Daily Devotion for March 17, 2006

To Jerusalem with the ComPassionate Christ
Day 17

Are you the Christ?

 

Then the high priest stood up before them and asked Jesus, "Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?" But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer. Again the high priest asked him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?"  Mark 14: 60-61

 

Growing frustrated with the incompetence of the witnesses, the high priest rose from his chair and stepped forward toward Jesus. Cutting to the quick, he asked a series of questions of the Carpenter. We cannot judge his motives in asking these questions, but we can use them, and the answers, to deepen our own understanding of who Jesus was, and is.

 

‘Why don’t you answer?’ was a question born out of frustration. No judge should ask it. If the prosecution is doing a good job of shooting itself in the foot, the accused is not obliged to give them any assistance!  But the High Priests’ question was also a test.  According to Jewish law, anyone who had dined with a tax collector disqualified themselves from ever being a witness in a Jewish court of law.  Earlier, Jesus had dined with Zacchaeus in Jericho (Luke 19:1-10).  Jesus knew that by doing so he would not be able to testify.  But that didn’t matter to Jesus, Zacchaeus was more important to him.  Jesus would have to rely on the testimony of others.  He still does!

 

‘What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?’ Again, the high priest was asking Jesus to aid the prosecution by cutting through the fog of conflicting accounts. It was not his business to ask, and it was not Jesus’ business to reply. There was a certain dignity about Jesus’ silence in the midst of the Babel of voices.

 

‘Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?’ At last, the high priest found a justifiable question, though he should probably not have been the person to ask it. The question is based upon the messianic passages from Psalm 2. The high priest knew what he was asking. He used the form of ‘blessed’ employed in Psalm 2:7 which was regarded by Bible scholars as referring to God, the Blessed One. This was a question that Jesus could not avoid. Everyone should be prepared to tell who and what he is. For Jesus, this was the moment of truth.

 

Prayer
Dear Lord, help me to give testimony for you – true testimony – not only in my actions but in my words.  Help me be bold in telling others who you are and what you mean to me.  Amen

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Tim Hetzner - President - Lutheran Church Charities
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