The Jewish Trial, Part 1   Православие.Ru, 4 апреля 2017 г. http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/102425.htm Dr. Jeannie Constantinou See Trials and Crucifixion of Christ, Part 2b. The Traps We continue our series of transcriptions of Dr. Jeannie Constantinou’s podcasts on Ancient Faith Radio, “Search the Scriptures”. Today Dr. Jeannie begins her discussion of the trials our Lord Jesus Christ undergoes, first by the Jewish Sanhedrin. As always, she begins with a prayer. “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.”  Holy and Great Wednesday. Judas's betrayal. Duccio di Buoninsegna, 13th c. Well, dear brothers and sisters, at last we have arrived at the program in which we begin to discuss the trials of Christ. First, the Jewish trial. I would love to be able to talk about so many important details related to the Passion, including the betrayal by Judas, the Last Supper, Peter’s denials, etc., but we will have to reserve those lessons for the time when we do an in-depth study of Matthew’s Gospel because all of our time for the next couple of programs will be taken up with the trials and the Crucifixion. But before we begin our study of the Jewish trial, I would like to make one comment about the betrayal by Judas. People have difficulty understanding why Judas betrayed Christ. The hymns of the Church during Holy Week uniformly attribute the betrayal to greed, and that comports with the witness of the Gospels. Movies and books try to excuse Judas in some manner by saying he didn’t really want to betray Christ, that he was tricked into doing it, and he believed that Christ would extricate Himself and show His power; but all of the Gospel witnesses say that He betrayed the Lord for money. It’s a very crass motive, but it’s the truth. I don’t know why people are so fixated with this idea, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie that ever tells the truth about Judas. People seem to be quite obsessed with this. Other people say, “How could Judas be at fault for betraying Christ when it was necessary for him to betray Christ? After all, it was prophecy.” But it was not necessary for Judas to betray Christ, even though there was a prophecy that Christ would be betrayed, because Christ said, “Woe to the person who betrays the Son of Man”, right? I mentioned to you that there were countless instances in the Gospels in which Jewish leaders wanted to or attempted to arrest Christ but they did not. In the synoptic Gospels, that is, Matthew, Mark and Luke, they usually state that the Jewish leaders did not arrest Christ because they feared the multitude. And John’s Gospel says something similar; and also, more frequently, says that Christ’s “time had not yet come” and that’s why He had not been arrested. Judas did not make it possible for them to arrest Christ. He just made it easier. They could have and they would have arrested Him even without Judas, but there would have been a great commotion among the people because the people loved Christ. And you see there’s a great difference between the knowledge that Judas would betray Christ or the prophecy that Christ would be betrayed and predestination. Judas was not predestined to betray Christ. It was his choice. There is a difference between foreknowledge and predestination. I’m going to give you an example that anyone can understand. Maybe it’s even a silly example. It’s a simple example, but I think you’ll get the point. Now the example is this. Whenever my husband and I would go someplace for ice cream, he would always order plain chocolate ice cream. You could take him to the fanciest ice cream parlor. You could offer a dozen varieties of ice cream: ice cream with chocolate chunks and double chocolate and fudge ripples and mint and marshmallows—it never made any difference. He only wanted plain, chocolate ice cream. Now this has gone on for the thirty years that I have known him. He only orders plain chocolate ice cream! Now, I know exactly what he’s going to choose. Does that mean that I force him to choose it? Do you see the difference? Because I know what he’s going to pick does not mean that his choice is restricted. You yourself can also probably think of many such examples among the people whom you know well. Now I ask you: How well does God know us? God knows us better than we know ourselves. God knows the future, so of course He knew what Judas would do; but He did not compel Judas to betray Christ. It is “the will of God that all people be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.” That’s from the Bible. If you don’t know where it is, look it up. You should be looking some things up on your own. God’s will is “that all people be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.” That’s a very important line that is frequently quoted in the prayers of the Orthodox Church. Christ loved Judas too, and He wanted Him to be saved. Christ died for Judas too, but Judas did not choose to be saved and instead chose to betray Christ. Sometimes a philosophical question is posed: Is there anything that God cannot do? And yes, there is one thing God cannot do: God cannot force us to love Him. That’s why predestination is absolutely incompatible with what we know about God, because God allows us free will, free choice. In order to be able to love God we have to be able to have the choice to reject Him, because if someone holds a gun to your head and says “You will love me”, well you know, that’s not love. So in order to have love we must have choice. So all Judas did was make the arrest easier because he led the Jewish leaders to where Christ and the disciples were spending their nights that week on the Mount of Olives. The Jewish leaders were able to arrest Christ secretly and try Him secretly in the middle of the night and avoid complications by arresting Christ in a public place. Christ was going every day to the Temple and teaching. They knew He was there. They could have arrested Him but they were afraid. So Judas makes the arrest easier. He does not make it possible. They could have arrested Him and dealt with the crowd somehow, but this way they not only arrested Him easily and quietly, but they put Him on trial in the middle of the night. When the people start to find out what’s happening… do you know when they start to find out what happened? When He’s on the way to the cross! When He’s carrying His cross and they see Him in the streets of Jerusalem. We see how the people are reacting and the women are crying—that’s in the Gospel of Luke. That’s when they find out. We’ll get to the scene where they shout “crucify Him” later and we’ll talk about what was going on there.  Now there was much discussion about the Mel Gibson movie, “The Passion of the Christ,” when that came out a few years ago. Gibson defended the movie as absolutely historically accurate. I wish that were true, but unfortunately it is not true. He said that his only sources were Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and he did use some of the Gospels. But he used a lot of other things, too. Some of the scenes were part of Catholic tradition. Gibson is a very devout traditionalist Catholic and it was very evident in the way he portrayed the movie that he was purposely copying some details from the “stations of the Cross,” which is a service or ritual of Catholic piety. He’s perfectly free to do that. He’s a filmmaker and there’s nothing wrong with that, except when you say that everything in them movie comes from the Gospels. He also added some other details that Catholic professors here at the University of San Diego told me come from the visions of a certain Catholic mystic. One of our New Testament professors told me that she counted over forty historical errors in the movie. I didn’t try to count them myself, but I wouldn’t doubt that number because there was a tremendous amount of historical misrepresentation in the “Passion of the Christ” movie, and as I think of some of the errors, I might mention them. The first mistake that comes to mind has to do with the Jewish trial, and this was just absolutely glaring to me. The movie was very well done, there’s no question about that. It was very visually beautiful, its cinematography was beautiful, but I always warn people: Don’t try to learn your Bible from the movies. I have never seen a movie about a Bible story that was accurate. Another recent movie was called “One Night With the King” and it was supposed to be the story of queen Esther, which is a wonderful idea for a movie. People told me it was very good, so I rented it, but the movie was absolutely ridiculous. It departed from the true Bible story in so many ways, and some places it was just plain silly, not to mention inaccurate historically. So sometimes it’s better to just read the Bible to your kids and forget about taking them to see movies to learn about the Bible, because there are usually many, many mistakes in them. I would say the best production I have ever seen about the life of Christ, which is very well done and almost entirely accurate historically and biblically with a few exceptions, was the Franco Zeffirelli miniseries called “Jesus of Nazareth.” It’s the only one I would encourage anyone to watch, because it’s very well done and pretty accurate. But speaking of Judas in connection with this, that was one of the mistakes in the Zaffirelli miniseries. When they give Judas the money for betraying Christ they hand it to him as though it were an afterthought—“Oh by the way, why don’t you take this for your trouble”—and then he seems surprised to receive it, as though he hadn’t negotiated a price, which we know he did. So this is another example that somehow they just don’t really deal with Judas accurately. Now returning to the question of the accuracy in the Mel Gibson movie .I thought of it because of the Jewish trial which is what we’re going to begin discussing. After Christ is arrested the movie shows Him being brought to some place, and it seems to be the Temple, but they don’t say where he is brought. It seems to be the Temple but we never really know. Now, where was Christ really brought for the trial? He was not brought to the Temple. He was brought to the house of Caiaphas. And who was there in this room for the trial in the movie? It has to be the Jewish trial that Gibson is showing in the movie because later there is the trial before Pilate, so this must be the Jewish trial. Now who was there in the movie? It’s not the Sanhedrin. It’s a like a mob scene. There’s no trial, there are no witnesses called, and practically everybody you know is there. Mary Magdalene is there, Mary the mother of Christ is there. They find out that He’s been arrested and they run down there and they’re watching this. Peter is there, the disciples are there. It’s ridiculous. Christ is in the middle and people are shouting at him. It’s not a trial, it’s a mob scene. And one of the worst things about the movie is that it depicted Mary Magdalene as the woman who was accused of adultery whom the Lord saved from being stoned to death. This just boggled my mind. I have no idea why he would do that. Now it’s a beautiful scene, but I didn’t understand why Mel Gibson couldn’t have some other woman playing the adulterous woman rather than the actress who played Mary Magdalene. It’s a terrible insult. By the way there is absolutely no hint in the Gospels that Mary Magdalene was ever a prostitute and certainly not an adulteress. She did not live a life of sin. There’s no hint of that in the Gospel, but for some reason this has become the western tradition about Mary Magdalene and its roots is in one of the Popes, that was Gregory the Great. For some reason he identified her with the sinful woman and ever since then poor Mary Magdalene has been maligned in the West as a sinful woman. If you want to know what she was known for, look it up. Now so this is how Mel Gibson presents the scene and it’s ridiculous, because no-one was there, except the Sanhedrin. That’s why Judas was useful, because he helped them arrest Christ in a place where there wouldn’t be a crowd. They put Him on trial before the Jewish leaders and find Him guilty of a crime, all before morning. And everything was done in secret. That’s why Judas was useful. Peter, of course, we know followed to watch, to see what would happen to Christ, but he was not in the room during the trial. He was out in the courtyard. So you might ask. “Well then, how do we know what happened to Christ at His trial?” We know because there were people who were followers of Christ who were part of the Jewish leadership. So obviously later they told the disciples about what happened. Anyhow, don’t rely on the movies to learn about the Bible. I know you people don’t, but this is a very good reason why you should not. Now let’s move on. After they arrested Christ they were resolved to put him to death before the Passover. It was urgent. Why at that time? Why did they consider it so urgent? Now we spoke about how there were two events that made the Jewish leaders decide that they must act immediately to put Christ to death. First there was the raising of Lazarus, and secondly, the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. We know from the gospel of John that after watching how the people acclaimed Christ as the Messiah and the King of Israel, the Jewish leaders had a council and they said “We have to take care of this problem right now.” And in fact the high priest states basically, a prophecy. John says it’s a prophecy. He said that “It is better than one man die rather than the whole nation be destroyed.” So they decided that even if He’s innocent it’s better for Him to be killed. Still let’s return to the question of why now. Why before the Passover? Why didn’t they wait until after the Passover had been concluded and the crowds have left Jerusalem and they could sort of do away with Him rather quietly? The answer involves why all of this happened during Passover. Have you ever thought of how meaningful, how amazing, how beautifully conceived the plan of God was to have the Passion and the Resurrection occur during Passover? It’s remarkable. What does Passover commemorate? It commemorates the deliverance from slavery in Egypt and the entrance into the Promised Land by the Jewish people. Their leader was Moses. Now this event was the foreshadowing of what would happen later through Christ. Especially in the Gospel of Mathew we see Christ portrayed as the new Moses, the one who gave the new Law. He is the one who will now lead us from the slavery, not in Egypt, but the slavery of sin and death, and to the Promised Land, not the land of Israel, but the Kingdom of Heaven. Now this is what the Fathers of the Church called “typos”, typology. That was a very common way to interpret Old Testament events. The Fathers of the Church saw many events of the Old Testament as a foreshadowing of later events and persons in the New Testament, and this foreshadowing was called the “type.” You have the type, the Old Testament, and you have the fulfillment, or some people call it the “antitype” in the New Testament. Another example is the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham. Abraham was going to sacrifice his beloved son, and that’s a foreshadowing of the fact that God the Father sacrificed His Son, His beloved and only Son. So you see Passover it takes its name from the last of the ten plagues which Moses brought against Egypt so Pharaoh would allow the Hebrew slaves to leave. The last plague was the death of the first born in the land, but Moses told the Hebrew people to sacrifice a lamb and place the blood of the lamb over their door posts, so when the Angel of Death came, it passed over the houses of the Hebrews and killed only the firstborn of the Egyptians. So the Hebrews were saved by the blood of the lamb and that’s why Christ is called The Lamb. We too have passed over, or will pass over, from death into life because of the blood of the Lamb. Christians have always understood these Old Testament events as “types,” which had their fulfillment later in the New Testament. Now I’m going to ask you a question I want you to ponder. Why was there no lamb at the Last Supper? Because the Last Supper talks about bread and wine and herbs but there is no lamb mentioned. Historically, it is true that Christ knowing, that He would be dead on the day of Passover, ate the meal with His disciples early, “in anticipation.” He provided for them the theological meaning of His death, instituting the Eucharist within the context of the Passover meal. That might be a historical reason but that’s not the real reason why there was no lamb. We’ll talk about it when we talk about the Crucifixion - see if you arrive at the right conclusion. So why is it that He institutes the Eucharist at the Passover meal and then He says: “Do this in remembrance of me”? I know that our Protestant friends say that that means that Communion is a memorial meal, “Do this in remembrance of me.” It’s purely “symbolic.” But the consistent witness in the Bible is that Communion is the Body and Blood of Christ. You can’t read John 6 - which is written in the 1st century -you can’t read that and conclude that it was not considered the Body and Blood of Christ. You can’t read 1st Corinthians 11 - which was even earlier than the Gospel of John - and not conclude that early Christians believed that Communion is the actual Body and Blood of Christ. That was the teaching of the early Church. That is the consistent witness from Apostolic times through today. So why did He say: “Do this in remembrance of me”? Because when they would gather for a Passover type of meal with the bread and the wine, from then on, rather than remembering at this time of year the deliverance by Moses from slavery in Egypt and entrance into the Promised Land, they would now remember Christ and His deliverance of us from the slavery of sin and death to the Promised Land of the Kingdom of Heaven. That’s why He said, “Do this in remembrance of ME.” That’s why the Orthodox Church continues to tie its celebration of Pascha to the Jewish celebration of Passover. You see, that connection has been lost in the West because western Christians celebrate their Easter before Jewish Passover. This is happening on a consistent basis most years. They don’t really see the connection, but we do. We see the connection. We celebrate Pascha after Passover, and this is why: because the Lord said do this in remembrance of me, so we do it. We remember the Christian Passover. The Christian Passover happened after the Jewish Passover was completed. Christ rose after the Jewish Passover so we must wait for the Jewish Passover too. That’s the reason for the difference in the dates. The way we calculate the dates is exactly the same except for that detail which we insist upon because of the deep connection to the meaning of Passover. So back to our story. Why did the Jewish authorities decide that Christ must be done away with before the feast of Passover? Well, the Jews came to Jerusalem for the Passover from all over the world, but certainly those who were in Palestine, who were strong enough to travel to walk to Jerusalem who were living within a few days walk of Jerusalem, they would come to the city for the Passover. The normal population of the city was about 50,000 people, but during Passover it swelled to more than four or five times that size. So it would swell to about 200,000 - 250,000 people. Now, when you have a large crowd of people together at one place at the same time, and especially when there’s a lot of religious and nationalistic fervor associated with it, you have the potential for riots and insurrection. Passover was always a time of strong nationalistic and religious feeling because the Jews were remembering their deliverance from the slavery under the Egyptians and their hope remained alive for the Messiah to appear and deliver them from the Romans. So every Passover Jerusalem was a pressure cooker ready to explode, even during an ordinary Passover. But this was not an ordinary Passover because among them was someone who had just raised a man from the dead, Lazarus, and was welcomed into the city like a triumphant hero. It would not have taken much to spark an insurrection, a riot, a revolt against the Romans had Christ wanted to start one. So the threat was very, very real. The Jewish leaders did not know that Christ had no intentions of starting a revolution They didn’t know that He had no political aspirations whatsoever, but as far as they could see, there was a real threat. Now Pilate was not usually in Jerusalem. The capital of the province, the Roman province of Judea, was not Jerusalem because the Romans did not like Jerusalem. It didn’t have anything fun. There were no Roman temples, there were no baths. It didn’t have the usual amenities that Romans liked to have. So the capital of Judea was a magnificent Roman city built by Herod the Great on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea which he dedicated to Augustus and called it Caesarea, specifically “Caesarea by the Sea” or “Caesarean Maritima.” The ruins of that city have been uncovered by the way, and if you ever go to Israel you could see parts of it. That’s where Paul was imprisoned before he was sent to Rome when he appealed to Caesar and you could see the very theatre where St. Paul preached to Herod Agrippa. So that’s were Pilate spent most of his time, but during Passover he would come, (and every Roman governor would come), to Jerusalem with a large number of soldiers as a big show of strength to discourage rebellion. So the Romans were very aware of the potential for an uprising during the Passover season. And this is why Pilate releases a prisoner for them, not out of the goodness of his heart, but to try to pacify the crowds and let off some steam. And by the way, at this point the Romans are not involved. I have seen some movies where they show Jesus - I can’t remember if the Gibson movie was like this - but I’ve seen where they showed Jesus being arrest by Roman soldiers. That did not happen. He was arrested by Temple guards. The Jews had their own temple police force, their own security system, and they were sent to arrest Christ. The Romans are not involved yet. That will happen after the Jewish trial. So now let’s begin the Jewish trial. First I’m going to read for you the entire text of Matthew regarding the Jewish trial. Now this is the Revised Standard Version and its generally speaking, more accurate. The Orthodox Study Bible uses the New King James Version and later when we do our introduction to the Bible I will explain to you why I think they chose the NKJV, but that’s not important at this point. I’m going to be reading Matthew 26:57, skipping over verse 58 which describes Peter following behind, and then continuing with the trial, 59 through 66. “Then those who had seized Jesus led him to Caaphas 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 him, "You have said so. But I tell you, hereafter you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of 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."”  Holy and Great Friday. Christ being questioned by Caiaphas the high priest. Fresco in Staro Nagoricno, Macedonia. 12th-14th c. Let’s begin with that first verse, verse 57. “Then those who had seized Jesus led him Caiphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered.” By almost any conceivable standard the time and the place of this Jewish trial of Christ violated Jewish law. According to the Mishnah which is the Jewish legal code, a Jewish criminal court could only convene during the day and it was required to adjourn at sunset. If the proceedings, which are detailed in the Gospels, were in fact the Jewish trials of Christ, they violated Jewish law because they occurred at night. Now there is some controversy about the Mishnah, which was written down after the time of Christ. It was based on oral law and there’s some controversy about how well it reflected actual practices during Second Temple Judaism, during the 1st century basically, toward the end of the time when the Temple still existed. So there’s some controversy about whether it does reflect the standards. We know they had standards and they were very good standards. It makes sense to only allow trials to take place during the daytime because trials which take place at night, especially in the middle of the night, are apt to produce unjust results. There’s a lack of fairness there. There’s an obvious lack of fairness when things are done secretly. This is why today in all civilized countries trials are performed in public, so people can see. It’s a measure of protection for the individual accused. So if this is in fact the Jewish trial, and I’m saying “if” because it’s possible that this was some other proceeding designed to gather evidence to use against Christ because it seems that the following morning there was yet another trial which was in fact a mere formality. It seems that in the morning there was another meeting of the council because in Matthew 27:1-2 it says this: “When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took council against Jesus to put Him to death.” Doesn’t that seem strange to you? Because we just heard about the trial in chapter 26, now chapter 27 begins and it seems to be repeating itself. Well, probably what happened is that the middle of the night “trial” was really more like a preliminary hearing or some way to gather evidence against Christ to have the official trial the following morning. The same thing is reflected in Mark 15:1. Luke describes the trial which took place in the morning in 22:66. He doesn’t talk about the middle of the night trial. So there seems to have been another trial in the morning which involved the same persons, the same council, echoes the same condemnation of the previous night. However, that does not mean that it was a legal proceeding, because criminal trials were not permitted on the eve of the Sabbath or the eve of a holiday. That particular day, if they held the actual official trial on Friday morning, that day was both the eve of the Sabbath and eve of a holiday, which is Passover. Another aspect of Jewish law which was violated was that a guilty verdict could not be pronounced the same day as the trial. This is another very intelligent rule. Judges were required to consider their verdict overnight unless they were going to acquit the person. But if they were going to find them guilty, they had to be allowed time to think about it. Again, you can see how this would avoid injustice, avoid the railroading of an individual or making decisions or judgments based on emotions of the moment. So whether the trials recorded by the Evangelists was the actual trial in the middle of the night or some sort of preliminary hearing or type of investigation to bind Christ over until the next morning - any way you look at it - the Jewish trial of Christ was conducted in violation of basic Jewish law. So, on a number of other points that we will not go into, the trial and condemnation of Christ violated basic requirements, and even fundamental fairness, because you don’t have a trial of someone in the middle of the night. Also of course there were other requirements of the law which were violated. But I’m sure that the Jewish leaders felt that these were emergency measures because of the extreme danger of the situation because of what Christ represented. Now let’s take a look at verse 59. “Now the chief priests and the whole council sought false testimony against Jesus that they might put Him to death”. “Now” refers here to the council. We presume that the council is the Great Sanhedrin, although it is never called the Sanhedrin. It’s called that in the hymns of the Church on Holy Week. Why do we think it was the Great Sanhedrin? First, because the person who was presiding over this trial was the high priest, and he presided over the Sanhedrin. And, secondly, only the Great Sanhedrin had jurisdiction in three types of critical cases. They had “first jurisdiction.” They were the court of “first jurisdiction” - which means that they were the only court that could try three types of people. First, a false prophet, which is the basis of the charge against Christ. Secondly, the king. And third, the high priest. And it’s so ironic that they think they’re trying Him as a prophet, but who they are really trying is the King of Israel and the High Priest of Heaven. The Great Sanhedrin was the highest ruling body of the land. It consisted of 72 men who were the leading figures of Jerusalem, including chief priests, Sadducees elders and some Pharisees. Under Jewish law, the Sanhedrin was only allowed to convene during the day and only in a special room in the Temple complex called the “Chamber of Hewn Stones.” So, here again, we see this law being violated, this law requiring them to meet in a specific place. Now there were other Sanhedrins. This is why it’s called the Great Sanhedrin. It’s the most important ruling body of the Jews. There was no king in Judea at this time, so the Sanhedrin was the legislative body. It enacted regulations for the religious life and the political life of the people. It was the highest authority in the land. So there was a Great Sanhedrin of 72, there were also Lesser Sanhedrins of 23 judges and then even smaller courts of 3 judges found in villages and towns throughout the area. So it tells us that the council met and “sought false testimony.” That’s not a good translation. It really should say “they were seeking”, because it is the imperfect tense (ezetoun). “They were seeking false testimony,” not the aorist tense “they sought.” Because this word – “they were seeking” - suggests that they were searching for witnesses for a period of time, witnesses whose testimony could convict Christ. This seemed to take a while because it says “they were seeking.” The falseness of the witnesses and their testimony is emphasized by Matthew. The council searches for people to come forward. They’re searching for false witnesses. I’m sure they would be happy with true witnesses but they weren’t able to find any! And so they are searching even for false testimony, so long as it will stick. And this false testimony of course highlights the treachery of the leaders, the injustice of the trial and of course the innocence of Christ. Verse 60 reads “but they found none” (no false witnesses) “though many false witnesses came forward”… “at last, two came forward”. So what does that mean? “They found none, though many came forward, then two came forward.” At least two witnesses were required for a conviction under Jewish law. And furthermore, their testimony had to agree on all relevant details. So you could bring a thousand witnesses to offer testimony, but if their testimony was conflicting it could not be admitted into evidence. So finally they found two. Now this seems to have taken quite a long time. They probably took two people aside and said “Look, get your story straight and come forward with something that you’ll agree upon so we can be done with this.” So finally they find two who testify to the same thing. Now there’s a charge that can be brought. By the way, in Jewish trials all witnesses were men. Women were never permitted to be witnesses in Jewish courts. They were excluded from testifying along with insane people, children, the mentally retarded and anyone with a handicap. So women were lumped together with those groups because they were considered :inherently unreliable” witnesses. I think it’s very interesting that they’re the ones who become the witnesses of the Resurrection. There’s a lot of meaning to that, isn’t there? So all of these witnesses were men. That’s one reason - why the disciples when the women come and say “The tomb is empty” or “We have seen the Lord – the disciples don’t believe them, because women were not considered reliable as witnesses, in a Jewish mind anyhow. Christianity changed all of that, thank God. Verse 61”: “So they found two who came forward and said: ‘This fellow said, “I am able to destroy the Temple of God and to build it in three days.” ‘ ” Let’s start with the beginning, “this fellow said.” Now did Christ ever say that? Did Christ ever say “I am able to destroy the Temple of God and to build it in three days”? Usually when I ask that question most people say “Yes, He said that.” But He never said that. He said something similar. That statement is not found in any Gospel. He never promised to destroy the Temple. A similar statement can be found in John 2:19. “After Christ cleansed the Temple, the Jewish leaders asked Him by what authority do you do this?” Remember the question about authority that we addressed last time? And Christ replied: “Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up again.” And John tells us that He is referring to His body. So His authority would be proven by His resurrection. Now the witnesses at Jesus’ trial completely distort the statement. According to the witnesses, “This man said ‘I will destroy the Temple,’ ” the one doing the destroying is Christ and the Temple being destroyed is Herod’s Temple, the Second Temple. But in Christ’s statement the ones doing the destroying are the Jews and the Temple being destroyed is Christ’s own body. So they got it wrong. But the council didn’t care because at last now they had two witnesses who agreed and the charge can stick. Now there is a trial. Now before we move on let’s consider why this was such a big deal. What if Christ really did say that He would destroy the Temple, because He did predict the destruction of the Temple. It’s interesting that they don’t level that charge. Perhaps because they didn’t know about it. When Christ predicted the destruction of the Temple, He was standing on the Mount of Olives. The disciples were admiring the beauty of the Temple from afar, then Christ said “There will not be one stone left on top of another” and they were shocked. So He predicted the destruction of the Temple. What if He really did say “I will destroy the temple”? No one could destroy a huge Temple, let alone build it up again in three days. Why would the Jewish leaders be so upset about what clearly seems to be an impossible claim? Well, if you look in the book of Jeremiah chapter 26, you will see that the priests and the false prophets at the time condemned Jeremiah to death for predicting - merely predicting - the destruction of the Temple. He was not in fact executed. They even pronounced a very similar judgment, Jeremiah 26:11. Although Christ was eventually condemned for blasphemy, the testimony regarding the destruction of the Temple was a historical truth that this is one of the factors which motived the Jewish leaders to arrest and try Christ. They were concerned for the survival of the Temple. The statement which the false witnesses say Christ made was a serious one. It was considered a threat against the Temple. Now the significance of the Temple in Jerusalem cannot be overstated and really can’t be comprehended by us. The Jews believed that through the Temple God dwelt among His people. He affirmed their election as chosen ones. He was with them, His presence was there. I mean, they didn’t think of it in a silly way, that God was confined to the Temple, but His presence was with the people by means of the Temple. And when the zealots succeeded in starting a revolt against the Romans later in the year 66 they never believed that the Temple would be destroyed. They believed, in fact, that they were certain to win because God was with them. When the Temple was destroyed in the year 70 as Christ had predicted, it was, along with the Holocaust, the most tragic event in the history of the Jewish people. Judaism was never the same after that. At the time the Temple occupied about 25% of the land in the city of Jerusalem. Now imagine the city where you live, and 25% of it taken up with one big complex. How important would that be, just from an economic standpoint? Now the Temple was not only economically vital for the livelihood of practically everyone in Jerusalem, but it was a center of national life and identity. It was the political center, the religious center of the nation. It’s not surprising that the threat of its destruction would be viewed with the utmost seriousness. Yes, for economic reasons, but also for religious ones. It would be saying that God had abandoned His people. So these statements really struck at the heart of Judaism. And, of course, we see that the chief priests and the high priests are alarmed at these statements about the Temple. Now even though of course this was a seemingly impossible claim, they can’t accept the idea that God would allow the Temple to be destroyed. But there’s more to it than this as we will see later when we continue the interchange between the high priest and Christ, because after this, the high priest stands up and asks the Lord: “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?” Next time we are going to continue our discussion and see what Jesus said to Caiaphas and what Caiaphas says to Him, and what it all means. But for now we must conclude, and we will 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 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.