yes, they’re being hypocrites when they call Him “teacher”, because they don’t consider Him a teacher. The Lord answers by turning the tables on them again, forcing them to prove His point, to decide the answer to the question, which gives him a clear victory. He says, “Show me the coin of the tax.” Now the tax had to be paid with Roman coin, and there were many, many kinds of coins that circulated at the time. The Jews minted their own coins. This is the reason why the money changers were outside the Temple changing money, because you were not permitted to walk into the Temple with Roman coins since they had the image of the emperor on them, with those blasphemous words around the outside of it. You had to change your money for Temple coin, which had a menorah on it. So the truth is that many of the Jews did not like to carry these coins because the coin was an idolatrous image. The most pious Jews refused to carry that coin because of its idolatrous image, the picture of the emperor, and the blasphemous statement that said Tiberius was divine. Render unto Caesar So here they are: Obviously there were moneychangers in Judea at the Temple and other places, but the most pious Jews would not carry the coin. So, He says: “Show me the coin.” And they take it out! They produce it very easily, which showed that they were not as pious as they pretended to be. It’s really a wonderful moment. Now He says to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” and of course “to God the things that are God’s.” Now “render” means to “give back,” not simply to give, but to give back. It is the verb that’s used for the settling or paying off a debt, so it refers to something that is rightfully owed. Chrysostom said this, and many interpreters recognized this as being the case. So since the tax was paid with a Roman coin and it had Caesar’s image on it, the coin belonged to the emperor, it belongs to him—just as when you put your name on something it belongs to you. So paying the tax was simply giving him back what was already his, and since they carried his coin then they should be paying his taxes. What about the reference to render to God the things that are God’s? Since they pretended to honor God they should do that as well, and the Lord turns the tables on them in this way by reminding them that God also has demands. There are things that are rightfully due to Him, and they should be more concerned about rendering to God what belonged to Him than be preoccupied with what was due to Caesar. Chrysostom discusses how every sphere of life has its obligations, and it is possible to meet one’s political or social obligations without being disloyal to God, especially where there is no conflict between what is owed in each area. And when the Lord says, “Render to Caesar,” He’s only speaking of those things that are of no detriment to godliness. “Whose wife will she be in the resurrection?” Well, the Lord succeeds very effectively and brilliantly in stopping the mouths of the Pharisees, and now come the Sadducees to ask Him a question. The Gospel tells us that the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, come with a hypothetical argument designed to basically try to make the Lord look foolish for supporting the idea of resurrection. The Sadducees could not accept resurrection because they believed it couldn’t be found in the Torah. Remember, they accepted only the Torah, the first five books, as Scripture. So they used the example in the Mosaic Law, which obliges a man to raise up children for his dead brother by making a point that resurrection is incompatible with the Torah. They create this ridiculous hypothetical situation. They say that a man and a woman got married and the man died before the couple had any children, so the wife marries his brother, then he dies without having any children, then she marries a third brother and he dies before they could have any children. She ends up marrying seven brothers (because none of them produce children) and then she dies. And of course the question is: “Whose wife will she be in the resurrection?” Now the requirement that someone marry his brother’s wife if they died without leaving children is called, “levirate marriage”. It’s based on Deuteronomy 25:5-10, and the idea was that it was considered a very terrible thing for a woman to be a widow and childless because you needed children to support you in your old age. There was no such thing as social security and food stamps and so forth, so children were extremely important. They give the example with these seven brothers. Now, the seven brothers are intended to simply ridicule the belief in the resurrection by making the scenario so absurd. Although in the Old Testament there were those like Solomon and David who practiced polygamy, that’s not what the Sadducees are suggesting here, but polyandry: one woman with many husbands. We never see that in the Old Testament. In the legal sense they’re asking whose wife will she be when they’re all together in the afterlife? You simply cannot have seven men married to one woman. You can have a man with seven wives, but not a woman with seven husbands. But the question is moot, because the life of the resurrection is not like this life. Now Chrysostom remarks that the Lord does not speak to the Sadducees as harshly as He did the Pharisees, because their question was based on ignorance, not craftiness; so He answers them like a teacher. But I like the Lord’s answer because even though He’s not really harsh with them I think it’s a little bit insulting anyhow, because He says to them, “You err, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.” It’s a wonderful line. He addresses each of these issues in reverse order. First, He shows that they do not understand the power of God, that is, what is the resurrection is about. Life after resurrection will be very different from this life. There will be no reason for procreation, there will be no jealousy, there will be no reason for the exclusiveness of marriage because it is a spiritual existence. In the resurrection, “They neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels.” Now Chrysostom notes that just because “they do not marry”, that is not what makes them like angels. He pays very careful attention to the way the Lord phrases it. He says: “because they are like angels, they have a spiritual existence and they do not marry.” This leads Chrysostom to sermonize on one of his favorite topics, the spiritual life, especially the monastic life. But I think it’s very, very interesting that he seems to indirectly affirm the importance of marriage and life in the world, because he seems to be correcting a misinterpretation of the verse. I think that it’s possible that people were using this verse to support the monastic life as superior to the married life. Because Chrysostom says they’re not angels because they don’t marry, but because they are like angels—that is why they don’t marry. So he’s very, very careful with his exegesis of this statement, and I think he seems to be countering an argument and drawing a different conclusion. The angelic life Now, there’s no question that Chrysostom highly esteemed the monastic life. He was a monk himself, but among all of the Fathers he probably has the most balanced view of marriage and family life. And though he goes on to talk about the monks and hold them up as examples to his congregation, he makes sure first that the understanding of that verse is correct: One is not angelic because one does not marry; but because one is already living like the angels, then one does not marry. It’s true that the monastic life is called “the angelic life” because monastics are already living a spiritual kind of life. And you might have noticed perhaps in the past, that there are certain icons of St. John the Forerunner in which he seems to have wings behind him. This is because St. John lived this kind of angelic existence in the desert, in which he lived a life of great askesis, spiritual struggle and deprivation, etc. And because of this he is also like a forerunner of the monastics. This is why he’s shown with wings behind him—not because he really had wings, but because he was angelic in his way of life. Of course, just because the Lord says this, you should never think that we become angels in the afterlife. We are not angels and we will never be angels, despite what movies try to show us—that when people die they become angels. No, we become like angels because we will have a spiritual existence. “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and of Jacob.” How does the Lord respond to their challenge to defend the resurrection on the basis of Scripture, which they acknowledge? The Sadducees do not accept the resurrection on the basis of the books of the prophets because Sadducees don’t accept the book of the prophets as Scripture—only the Torah. So the Lord responds to them using Scriptures that they recognize as authoritative. “Have you not read: ‘I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and of Jacob’.” Okay, so where does He say this? When the Lord introduced Himself to Moses in the burning bush, He said, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” Now, this expression in Hebrew “I am the God of” means having a loving, caring relationship with someone. You don’t have relationships with dead people. So, this quotation was meant to illustrate that God’s relationship with the nation of Israel is a living one, and the patriarchs of the Old Testament must still be living, because at the time when Moses met God in the burning bush and He said, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” They had long since died. Those patriarchs were dead, and yet God refers to them as alive because He doesn’t say, “I was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” but, “I am the God…” So this is a very strong argument from the Torah, using the Scriptures that the Sadducees recognized, to establish the existence of the resurrection; and it shows Him to be the superior interpreter of the Scriptures. And there you have it—the Sadducees also fall short in their effort to discredit Christ. “What is the greatest commandment?” Then we have the third question, and that is, “What is the greatest commandment”? The Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, and one of them—as it says, a lawyer—came to test Him, to ask Him a question. Remember that “lawyer” means he’s a scribe, a legal expert. It’s not as much of a trap, but perhaps they wish to see if He would answer in some other fashion, because the Pharisees like to talk about the law. They would discuss, “What is the greatest law?” and they would try to organize the laws, and synthesize and systematize them. However, when the lawyer comes to ask Him this question, which I think is kind of a softball question, but it’s asked to see how He might respond to this. Perhaps they wish to engage Him in some kind of debate or dispute to discredit Him. The Lord uses this exchange to turn the tables on them again, and ask them a question. First let’s look at the question that the Scribe, or lawyer, asked of Him. “What is the greatest commandment?” And of course the Lord answers, “You shall love your Lord God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” So, that’s the first one: to love God; and secondly, your neighbor as yourself. This quotation comes from Deuteronomy 6:5, and it was a very important phrase; it was recited several times a day by pious Jews as part of the Shema Israel. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” That is called the Shema, and this idea that you must love the Lord your God was absolutely fundamental to Judaism, while the second, being like it, “love your neighbor as yourself,” comes from Leviticus 19:18. He says, “On these two hang the whole of the Law and the Prophets”; that is, the commandment to love God and love one’s neighbor cannot be separated and everything else depends upon it. If you observe those, then that’s all you really need to do. “Who is David’s son?” After this He turns and asks them a question: “Who is David’s son?” This is a very, very important passage. The Pharisees are gathered together, they come now to join the discussion. He asks them, “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?” And of course they say, “He’s David’s son.” This was the tradition among the Jews, and it was the prophecy in the Scriptures—a prophecy that the Lord fulfilled. He’s David’s son. The Lord descended from David according to the flesh, in His humanity. Now what the Lord wants to illustrate for them is that the Messiah is the son of David but not just the son of David—he’s much more than that. He says, “If he’s David’s son, how is it that David in the Spirit says: ‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand while I make thine enemies thy footstool”’?” Now this statement, how David said “in the Spirit”, reflects the Jewish belief in the inspiration of prophecy by the Spirit of God. Even though this is a psalm, it is considered prophecy; David spoke and wrote the psalms under divine inspiration. And so when David, in the Spirit, that is, being inspired by God, says, “the Lord (that is, we would say, God the Father) said to my Lord (here we mean the Christ): ‘Sit at my right hand’”. The word “Lord” is used for both: “Kyrios.” David is the speaker. The first reference to “Lord” refers to God, we would say, the Father. The second reference to “Lord” must refer to someone superior to David because He is being addressed by King David as “my Lord.” “The Lord said to my Lord,” referring to two separate persons. So if being son of David is what makes the Messiah great, because he is the “son of David,” how can the Messiah be greater than David? How can he be David’s Lord? So the second person referred to cannot simply be David’s son. If what makes him great and gives him the high status of Messiah is the fact that he’s David’s son, he can’t be greater than David himself. But here he clearly is, since David is addressing him as “my Lord.” So, Christ uses this psalm, which, by the way, had been used to crown new kings, to make statement about the Messiah. The Messiah must be more than simply David’s son, and the clear implication is that the Messiah is God’s Son—because of the use of the word “Lord” in both instances, he identifies the Messiah with God. Very, very powerful. This psalm 109 (or 110 in the western numbering) was very popular among the early Christians and was used to refer to the exaltation of Christ as Lord. This explanation was so profound, so deep, so amazing, that he shut up His opponents for good. And the Gospel says that, “After that, no-one dared to ask Him any more questions.” The “Woes” The readings continue on Great and Holy Monday evening with Matthew chapter 23. We read part of chapter 23, which is, “the woes to the Scribes and Pharisees.” There is an entire chapter in Matthew that consists of a scathing denunciation of the Scribes and the Pharisees. It summarizes the conflicts between Jesus and the Jewish leadership. We can clearly see the kinds of things He denounces them for, which motivate them to have Him arrested, put on trial and put to death. He says, “Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees!” What is a “woe”? It’s a lamentation. It’s an expression of grief, of great disappointment, a very strong denunciation that comes very close to a curse. It’s the opposite of a beatitude. You have the blessings, the beatitudes, “blessed are the poor in spirit,” and the opposite of that is a “woe.” The Prophets very often addressed the people in this way when the people were not listening to them. They would say “woe” to the people in power and position. It’s a pronouncement of judgment and warning to others. What kinds of things does He denounce the Pharisees for? We won’t go through the whole reading, but basically He denounces them for seeking glory and honors, preaching but not practicing what they preach. Accusing them of hypocrisy, He uses the term “hypocrites” many times. “Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” He accuses them of binding heavy burdens on people’s lives, which are the Pharisaic teachings of the requirements for ritual purity, the thousands of regulations. Their emphasis on all of these rules had made the Law so burdensome that no one could bear it. They bound regulations upon people and imposed on them these heavy burdens. They loved their titles and being given places of honor at feasts and the best seats. They loved flattery, they loved honor, they loved glory. He condemns them for corrupting the converts when they manage to make a convert; they corrupt that person rather than leading him toward godliness. He condemns them for observing insignificant laws while ignoring the more important things. He says, “You tithe the mint and the cumin”— they even tithe the spices in their house—“while ignoring the weightier matters of the Law: justice, love mercy.” They “strain at the gnat and swallow the camel.” This goes on for quite a long time, and you can easily see why the Jewish leaders wanted Jesus killed. I know this has been a very long podcast. Thank you for bearing with me. Next time we will begin with the betrayal, the arrest and the Jewish trial of the Lord, and we will do a very detailed study of the Jewish trial, verse by verse in the Gospel of Matthew. Until then, may God keep you all in His wonderful and loving care. Let’s conclude with our prayer: “Lord, now let Thy servants depart in peace according to Thy word, for our eyes have seen Thy salvation which Thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to enlighten the Gentiles and the glory of Thy people Israel. Amen.”
Trials and Crucifixion. Part 2a
  Православие.Ru, 24 марта 2017 г. http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/102144.htm
Dr. Jeannie Constantinou
Transcription by OrthoChristian.com See Part 1 Dr. Jeannie Constaninou continues her Ancient Faith Radio podcast series.  Via Dolorosa. Photo: boguslava.ru In this lesson we will get into the actual Biblical texts that we read during Holy Week about the conflicts between Christ and the Jewish leaders. A listener wrote to tell me that there were many different kinds of Pharisees and that some did not object to such things as Christ healing on the Sabbath. That’s true, but the ones who did object were the ones who did not agree with Christ. So obviously, when I’m explaining these things to you I’m not going to tell you everything there is to know about a certain subject; there is so much to be said about any Gospel story, about any detail of life in first century Judaism, that there’s simply not enough time to give you all kinds of details about the different kinds of groups. When it comes up, and perhaps in the context of a serious study of the Gospels later, we may have a chance to get into more detail. But otherwise, I’m trying to just give you a general idea about these groups. Of course, there were different kinds of Pharisees—even St. Paul tells us that he belonged to a part of the Pharisees and he was among the strictest, so there was a varying level of adherence to the Law of Moses in terms of the strictness expected by different kinds of Pharisees. I simply can’t say everything and qualify all of my statements or we would be here all day. Now in the last program I explained the characteristics of the first main groups in first century Judaism. The Pharisees emphasized observance of the Law of Moses, which Is not the Ten Commandments, but the countless regulations that govern daily Jewish life. The Pharisees included as the Law not only the actual rules found in the Scriptures, but a long and complex oral tradition of interpretation that had developed over the centuries. They added thousands of additional regulations that weren’t in the Bible. That’s called the Oral Law; and they felt that it was more important than the written law because it was their recent interpretation, while the written Law, the Law of Moses, was sort of outdated because it went back to the time of Moses. The Pharisees believed that the Law and the Prophets, both parts of Scripture, were Scripture. They believed in the resurrection of the dead, their leaders were rabbis, and their locus of operation was basically the synagogue. They believed that someone’s righteousness before God, that is, his acceptance by God, depended upon his observance of the outward requirements of the Law—especially ritual purity. That is what they emphasized the most—outward ritual purity; that is, not physical cleanliness, but ritual or legal cleanliness. They did not value one’s inner disposition as much as this. That’s not to say that no Pharisees ever discussed inner disposition, but obviously it was not emphasized, because they were so busy observing all of the laws of ritual cleanliness. The Pharisees were successful because they adapted the Law of Moses to changing times, and were very well respected by the Jews of their day, who saw the Pharisees following the Law. However, the Pharisees had added thousands of rules that made the Law very burdensome to follow for the ordinary Jew. Scribes and Pharisees, and ritual purity. The Scribes, we had said, were the highest level of legal expert available at the time, and this was why they are often called “lawyers” in the New Testament. They were even more knowledgably than the Pharisees. They emphasized the Law of Moses also, like the Pharisees. They were scrupulous about keeping all of the regulations of the Law, but likewise did not give much attention to the inner heart, the practice of virtue, etc. Now why did the Pharisees and the Scribes appose Christ? Because He did not care about ritual purity. He wanted spiritual purity. Now, this does not mean that Christ did not observe the Law. In some respects, He certainly did. He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath, participated in the Jewish festivals, etc. But he did not believe that outward ritual purity was more important than inner virtue, love of neighbor, mercy, justice, patience, forgiveness, etc. Now even if some Pharisees did not object to the Lord healing on the Sabbath—there may have been some that felt that was acceptable, to heal a person on the Sabbath—nonetheless, the Lord did many things that offended most, if not all of the Pharisees and the Scribes because of their emphasis on ritual purity. What did He do? He ate with tax collectors, prostitutes and sinners. Just entering the house of such a person would make you ritually defiled in the eyes of the Law. The Lord touched dead bodies, such as the only son of the widow of Nain (in the Gospel of Luke), or the daughter of Jairus, the little girl who was twelve years old. When he touched these people to raise them up, He had become ritually defiled. He didn’t run off to the Temple to offer sacrifice to remove the defilement. He didn’t consider Himself defiled. He didn’t engage in ceremonial, ritual washings or sacrifices to remove the ritual defilement. What else did He do? He allowed the woman who was a sinner to touch Him when she cried at His feet. This is a defiling thing. He allowed his disciples to pick grain on the Sabbath and clean it as they were walking through the field. This was considered work, but it was necessary because they were hungry. So anyhow, the point is there are countless examples of how Christ as a rabbi violated the basic expectation that a rabbi would observe the Law of Moses and teach others to do the same. And so when He didn’t teach others to do the same, when He set a bad example—as far as the Pharisees were concerned—this made Him a false prophet, which deserves the death penalty. Of course one of the things He did that also really made them extremely upset is that He claimed the authority to forgive sins. He claimed authority over the Sabbath when He said He was the master of the Sabbath, and this was pretty bold on His part. The Sadducees and the Temple. Now what about the Sadducees? They differed from the Pharisees in that they emphasized ritual purity, especially through animal sacrifice, but not so much through the Law of Moses. They did not recognize the oral tradition of the Pharisees, those thousands of regulations, as binding on Jews. The Sadducees leaders were associated with the chief-priests and their locus of attention was the Temple. The Temple in Jerusalem was the only place in the whole world where animal sacrifice could be offered by the Jewish people, which was required by the Law of Moses, so it was extremely important. The Sadducees came from the upper-classes and they formed part of the ruling elite. They were wealthy; they were politically and religiously conservative because they held the power of the nation. They had to work in cooperation with the Romans, and so of course they wanted to keep their place of power. So that’s why they were conservative. They did not believe in the resurrection and they only accepted the Torah as Scripture—the first five books of the Bible. The Pharisees accepted both the Torah, (“the Law”) and the Prophets as Scripture. The chief-priests, like the Sadducees, were interested in preserving the Temple and encouraging animal sacrifice. So how did the Lord offend the Sadducees and the chief-priests? Well of course, the cleansing of the Temple was one way that He certainly offended them. And why did He cleanse the Temple? Because the Jews had not borne spiritual fruit through the Temple. It was a place of basically empty ritual sacrifice, while the emphasis of the Lord was on inner purity and virtue over ritual sacrifice. He said things such as, “Before you come to the Temple with your offering, go and be reconciled with your brother.” One of the worst things that the Lord did to offend the Sadducees and the chief-priests was that He predicted the destruction of the Temple, and we will see that this is the first charge which is brought against Him at his trial. * * * Now let’s begin our lesson. “Illumine our hearts, O Master Who loves mankind, with the pure light of Thy divine knowledge. Open the eyes of our mind to understand Thy gospel teachings. Implant in us also the fear of Thy blessed commandments, that trampling down all carnal desires, we may enter upon a spiritual manner of living, both thinking and doing such things as are well-pleasing to Thee. For Thou art the illumination of our souls and bodies, O Christ our God, and unto Thee we ascribe glory, together with Thy Father, Who is from everlasting, and Thine all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.”  The Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem. Decani, Serbia. Fragment of fresco. The Gospel context of Holy Week So today we’re going to examine the Gospel readings of early Holy Week. And I apologize in advance for this being a rather long podcast. I want to make sure that we discuss these early Gospel readings so that you are prepared for the Trials, and I want to make sure that we get through the Trials and Crucifixion before Pascha, so this is why this podcast may be a little bit long. I hope it doesn’t wear you out. I’m basing my discussion, in terms of the Gospel readings, on the Greek tradition for the Services of Holy Week. I know that there are different liturgical traditions among the different Orthodox jurisdictions. I don’t know how Holy Week unfolds among all of the Orthodox, how similar we are in terms of precisely which services are performed. Even if your services aren’t exactly the same, nonetheless the message of the lesson today is very valid. The Church takes great care to place the events of Christ’s life in a context, not only theologically and spiritually, but historically. They want us to understand why things happened the way they did. I explained last time that the Saturday of Lazarus is placed by the Church at the beginning of Holy Week because it wants you to make the connection between the raising of Lazarus and Palm Sunday. The reason why the people came out to the streets of Jerusalem to welcome Christ and hail Him as the Messiah in the event that we remember on Palm Sunday is because of the raising of Lazarus. They had heard about this miraculous event. So we see Christ proclaimed and exalted, and it’s hard to understand why, all of a sudden, at the end of Holy Week, He is put to death. It wouldn’t make sense if we leapt from Palm Sunday to Great Thursday, so we don’t do that. Thus, the Church places these readings in perspective, a historical context, so that we are prepared and we understand what led to the Lord’s betrayal, His arrest, and Crucifixion. I recently said that Catholics do not have a well-developed Holy Week. They call it “Passion Week,” not only Holy Week, and, very surprising to me, they call Palm Sunday “Passion Sunday.” They hold palms and have an entrance with palms at the beginning of the Mass, but the Gospel readings at the Mass that day is the Passion of Christ. They read about the Crucifixion on Palm Sunday. Isn’t that remarkable? Then almost nothing happens in their churches until Thursday, when they have the washing of the feet, the commemoration of the Last Supper, etc. But the Orthodox Church does not do this. It’s very careful to place events in sequence and context. So on Palm Sunday we celebrate with Christ and His disciples, because this was the only time in His earthly ministry in which He was acknowledged for what He truly was—the Messiah and the King of Israel. So Palm Sunday is a joyous day in the Orthodox Church. But that evening, on the evening of Palm Sunday, the mood darkens considerably as we begin to hear rather ominous Gospel readings about the growing tensions between Christ and the Jewish leaders. The service—at least in the Greek tradition—of Palm Sunday evening, is actually the Matins of Holy Monday morning done “by anticipation.” As soon as the sun sets, liturgically it is considered to be the next day. This was the Jewish practice, and so we follow a very ancient practice. Thus, as soon as the evening arrives, we can have the service for the following day, and Palm Sunday evening is the first of what the Church calls “the Bridegroom services.” This refers to Christ calling Himself the Bridegroom. The Parable of the Fig Tree.  Holy and Great Monday. The cursing of the fig tree. Miniature from an Arabic Bible. 17th c. Now one of the themes of Palm Sunday evening is the cursing and the withering of the fig tree. The cursing of the fig tree is one of those stories about Christ that makes people rather uncomfortable, because Jesus seems to be uncharacteristically and inexplicably vindictive against a poor, innocent tree. But the meaning of Christ’s actions, like the cleansing of the Temple, must be understood as a prophetic sign. Mark, in his Gospel, emphasizes the relationship between the two by placing the fig tree incident on the way to the city. There the Lord cleanses the Temple, and then they see that the fig tree has withered upon their return. There is terminology (I want to share this a little bit with you), that when New Testament scholars look at a story like that, a story within a story, they call it a “sandwich”. So Mark “sandwiches” together the fig tree and the Temple cleansing. In Matthew, it’s much more dramatic. The Lord sees the fig tree, He curses it and it withers immediately. Now, if you’re going to ask which is more accurate, Matthew or Mark, you’re missing the point of the story. Chrysostom would never approve of such a question. He called such questions “trifles” (“ta mikra”—small things) or insignificant details. He said you should behold the miracle and admire and glorify Him who was the worker of the miracle. So whether or not it happened all at once as they were standing there or they noticed that it had withered when they returned, it does not matter. The point is that the fig tree was withered—and why is that? Remember all of the references made by John the Baptist and Forerunner about bearing fruit? And Christ telling people that they have to bear fruit of repentance? The fig tree symbolizes the nation of Israel which has failed to bear fruit. And we see the same kind of image in Jeremiah, Hosea, and Isaiah. Israel is called a tree from which fruit was to be expected. This was a very common image in the Old Testament. Now why was the fig tree cursed by Christ? Chrysostom said that the disciples might have confidence, that’s why the Lord cursed the fig tree. He always conferred benefits and never punished anyone, but it was necessary that He give His disciples a demonstration, a proof of His power to take vengeance also and to teach the disciples and the Jews that He submitted to Crucifixion by His own will, so He shows his power on the tree. In this manner Christ also acts—when He curses the fig tree—according to the Old Testament prophets, as I said. This was like a symbolic, prophetic act. It dramatized the message that the nation of Israel was without spiritual fruit, and it would be withered. It had not produced fruit, and judgment would be made upon it. Chrysostom says that the fruit to be expected was not the Law, but faith, and that the time of faith had arrived. This was because Christ was preaching to them, and they were expected to respond with faith. But when they didn’t, they showed themselves to be a fruitless fig tree. The time for figs has not arrived, Matthew tells us, which makes the cursing even more peculiar. But Chrysostom says that the Evangelists added this—that Christ went to the tree even though the time for figs had not arrived—to show that He went to the fig tree for this special purpose, to teach His disciples not out of hunger; and the disciples of course marveled at the miracle. There is so much more that can be said about the fig tree in the patristic tradition and in many other ways, but we’re going to move on because I want to be sure that we arrive at the trials by the time that’s appropriate for us. The controversies with the Jewish leaders. Now let’s talk about the controversies with the Jewish leaders. In Matthew chapter 21 we see five controversies with the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, and the debates between Christ and the Jewish leaders are interrupted by three parables. Christ’s authority. First, there is the question of Christ’s authority. Now, we know that He returned to the temple every day in Holy Week, the early part of the week of His Passion, and that He taught there. This is told to us by Luke. We don’t really hear too much about His teaching that night in Matthew. Matthew instead records His conflicts with the Jewish leaders in which He accuses them of moral and religious bankruptcy, and of course they resolved to have Him put to death. They ask the question: “By what authority do you do these things”? This question is posed by the chief priests and the Elders, who together with the Scribes form the Sanhedrin, which is the ruling body of the Jews. We’ll talk more about this group when we talk about the trial. So the chief priests and the Elders coming to Jesus is a very important delegation, and the question is about Christ’s Messianic claims. First of all, the cleansing of the Temple was a prophetic act, and they seek to trap Him into making some kind of blasphemous claim about His authority. “By what authority do you do these things”? Now “these things” refers to the entrance into Jerusalem and allowing Himself to be acclaimed as the Messiah. They didn’t say, “Hail to the Messiah.” They said “Hosanna (save us) Son of David.” “Son of David” is a Messianic title, and there was no confusing it. And they said, “Hosana to the King of Israel.” So the Jewish leaders asked by what authority He allowed this to happen, by what authority did he cleanse the Temple, etc. Chrysostom said that they asked about His authority to correct those who were selling in the Temple, because they could not object to His miracles, which were the proof of His power. So what He did was to correct and appropriate, to preserve the good order of the Temple; yet because they have nothing else to object about, they have to bring this up, for they’re looking for something to complain about or question, challenge Him about. The Gospel of Matthew alternates between long sections of teaching and narrative, because the one supports the other. The narratives have the miracles of Christ, the great signs. The one supports the other. This is very much evident in the Gospel of Matthew, that his signs were proof of the truth of His preaching, and His preaching was demonstrated by the signs—the miracles, in other words. For example, what did He say to the people who criticized Him for saying to the paralytic, Your sins are forgiven? He said: Which is easier? To say ‘your sins are forgiven’ or ‘pick up your bed or walk’? Then he says: That you might know that the Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins, He turns to the paralytic and says, take up your bed and walk. So this is very much emphasized in the Gospels that the miracles confirm who He is and the truth of His message, His Messiahship, etc. They’re both important. The miracles are not mere signs of power done to impress people. They’re a confirmation of who He is and His message, His authority, etc. This is very evident also in the Gospel of John. Signs. The Lord’s ability to perform miracles, what the Jews in the Gospel of John called “signs”, was a tremendous puzzlement to the Jews who disbelieved. They simply could not understand how He had the power to do this when He was a lawbreaker. They knew that the power had to come from one of two places. Either the power came from God, which meant that His preaching was true also, or the power came from the dark side, the demonic world, the devil. So because He was a lawbreaker, they figured that His power came from satan. They accused Him of being a sorcerer, a Samaritan, of being demon-possessed, casting out demons by the power of satan. These accusations are found in various places in all four Gospels, and it shows that without question they could not understand how He could perform such signs and yet be a lawbreaker. Now, when they ask Him, “By what authority do you do these things?” the Lord does not answer their question about authority but instead counters with a question of His own: “I will ask you a question.” This counter question was a very familiar rabbinic device. Today people respond to a question with a question to avoid answering the first question. But here it is a rhetorical, rabbinic way of entering into a kind of discussion, and the result is that those who sought to trap the Lord, fall into a trap themselves. So what does He ask them? His question is: “The baptism of John, where did it come from? Who gave John authority to baptize? God or men?” That’s the question. So He’s asking now about John’s authority. He’s turning the tables on them and putting them into a corner on the question of authority. They say that they cannot answer. Not because they don’t have an opinion about John—they do have an opinion—but because their opinion differed from that of the people. The people respected and admired John. But the Pharisees did not. They did not accept John. They would not say that His baptism came from men, even though they believed it did, but because, as the Evangelist tells us, they feared the people, who regarded John as a prophet. So, the people, as is often the case, are wiser than their leaders. The leaders refused to acknowledge the truth. How often does the Lord mention this, and says, “I thank you Lord for showing these things to the innocent and hiding them from the wise and learned.” This is exactly what He means. Chrysostom says it is evident that the Pharisees—those who asked this question, the chief priests and the elders—despised God, because they did all things for the sake of men. They were not willing to acknowledge John, nor believe in Christ, and that’s where all of their evil came from: because they sought the approval of men. That’s a very important lesson for us to ponder, and I will leave you to think about it. So all the evils we see among the Jewish leaders come from the fact that they sought the approval of men and not that of God. So, what if they had said that John’s baptism had come from God? Then the Lord would have said, “Then why didn’t you believe him?” because John pointed to Christ as the Lamb of God. He said that Christ was the Messiah whose sandal strap he was not worthy to untie. So if they accepted John as coming from God, then they would have to know that Christ was the Messiah and that the authority he exercised also came from God—do you see? Do you see how closely the Lord connects His ministry with the preaching of John the Forerunner? John is called “the Forerunner” in Orthodoxy, more often than “the Baptist” because His role in the life of the Lord was not primarily as His baptizer, but as the one who preceded Christ, who prepared the way for Christ. That is why he is called St. John the Forerunner. The Jewish leaders refused to answer the question of where John got authority to baptize, and Chrysostom says they dealt craftily with Christ, so He refused to answer them. Chrysostom says that if they were genuinely ignorant when they said, “We don’t know,” then the Lord would have instructed them. But since they were being crafty, as Chrysostom puts it, the Lord refuses to answer them; and we see this many times in the Gospels. The Lord refuses to answer people whom He knows will not believe in Him anyway. They say, “Tell us the truth: Are you the Messiah?” Or they say, “Give us a sign.” He refuses to participate in this because He knows that they are not receptive to Him. He will not engage in a discussion, He will not produce signs simply for proof, and I think that’s a very good lesson for us also. When we know that people are not receptive to our message, it’s better to be silent, and not cast our pearls before swine. We have to use discretion and discernment. And Jesus succeeds in not directly responding to the question, but He makes his Messianic claim anyway by aligning His ministry with that of John the Forerunner; because to believe that John was the prophet like Elijah who preceded the coming of the Messiah would leave one to believe and understand that Jesus was that Messiah. So the Jewish leaders did not accept John, and their refusal to answer was based on fear of the people’s reactions. Since they refused to take a public stance on the ministry of John, the Lord did not give them the right to challenge His authority. They’re reduced to silence, and they’re exposed as insincere, because people were listening to the conversation, you see, and everybody knew what they thought about John. They refused to answer, and so they are shown as what they are. The Parable of the Two Sons. We also hear on Palm Sunday evening the Parable of the Two Sons. This is the first of three parables in chapter 21 of Matthew, two of which are read in Church on Palm Sunday evening. The Parable of the Two Sons and the Parable of the Wicked Tenants, sometimes called the Wicked Husbandmen, are highly critical of the Jewish leadership, and they emphasize that God will reject them and what they stand for, and instead God will welcome into His Kingdom all those people that the Jewish leaders consider outcast, defiled, unacceptable, unrighteous, deficient, etc. So these parables show us that true Israel is not those who perform empty, ritual sacrifice or observe the little regulations of the Law, but those who bear fruits. That’s the real Israel. The story of the two sons is very simple. Basically, there are two sons. The father says to the first son: “Go out and work today in the fields.” And that son says “Yes, I’ll go,” but then he does not go. There’s a second son, to whom the father says the same thing: “Go out and work today,” and the second son says, “No, I’m not going,” but in the end he changes his mind and goes to work. So the Lord asks the question: “Which son did his father’s will?” It’s not the one who said that he will go, but the one who actually went. The second son, who rebelled, and initially said no, represents the sinners, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the gentiles, all those marginal members of Jewish society who were despised by the Jewish leaders, who considered them absolutely incapable of entering the Kingdom of God. The least likely to be accepted by God and welcomed into the Kingdom of God are those people who will enter, whereas the pious, the righteous, the religious, the law-observant are excluded; or, He says, will come in after those others. So the Lord asks which of the two did his father’s will, and in answering the question, Jesus succeeds in getting the Jewish leaders to condemn themselves by their response. It’s the second one. And He then adds this scathing denunciation: “The tax collectors and the harlots will enter the Kingdom of God before you.” Now Chrysostom says that by this parable, He convicts them, both of their obstinacy and by the response of those whom they condemned. It reflects the Jews and the Gentiles. The Jews represent the first son—the one who said, “yes”, but then did not do the will of God, while the Gentiles represent the second son who at first rejected God, but then were obedient to Him later. The Jews promised to do the will of God, Chrysostom says, but in their works they were disobedient. Thus He wants to show that simply having or hearing the Law does not benefit them. It’s not the hearers of the Law who are justified before God, but the doers of the Law. So the Lord has them deliver the judgment against themselves when he asks, “Which of them did the father’s will?” Since they were not willing to admit these things directly—that the tax collectors and the prostitutes and others repented—they have to admit it through the parable, and the Lord indirectly leads them to say the truth. Then the Lord continues when He says, “for John came to you in the way of righteousness, but you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and the harlots believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward repent and believe him.” So the Lord returns to the topic of John the Forerunner and says that the publicans and the harlots go into the Kingdom of Heaven before you, because John came in the way of righteousness and you didn’t believe him. The way of righteousness means that his life was without reproach, and they still did not believe him, but the Publicans, that is, the tax collectors, believed and repented. And even when they saw the sinners repenting, even then the Jewish leaders did not repent and believe John. Now the amazing signs of the coming of the Kingdom—that is, John’s preaching and the response of the sinners—were not only ignored, but were scorned by the Jewish leaders, even when they saw how the sinners responded to John and Jesus. Rather than rejoice in the salvation of these lost sheep, they refused to believe in the ministry of John and they opposed Jesus. They still looked at these people as sinners and with great disdain. Chrysostom says that they should have repented before the sinners, since they were the “righteous ones” of Israel; but they did not even repent after the sinners. Now these statements that the Lord made to the Pharisees, the Scribes and the chief priests, etc., were highly offensive. But because he says these things after they condemn themselves through the parable, Chrysostom says that the harshness of Christ was warranted. He also makes a very interesting point that Christ mentioned the publicans, that is the tax collectors, and the harlots because these are the two chief sins which arouse violent lust: sexual desire, which is represented by the harlots, and the desire for money, greed, which is represented by the tax collectors. The harlots and the tax collectors represent these two vices. They are entering the Kingdom of Heaven before the Jewish leaders, not while continuing in their sin, but having obeyed the law of God, having believed and been purified and converted—then they enter in. Now Christ said, they will enter before you, they will go before you, but Chrysostom notes that this does not mean that the Pharisees would necessarily follow the sinners into Heaven. But they might enter, if they are willing, and if they change their minds and repent. So, He leaves open the hope that they might. Now Chrysostom mentions just as a side note in this context a local saint of Antioch, Saint Pelagia. He doesn’t mention her by name, but in this context, talking about the repentance of the harlots, he talks about this woman who had been a famous prostitute in Antioch not long before Chrysostom was preaching there. She was a celebrity, everybody knew her, but she repented and completely changed her life, and today she is known as St. Pelagia. So he mentions her and talks about how we should use such people as examples, that those who live in vice should not despair, and the man who lives with virtue should not slumber, because the harlot may pass him by. He says that it is possible even for the harlots to pass by those who are virtuous, and other beautiful words of exhortation such as these. The Parable of the Wicked Tenants.  Holy and Great Tuesday. Parable of the husbandmen. Book miniature. 11th c. Now let’s talk about the next parable we hear, the Parable of the Wicked Tenants.1 In this parable there is a householder who represents God. He is basically an absentee landlord. He is the one who creates a farm. He plants a vineyard, puts a hedge around it, builds a tower and wine press, then rents it out to tenants. The tenants in the parable represent the Jewish leaders who are the farmers and who owe the owner of the vineyard a percentage of the proceeds. Now the vineyard, representing Israel, is a very common Old Testament image; this parable is very similar to Isaiah 5:2, which has a famous story about a vineyard that fails to provide fruit. In Isaiah that is also a prophetic indictment of Israel. Now when the Lord starts telling this parable, every Jew would recognize its meaning, so it’s not as if they had to go home and figure it out. The owner of the vineyard is God and the vineyard is the nation of Israel; they knew exactly what He was saying. In the parable we are told that he built a hedge, a winepress, and a tower, etc. This description of the vineyard very closely matches the section in Isaiah, and it would’ve been very familiar, as I’ve said, to all of the Jews. Chrysostom says that the details of the hedge, the winepress, and the tower show the great care of God, the homeowner. The tenants needed only to simply take care of what He had created. That the Lord had left meant that God had left really nothing for them to do. He had done all of the work. All they had to do was to preserve what He had given them. This meant that nothing was left undone for their salvation, but everything was completed. Note in the parable that after renting out the vineyard, the homeowner went away to a far country. Chrysostom says, this means that God was longsuffering, that He bore their sins, He tolerated their sins, the sins of Israel, and did not bring His punishments upon them. But when the season of fruit drew near, of course, it says that He sent His servants to collect His share of the harvest. Now this idea of the season of fruit has an eschatological tone. The collection of fruit is an image of harvest, the pressing of grapes—this is even in the book of Revelation, it appears throughout the New Testament, and is in the Old Testament as well. So, John the Forerunner and Christ have many references to bearing fruit and harvest as a time of judgment. Chrysostom says the fruit they were supposed to give is the fruit of obedience, and the proof of it is their works. This is different, interestingly, than the fig tree, because there he says the fruit was faith; but here he says that fruit is their obedience, and the proof of their fruit is their works, their deeds, in other words. But not only did they fail to give the fruit but they showed great wickedness by being angry toward the ones, the servants, who came to collect the fruit. The servants are beaten up and rejected, abused and killed—those servants represent the prophets. The wicked tenants abused the servants and refused to give them the fruits, so the owner sends his son. Now, the son represents the father, and he acts with the father’s full authority. This is another place in Matthew where the Lord identifies Himself, even though it’s indirect, as the Son of God, as the Son of the Father. Now the son comes to ask them to bear fruit or to give what is due to the owner. But they take the son, cast him out of the vineyard, and kill him. And of course Chrysostom and so many interpreters understood this as an allusion to Christ being crucified outside the walls of the city, which was fulfilment of prophecy. The Lord asks them: “When the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” It is such a remarkable thing, that He is able to get them to, again, render judgment against themselves. They respond that he will take away this land from those wicked and ungrateful tenants and he will punish them, etc. Thus, He succeeds in getting the leaders to condemn themselves and to recognize that the vineyard will be taken away from them. Quite a remarkable thing. Chrysostom said that Christ spoke this parable that they might pass sentence upon themselves. This is very similar to what happened in the case of David when he committed adultery, and Nathan the prophet tells him a little parable, getting David to basically convict himself. Chrysostom said that the sentence is especially just when the persons who are to be punished condemn themselves. Then after they condemn themselves by their response, recognizing that the vineyard will be taken from them, the Lord makes it even stronger by adding the prophesy about the cornerstone. “Have you never read? ‘The very stone, which the builders rejected, has become the head of the corner. This is the Lord’s doing and it is wonderful in our eyes.’” This quote from Psalm 117/118 had become one of the most important Old Testament prophecies about Christ in the early Church, and we see this in many places. Clearly the Lord saw it as an image of His rejection by the Jewish leaders, and yet His ultimate vindication by God through the Resurrection. And of course, He says: “I tell you that the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing fruits.” So, returning to the parable, the Lord makes a clear and dramatic announcement, that God intends to create a new nation that will produce fruit and inherit the promise of the Kingdom, and that nation will not be comprised only of the children of Abraham. And of course it tells us that the Jewish leaders perceived that He was speaking about them. But when they tried to arrest Him, they feared the multitudes. So you see, many, many times they wanted to arrest Him but they were hindered by the people. I want you to remember that, because later we will talk about the betrayal of Jesus. This comes up when he is betrayed by Judas. The points Jesus made were not lost on these Jewish leaders. In fact they were understood so clearly that they wanted to arrest him on the spot, but it tells us that they were afraid of the people. So, they were quite furious with Him. There’s no question about that. This is Palm Sunday evening, when you see those parables in which He succeeds in telling them that they’re going to lose the vineyard of Israel, the grace of God, the protection of God. God’s recognition of them as His nation will be taken from them and given to those who will bear fruit. This is Palm Sunday evening—lots of emphasis on bearing fruits on that night. Since we have finished discussing the Gospel readings of Palm Sunday evening, let’s pause at this point for now. Presbytera and Dr. Jeannie Constantinou’s podcasts can be found here. 1 Also known as the Parable of the Vineyard.
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