The Crown and the Cross: The Life of Christ (22 page)

While the temple authorities and the leaders of the Pharisees waited and watched to see what He would do, Jesus remained at the cool and pleasant home of Mary and Martha in Bethany, delaying the time when He would go into the temple and begin to teach, as was His right, from the Porch of Solomon where the other teachers of Israel sat and gave their opinions concerning the relationship between man and God. When Lazarus returned in a few days, he quickly gave himself up to the teachings of Jesus, as his sisters had already done.

This brief period of peace and happiness was precious to Jesus. The household at Bethany grew very dear to Him, and from that time became His home when He was in the vicinity of Jerusalem.

Elam, the Pharisee, had done much since that evening, a little over thirty years ago, when he had taken the last couch in the inn at Bethlehem and forced a mother to bear her child in the manger. Already well-to-do, he had prospered even more during the intervening years and had soon moved from Hebron to Jerusalem, where he acted as agent for the weavers of Hebron, selling their cloth in the markets of the Roman Empire at a far greater profit than could have been made in Jerusalem itself.

As Elam grew in wealth, his soul had shriveled. He maintained an outward piety, keeping the Law so strictly—and so publicly—that he impressed people everywhere with his righteousness. But as the years passed he had gradually become a Pharisee of the Pharisees, the leader of the most intolerant and bigoted faction in the sect whose intolerance and bigotry were their greatest pride.

Elam had brought Jonas to Jerusalem with him, but the climate, with its cold winters and raw winds, had worsened the little hunchback’s infirmity. With Elam, whatever was unproductive, whether a growing vine, or a sick human being, was cut off and thrown away with no qualms and no regrets. He had finally freed Jonas from his service, casting the little hunchback out to fend for himself, as he had the right to do under the Law. Jonas had been forced to take any job he could find and then, when there was no other employment, the lowliest task remaining to one who would not beg, that of the woodsellers who gathered wood outside the city and carried it in on their backs, selling it from house to house.

Because he liked to be seen at the temple, Elam went every day to voice his opinions authoritatively to any one who would listen. His richly fringed robe and the over-large phylacteries he wore attached to his forehead and about his wrists marked him as a rich and important man, and many stopped to listen and to admire his piety.

Solomon’s Porch was a busy place on the morning Jesus came into the temple during the middle days of the Feast of Tabernacles. Word of His coming had been spread abroad by His disciples and a crowd was waiting for Him to appear on the cool porch. While they waited, the people were discussing Him among themselves and, seeing a knot of them talking together, Elam joined the group.

“Jesus is a good man,” a herder from Galilee was saying. “I have seen Him heal the sick many times and He even raised the daughter of Jairus, one of the rulers of the synagogue at Capernaum, from the dead.”

This was too much for Elam. “The cursed Nazarene leads the multitude astray,” he said sharply, daring the Galilean to take issue with a person of his importance. “What He does is by the power of demons.”

Accustomed to accept the statements of Pharisees, particularly an important one like Elam, as the final authority on religious matters, none of the Jerusalem Jews in the immediate circle disagreed with him. The Galilean, however, was not so easily silenced.

“Many in Galilee believe the Nazarene is the Messiah,” he insisted. “They say even John the Baptist named Him such.”

“Where is the Baptist now?” the Pharisee sneered.

“Dead,” the Galilean admitted. “At the hand of Herod Antipas.”

“Even as the Nazarene will be put to death for stirring up the people,” Elam said. “When the Messiah comes we will know Him. David said of Him in the psalm:

“You shall bruise them with an iron rod!

You shall crush them like a potter’s vessel!”

The Galilean had begun to realize that he was no match in an argument over religion with a Pharisee but was unwilling to give up.

“What of the words of Isaiah?” he demanded.

Elam shrugged contemptuously. “Isaiah said much, and not always what people such as you could understand.”

“I mean where he said:

“Behold My servant whom I uphold,

Mine elect in whom my soul delights.

A bruised reed shall He not break,

And the smoking flax shall He not quench.”

“The rabbis do not believe that passage refers to the Messiah,” Elam said. “But answer me a question about this man called Jesus. Of what town is He?”

“Nazareth.”

“In what region?”

The Galilean saw what was coming but could not go back now. “Galilee,” he admitted.

Elam turned to the Jerusalem Jews and spread his hands in a gesture of derision. “I leave it to you,” he said. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Or a king of Israel out of Galilee?”

The laughing crowd shouted, “No!” to the considerable discomfort of the Galilean, and the argument ended when a commotion broke out at the end of the portico where the stairway led from the temple court to the streets of the city below. Jesus had appeared there, surrounded by His disciples, the tall form of Simon Peter close beside Him. Without pausing, He moved through the crowd to an empty space before one of the tall shining columns. There, with no ostentation or any claim to be more than the other teachers, He turned to face the crowd that quickly left the other rabbis to throng about Him.

When Jesus started to speak, a tense silence fell, for even His first words were different from those of the other teachers. Where these others buttressed their pronouncements with the authority of this or that of the great rabbis—here Shammai and there Hillel, the two greatest rabbinical schools of Judaism—Jesus spoke with only an occasional reference to the Law and the prophets and quoted no rabbinical authority at all. Yet His words had such a ring of authority that the people were impressed.

At the fringe of the crowd, some of the teachers who had lost their audiences spoke disparagingly of Him, seeking to draw the attention of the people away from Him.

“How does this man know these things when He is unlearned?” one of them demanded, for it was unbelievable to them that a rabbi could be educated anywhere except at the fountainhead of Judaism in Jerusalem.

Jesus heard the question, even though it had been spoken on the outskirts of the group. “My doctrine is not Mine,” He said speaking directly to the rabbis, “but His that sent Me. If any man will do His will, He shall know of the doctrine whether it be from God or whether I speak of Myself. He that speaks of himself seeks his own glory, but He that seeks the glory of the One who sent Him, is true and no unrighteousness is within Him.”

And then, knowing how they sought to discredit Him by emphasizing His lack of rabbinical authority, He said more severely, “Did not Moses give you the Law, and yet none of you keep the Law? Why do you go about to kill Me?”

“You have a devil that goes about to kill you!” Elam shouted indignantly, referring to the rumor which had been spread in Galilee and which Jesus had refuted long ago.

“Moses gave you circumcision and on the Sabbath you circumcise a man,” Jesus answered. “If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath day, that the Law of Moses should not be broken, why are you angry at Me because I have made a man completely whole on the Sabbath day? Judge not according to appearance but judge righteous judgment.”

The listeners were amazed at His logic and the truth He spoke. “Is not this He that the leaders seek to kill?” one man asked of another. “Yet see how boldly He speaks and they say nothing to Him! Do the rulers know indeed that this is not the very Christ?”

Elam heard him and his face purpled with anger. “We know from whence this man comes!” he shouted. “The Galilean there admitted He was from Nazareth. But when the Christ comes, no man will know from whence He comes.”

Jesus heard Him and answered. “I did not come of Myself but He that sent Me is true whom you know not,” He said. “I know Him, for I am from Him and He has sent Me.”

Here, for the first time in Jerusalem, Jesus had announced that He had come from God Himself, the nearest in this area that He had yet approached to proclaiming Himself the Messiah. Hearing Him now, the temple authorities wished to arrest Him for blasphemy at once, but were afraid of the crowd who clamored to hear more. Jesus had said all that He wished on this first day, however. “Yet a little while am I with you,” He said as He prepared to leave, “then I shall go to Him that sent Me. You shall seek Me and cannot find Me, for where I am you cannot come.”

A grim-faced group of men gathered in the private chambers of Caiaphas, high priest of Israel, on the morning of the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles. The seat of honor at the long table where this Priestly Council, a division of the Great Sanhedrin, met from time to time to set the policies of the temple and the religious worship, was given to Annas, the former high priest and father-in-law of Caiaphas, but there was no doubting who dominated the meeting.

At Annas’s right as he doddered in his chair, sat Caiaphas, lean-faced, sharp-eyed, a Sadducee of the Sadducees, and as much Roman as Jew. Caiaphas was an opportunist of great shrewdness who through marriage had established a place in the upper ranks of the priesthood for himself and had quickly worked his way to the position of high priest. Next to Caiaphas was Elam, fiercely proud of his own righteousness and hating Jesus because he had spoken against him in the temple. At the other side of Annas was a rabbi named Jochai who sought to please everybody by straddling the doctrinal chasm between the schools of Shammai and Hillel, which divided practically all the learned men of Israel.

A few members of a more moderate faction among the Pharisees were present. One of these was Nicodemus, who was resented by both Caiaphas and Elam because of his tolerance and because he had consistently opposed their attempts to trap Jesus and condemn Him to death. Of somewhat the same mind as Nicodemus was Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy merchant who was respected because of his business position. The last in the group and not actually a member was Abiathar, burly captain of the temple police and Caiaphas’s agent in much of the double-dealing and thievery which had enabled him to maintain his high office.

“What shall we do about the man called Jesus of Nazareth?” Caiaphas said when the meeting was joined.

Nicodemus spoke at once. “Why do anything about Him? He has the same right to teach from Solomon’s Porch that Jochai here does.”

“But not to teach blasphemy!” the rabbi sputtered. “The man openly proclaims Hiimself to be the Son of God!”

Nicodemus spoke softly. “Have you forgotten that Nebuchadnezzar, when he had cast Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into the fiery furnace, looked within the flames and said, ‘Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt. And the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.’”

“What has this to do with the Galilean?” Elam demanded.

“If the Son of God took the form of man once, He could do it again.”

The thought brought them up short, but not for long. Jochai was the first to find an answer. “The man in the furnace was not born of woman,” he said triumphantly, “I have it upon the authority of a rabbi in Nazareth that this Jesus is the son of a carpenter who lived there, a man named Joseph.”

“We cannot let Him preach blasphemy in Jerusalem,” Caiaphas cut short the argument impatiently. “People of Galilee were ready to name Him the Christ not long ago.”

“Jesus would not let them do it,” Nicodemus reminded him. “That alone should prove His innocence.”

“Let Him go back to Galilee,” Annas said. “Then Herod will have to cope with Him.”

“Herod is afraid of the Nazarene,” Elam said contemptuously. “Ever since he executed John, he has quaked for fear the Baptist will rise from the dead and haunt him.”

“They say in Galilee that Jesus spends most of the time in the district of the tetrarch Philip now,” Jochai added. “We can expect no help from him.”

“The Nazarene must be taken here in Jerusalem,” Caiaphas said positively. “We cannot wait for Him to stir up the Galileans to revolt as did Judas the Gaulonite.”

“There must be no revolt,” old Annas echoed. “Even if it succeeded, we might be saddled with another line like the Hasmoneans.”

“I have heard Jesus teach,” Nicodemus interposed. “And I would wager my hope of eternal life that He has no desire to be king in Israel.”

“Why does He stir up the people then?” Caiaphas demanded hotly.

“If He is loyal to us, He would not criticize the Pharisees,” Elam added.

“There is much to criticize,” Nicodemus retorted.

“By those who are not willing to obey the Law,” Elam said. There was no love between him and the lawyer.

“This is no place for a battle among ourselves,” Caiaphas interposed to calm the troubled waters. “We must decide on some way to stop this Nazarene before He causes trouble with the Romans.”

Just then a soldier entered and spoke briefly to Abiathar, who turned to Caiaphas. “The Galilean has entered the temple again, noble Caiaphas,” he announced.

“Take some men and arrest Him then,” Caiaphas ordered. “We will question Him here and then bring Him before the Sanhedrin.”

“On what charge?” Nicodemus asked.

“Many have heard the Nazarene blaspheme here in Jerusalem. We will have no trouble finding three men to testify against Him.”

The implication was obvious. Under Mosaic Law, the testimony of three or more witnesses could condemn a man to death. Caiaphas would provide the men needed to swear to any charge of blasphemy. Such things had happened before in respect to people who made nuisances of themselves. They could, without doubt, happen again.

He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.

John 8:7

A great crowd had gathered when it was announced that Jesus had come into Jerusalem again on this final day of the Feast of Tabernacles and would speak from the Porch of Solomon. Just as Abiathar arrived with the guards at the edge of the crowd, Jesus began to speak in ringing tones, voicing a credo which all could follow if they would: “If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink. He that believes on Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”

Once again He was speaking in the form of a parable, characterizing as a river of living water the Holy Spirit, which they who believed on Him would receive after He returned to His Father. Familiar with the writings of the prophets which were read each Sabbath in the synagogue, it seemed to many who heard that He was referring to the words of Isaiah who had said of the Messiah:

Behold a king shall reign in righteousness and princes shall rule in judgment

And a man shall be as a hiding place from the wind and a cover from the tempest,

As rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadows of a great rock in a weary land.

Thinking that Jesus had actually proclaimed Himself the Messiah, the crowd set up a shout.

“Of a truth this is a prophet!” some cried.

“Nay, He is the Christ of God!” another echoed.

Abiathar had good reason to know the temper of Caiaphas, but he also valued his own life. With the people in such a ferment, any attempt to arrest Jesus could easily cause him and his men to be torn to pieces. Around him people were shouting for Jesus to name Himself the Christ and take His rightful place at the head of the temple and the nation of Israel. With only the slightest encouragement, they would no doubt, in their enthusiasm for the Messiah sent from God to liberate Israel, have risen up to thrust the Roman garrison from the city.

Jesus made no such move, however. Gathering His disciples around Him for protection, He left the temple as He had done before under somewhat similar circumstances. Descending the stairway to the streets, through which He quickly made His way, He returned to Bethany. Abiathar could not have reached Him if he had even tried, but the captain of the temple guards was too prudent to inflame the crowd any further. He knew how much the common people hated Caiaphas and the priestly group for their corruption and venality; he had no desire to turn that hatred upon himself and his men.

By Jesus’ sudden departure, the crowd was left without a focus. Taking advantage of their uncertainty, some of the scribes who had hoped to seize upon Jesus’ words as blasphemy, now sought to create a diversion and take the minds of the people off the man they had been ready to acclaim as Messiah and King. Cleverly, they used the traditional contempt of the Judeans for the Galileans.

“Shall the Christ come out of Galilee?” one of them shouted.

Immediately one of the rabbis who had lost his audience when Jesus came into the temple took up the controversy. “The Scriptures say the Christ must come of the seed of David and out of the town of Bethlehem where David was,” he announced.

As the scribes intended, the people began to argue among themselves in small groups about the Messiah and how He would come. The immediate danger was abated. Leaving several guards to take care of any trouble that might arise, Abiathar returned to the chamber of the high priest.

When Caiaphas saw that the captain was empty-handed, his sallow face stiffened with anger. “Why did you not bring the Galilean?” he demanded.

Abiathar reddened at his master’s tone. “No man ever spoke as this one,” he grumbled. “The people would have torn us to pieces if we had harmed Him.”

“Are you also led astray?” Elam demanded contemptuously. “Have any of the rulers believed in this Galilean? Or any of the Pharisees?”

Abiathar shook his head. “I heard none,” he admitted.

“Then it was only this accursed multitude, who do not know the Law.”

“Does our Law judge any man before it hears him and knows what he does?” Nicodemus asked.

Elam turned his anger upon the lawyer. “Are you of Galilee?” he demanded. “Search and look, for no prophet shall rise in Galilee.”

The argument raged bitterly back and forth until Caiaphas, realizing it would achieve no unity of purpose, stopped urging the Council to try to bring Jesus to trial. There were other ways of getting rid of troublemakers, ways he knew well. If they could not catch the Nazarene breaking the Law where He could be arrested privately, an incident must be created to turn the people against Him. If the crowd then stoned the man to death for breaking Mosaic Law, as had happened many, many times in the history of Israel, even the Romans could not hold Caiaphas responsible.

No crime except blasphemy deserved more immediate and drastic punishment than adultery. “You shall not commit adultery,” the injunction read. “The man that commits adultery, both the adulteress and the adulterer shall surely be put to death.” Hardly a city existed in all Israel whose walls were not stained by the blood of those executed by stoning for breaking the seventh of the great commandments.

Knowing that the time when He must be put to death and rise from the dead had not yet come, Jesus had deliberately left the temple to avoid stirring up the people, and had withdrawn to a garden called Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives where He often went for prayer and meditation.

After the night of prayer and fasting, He came to the temple early and took His place once again with the other teachers on Solomon’s Porch. And as always, the crowd soon deserted the others and gathered around Him.

Caiaphas had not been idle. Together, he and Abiathar had devised a plan which seemed certain to accomplish their aims. As soon as it was known that Jesus was returning to the temple, guards had been sent to arrest a woman on a charge of adultery. They came now dragging the sobbing victim before Jesus.

“Master,” a Pharisee who had been selected by Caiaphas and Elam to serve as one of the accusing witnesses addressed Him with a great show of humility. “This woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now in the Law, Moses commands us to stone such. What do you say about her?”

Jesus knew quite well why the woman had been arrested and brought before Him. In His teaching He had stressed the willingness of God to forgive sins and His own promise to do so, precepts which had found immediate favor among the common people upon whom the harsh judgment of the Law placed a heavy burden. But the word of the Law was also quite clear and, whatever His answer, the Pharisees obviously intended to make trouble for Him. If He said the woman’s sin could be forgiven and her life thereby saved, they could accuse Him of blasphemy for not obeying the Law of Moses. On the other hand, if He condemned the woman to death forthwith, the people to whom He had promised forgiveness could rightly cry that He did not practice what He preached.

Jesus did not answer at once but did a strange thing. Stooping He began to write in the dust of the floor with His finger, as if He were debating what to do with the woman. When the puzzled Pharisees and scribes pushed closer to see what He had written, He merely went on making these seemingly meaningless marks in the dust. Finally, when all were filled with suspense, He raised His head and said quietly, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

The agents of Caiaphas, who had been confident that the hated Nazarene could not escape from this trap, were thunderstruck by His answer. The Law of Moses required that the woman be stoned to death if judged guilty. There could be no doubt about her guilt, for the guards had stated that they had taken her in the very act of adultery. Yet no man among them could say he was without sin, for only God could make that claim. He who announced himself free from sin and gained the right to cast the first stone would, out of his own mouth, condemn himself for blasphemy.

Jesus did not look at His critics again but, stooping once more, began to trace the same idle pattern of marks in the dust. He felt rather than saw the discomfiture of those who had been certain they had finally trapped Him. Only when they had slunk away, did He raise His head again to look at the lovely copper-haired woman who remained kneeling before Him.

“Where are your accusers?” He asked her. “Has no man condemned you?”

“No man, lord.”

“Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”

Jesus watched the woman leave, then turned to face the people who still remained before Him. “I am the light of the world,” He told them. “He that follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”

Elam had been watching at the back of the crowd; now he pushed his way through. “You bear witness of Yourself,” he accused. “And Your witness is not true.”

“I bear witness of Myself and the Father that sent Me bears witness of Me,” Jesus corrected him.

“Where is Your Father?”

“You know neither Me nor My Father,” Jesus told the Pharisee sternly. “If you had known Me you would have known the Father also.”

Once again He had foiled them in their desire to find reason to seize Him, but He did not stop there. “I go My way and you shall seek Me,” He said. “And whither I go you cannot come.”

“Will He kill Himself?” one listener asked another. “For He said, ‘Whither I go you cannot come.’”

Jesus heard the question and explained His meaning. “You are from beneath and I am from above,” He said. “You are of this world and I am not of this world. I said therefore to you that you shall die in your sins if you do not believe that I am He.” He meant that He was the Messiah and that they could save themselves from death by believing on Him.

But Elam did not choose to understand. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“Even the same that I said to you in the beginning,” Jesus told him. “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you shall know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself. But as My Father has taught Me, I speak these things. He that sent Me is with Me; the Father has not left Me alone, for I do always those things that please Him.”

Perhaps more clearly than at any other time in His ministry Jesus had described the relationship between Himself and His Father in heaven. He spoke so convincingly that even many in the temple believed in Him.

Jesus now turned to these who had accepted Him here where so many sought to destroy Him. “If you continue in My word,” He told them, “you are My disciples indeed. You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”

Joachim, the beggar, had never seen light, for he had been blind from the day of his birth. To him the world existed only in terms of what he could touch, hear, or smell. The passing of the seasons revealed to him little of their beauty but only the sensation of warmth and cold upon his skin as he plodded about the city with the other beggars, pleading for alms. He had heard talk of the Nazarene healer and had even thought of trying to reach Him, but the press of the crowd whenever Jesus taught in the temple was so great that he could find no one to lead him there. Some said Jesus had actually given sight to the blind. Joachim could hardly believe this, for such a power could come only from the Most High Himself and unless this Nazarene were really the Messiah, such a thing was impossible. And yet he dared to hope that someday God might give him his sight, for help could come from no other source.

Joachim heard the people shouting Jesus’ name as He left the temple. Stumbling along, tapping with a stick on the stone paving of the street to guide himself, he moved nearer. The sound of voices and particularly the rough tones of the fishermen of Galilee who, he had heard, made up most of the Nazarene’s disciples, told him he was approaching the party, but he did not dare call to the Teacher Himself lest he be pushed aside by the crowd and passed by. The only thing he could do was to give his customary warning.

“From the day of my birth I am blind,” he intoned as he tapped along. “Have mercy and give me alms for the love of God.”

Jesus heard the cry, as He always heard the pleas of the afflicted, and stopped beside Joachim. Before He could speak to the blind man, however, one of the disciples asked a question.

“Master,” he said, “who sinned that this man was born blind? He or his parents?”

This was no idle question, for it was written that the Lord said to Moses, “Who hath made man’s own mouth? Or who makes the dumb or deaf or the seeing or the blind? Have not I the Lord?” Obviously then God would not so punish anyone except for sinning.

“Neither this man nor his parents have sinned,” Jesus explained. “He is blind that the works of God may be made manifest in him. I must work the works of Him that sent Me while it is day, for the night comes when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

While the disciples pondered what He had said, Jesus knelt beside Joachim. Spitting into the dust, He quickly made a ball of moist clay with His fingers. As He rubbed the clay on the blind man’s eyelids, He told him, “Go wash in the pool of Siloam.” And without saying more, He passed on toward Bethany, leaving Joachim with the clay still sticking to his eyes.