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You have to
understand that I didn’t get involved in any of this by choice. Not at all!
I’d been working for the high priests all my life, so when they said,
“Do something!” I did it. These high
priests were not easy to get along with.
Neither of them, since there were two of them! So, we did what they told us to. We had essentially two masters!
There was Caiaphas – he was currently in charge. And there was also his father-in-law, Annas,
who was also calling the shots.
See, Annas had
been high priest for about nine years. And
he had five sons hankering for the job. Before
and after the events I’m going to tell you about, one right after another of
them got elevated to the post.
Right at this
moment, son-in-law Caiaphas was riding
the donkey of power, so as to say, but it was certainly a precarious ride,
because Rome decided who was in the saddle and kept unseating them one right
after another.
Sure, they were
all related, but these were really ambitious people, and, as soon as one
tumbled off, another was trying to hop on. The point, I guess, was to keep the job in
their house, so everybody was nervous, ergo (as the Romans would say), hard to
get along with.
But I should say
in these high priests’ defense, they were under a phenomenal amount of
pressure.
You see, they
had the people to contend with. Nobody
was lining up like docile lambs in their pen. People were watching their every move and a
complaint to the governor was all it took to change riders. So, they had to be careful.
Father-in-law Annas
certainly understood that fact, because he’d had it happen to him. After nine years in power, Annas was deposed
by Governor Valerious Gratus. Now this
happened 18 years ago, but Annas didn’t retire to a home in the countryside,
boring his grandchildren with increasingly embellished stories about when he
was high priest. Not at all! He was still very much a player and he knew
it was all about biding your time.
His replacement,
Ishmael – a priest appropriately named after Abraham’s son who didn’t get
to father the Jews (!) – lasted only about a heartbeat, and, when Rome knocked
him out of the saddle, Annas got the Governor to pop his son Eleazar up
there. How’s that for a smooth
move? But Eleazar only lasted a year and
Rome had another rider ready to go: Simon son of Camithus. The bronco of power tossed him off in less
than a year and, with apparently no more currently eligible sons, Annas helped
his son-in-law Caiaphas to mount up onto the office. Obviously, it pays to stick around. No wonder they were all testy people, with the
Romans changing them all nearly yearly like a bunch of soiled togas!
And, then, of
course, there were also the Pharisees to contend with. These weren’t just ordinary laypeople. Not at all, most of them were powerful
merchants and very influential, and all of them dismissed the Sadducees who ran
the Temple as heretics for not believing in the resurrection of the dead, so no
looking there for support.
Caiaphas wasn’t too popular with the
Zealots, either. They were disgusted
with the current high priestly office, since the Roman governor hired and fired
whoever held it, so that put both Caiaphas
and his father-in-law Annas before him under suspicion as fraternizers with the
enemy.
And while all
that hostility was being levied at him, Caiaphas wasn’t about to be invited for
lunch over at the Qumran community, either.
In fact, the Essenes labeled Caiaphas
the “Wicked Priest,” condemning him as a Roman puppet.
So, you can see,
his rating polls were buried in the basement.
His popularity base was essentially his own party – the Sadducees, who
had a death grip on the Temple administration.
As a result,
anything Caiaphas wanted
done, he had to do by making some kind of alliance with the Pharisees, while
winning over the people, and keeping the Roman overlords at bay. And that’s a big order of figs, as they say!
So, when the high
priest is under pressure, who do you think he displaces all this on? Huh? That’s
right. Take it out on the servants!
And everybody
thinks I got such a cushy job. Everybody’s looking at me like – “So, you’re
working in the Temple, are you? No
breaking your back there! Nothing to lug
around except all that money – and I’ll bet the priests don’t ever let you
slaves get your hands on that. You don’t
have to dig anything – so you don’t get dirty.
The Temple guard takes care of any trouble. So, what do you really do with your
time? Hide out in the back with the lots
– gambling? I’ll bet that’s it!”
Yeah? Well, that’s not it! We get plenty of our share of nasty jobs – we
servants reinforce the Temple guard, for one thing – and that’s what happened
that particular Passover.
Now, the chief
focus of concern that season, according to my master-in-power, was Jesus, that
troublemaker from Galilee. Hardly
anything else camped out on Caiaphas’s lips! Like everybody else, Jesus was
here in Jerusalem for the Passover festival, but, unlike everybody else – he
wasn’t fitting in, taking orders, buying his sacrifice at the Temple,
delivering it to the priests, getting his lamb dinner, and staying in line like
he was supposed to. No, instead, he was making a huge show – from the moment he
arrived. And what an entrance!
We were
shocked. Here he comes riding through
the streets. The people are all
thronging about him – waving palms –
whatever they could get their hands on – all of them chanting, “Hosanna!” which
is a shout of adoration that’s supposed to be given only to God(!), and “Blessed be the one coming in the name of
the Lord, the King of Israel!”[1] And
lots of praises like that, quoting Scripture and calling him the Son of David
(meaning the rightful heir to Herod’s throne) and “Hosanna in the highest” –
and all sorts of inflammatory shoutings like that.[2] Talk about not fitting in!
Of course, the
high priests were all astonished! And
they were ringing their hands, imagining how that was going to go down with
King Agrippa – not to mention the Roman Governor!
And, that’s not
all. This whole melee had started almost
a week before in Bethany when he raised a guy from the dead named Lazarus. I’m not kidding!
All week long
the people had been flocking down to Bethany to see Jesus and Lazarus, this man
he’d raised. And now that burgeoning throng,
along with all of Jesus’ many disciples – some of whom themselves had been
doing miracles! - were all moving in a great army down the road to meet the
crowds who were filling the streets in Jerusalem, hoping to catch a glimpse of
this marvelous prophet who could raise the dead!
Caiaphas was telling all his supporters he
wanted to go out and bust Jesus on the spot, but it was clear to him that, if
he laid a hand on this man, the people would riot.[3]
At the same
time, Caiaphas realized
the Pharisees were also beside themselves, wringing their hands over Jesus’
miracles and lamenting that, if somebody did not stop him, the people would
elevate Jesus to power and Rome would descend on them and take the nation away
from them completely. [4]
This, of course,
was the break Caiaphas
needed. It was time for a good dose of
Temple politics and statesmanship!
Together with
the worried Pharisees, he and Annas called a meeting of the ruling body of
elders, the Sanhedrin, which, among other things, was our highest court in the
land.
That’s when Caiaphas, as high priest, completely took
over the whole proceedings. “You don’t
know anything,” he lectured them. “Don’t
you realize that it would be advantageous to you if one man died on behalf of
the rest and not the whole nation being destroyed?”
Good Temple
language that – it’s the language of sacrifice:
Make an offering and spare the nation.
They’d been making offerings to spare themselves and their loved ones
all their lives, so he had them completely tucked away in his money bag with
that argument.
And, if that
wasn’t enough, Jesus plays right into the high priests’ hands! The first thing Jesus does is he goes right
into the Temple, itself - of all places(!) – right where his worst enemies are
gathered. And accompanying him was his
mob all shouting his praises! And true
to form he turns over the merchants’ tables and drives all of them and their
animals for sale out in a great pandemonium – just like he’d done before.[5]
And when we
confront him and tell him to shut these people up – what does he do? – he quotes
Scripture at us – a passage from Psalm 8 – and one I might add that exclusively
refers to praising God.
Caiaphas and all of us were non-plussed. But we couldn’t put a hand on him, because of
the people! And that’s when our other great break took place.
Apparently, we
weren’t the only ones Jesus alienated – because that night, here comes this
inner circle disciple of his, smarming around, suggesting he could sell him
out.
Can you imagine
that? Here’s a guy who just watched
Jesus raise someone from the dead and, while the whole world is praising his
leader, he’s ready to make a deal for him like he was a Scythian slave. It was disgusting.
Caiaphas obviously despised him, as one
would all traitors. But, he could have
kissed him as well. This was the final
break he needed – and that’s when he summoned me to do one of the nastiest jobs
I’d ever been assigned.
But, I wasn’t
surprised. All day Caiaphas had been particularly
agitated. I suspect he knew that he was
operating without the proper authority.
He hadn’t let King Herod in on his plans, and the touchy Pilate didn’t
know the full extent of them, so everything had to be done swiftly under cover
of darkness.
When I arrived
at the Temple armory, I discovered he and Annas had recruited the help of that
cohort of Roman soldiers that was on guard at nearby Fort Antonia expressly to
keep the people contained during Passover, which, of course, is a favorite time
with the Zealots to cause some trouble in order to stir up the people to
revolt. It was also an understandable
move for the high priests to ask for help, since the Temple guard had already
failed to arrest Jesus. And it put
Pilate, the peevish Roman Procurator, on alert that something was up.
Well, something
was certainly up, since they and soon all of us servants were armed to the
death. I remember the whole thing
vividly. And how could I not, in light
of what was to happen to me, as you will see?
A high wind had
been blowing all that week – as if there were portents in the air. But that night it was suddenly deathly still
and very cold. It was a forbidding night
for any venture. No wonder we were all
uneasy.
The traitor,
Judas, was next to the commander and wouldn’t meet any of our eyes, but kept
looking down, and around, and anywhere but straight at us. Then the commander
barked out a few curt orders and we moved out.
Deep into the
night, we slipped from the Temple so as not to attract too much attention. But the Paschal full moon loomed like an
accusation over us, pointing out clearly all we meant to do. We sought out the shadows with the minimum of
torch light burning. We’d ignite the
large wooden torches when we were nearing the point of combat.
As you know, the
Temple itself is in the far right hand corner of Jerusalem, so you can step
right out of the Temple through the Eastern Gate in its wall and down along the
little Blackwater Gorge that the Greeks call the Kidron or the Valley of Cedars that runs between the end of the
western slope of the Mount of Olives and the sacred city itself. Sometimes it has water, but that night it was
dry.
Our target was a
little farm on the other side of the gorge, a working orchard called Gethsemane, that is the “Oil Vat,” for
that’s where the traitor revealed Jesus and his ring had been camping out.[6]
So that’s how we
crept up on them: we slipped out of the gate, sneaked quietly across the
valley, and onto the slope, taking cover in the olive trees, then on signal we
lit the torches and charged up the hill into the Garden of Gethsemane and
surprised them all.
The eleven
disciples were sprawled all over the place and Jesus was trying to wake them
up, when in glides Judas with all of us and we sweep all around them and have
them all hemmed in.
Immediately,
that despicable lizard Judas steps up and says, “Greetings, Rabbi,” and kisses[7] his hand, like any
faithful disciple would.
Jesus looks at
him so sadly that it made my heart sink and murmurs, “Judas, with a kiss you’re
handing over Humanity’s Son?” (Luke 22:48)
Judas just works
on his unctuous, ingratiating smile and Jesus shakes his head slightly and then
pauses and begins to nod, like this is all making sense to him, and simply
says, “Friend, do what you intend to do.”
While the
disciples, of course, are fumbling around trying to rouse each other up, Jesus
just looks at us like he was expecting us to come all this time and asks, “Whom
do you seek?”
“Jesus of
Nazareth,” one of us says nervously.
Jesus fixes us
with a stare and announces, “I am,” just like God said to Moses. He said it so powerfully that we jumped back,
stumbling into each other, and some of those in the back began to slide back
down the slope.
He demanded to
know again whom we wanted to arrest and an official bleated it out again and
Jesus said the same thing. It was so
unnerving, some of us servants were trembling.
And then he demanded we let his followers go.
At that point,
we all come to life.
See, Jesus is a
big guy – a laborer, but he’s so gentle and docile now that the commander and I
just step up and slap our hands on his shoulders and the rest of us pile on
him. At that instant, the whole world
explodes.
His disciples
start shouting, the soldiers are shoving them back and this big guy suddenly
looms up in front of me and slams me on the side of the head with a crushing
blow. I scream out and fall on the
ground, dazed. My head is in agony and
there is all this sticky stuff on the side of my face and Samuel, who’s a
servant like me, starts yelling – “He cut his ear off! He cut his ear off! Malchus’ ear is gone!”
People just
begin trampling on me, everybody ignoring him – of what value are slaves? The mission is to seize Jesus.
I start crying, trying
to sit up, while I’m thrashing around on the ground, I guess to see if my ear
is there or anything’s left, and my head is splitting and suddenly with the ear
that I do have left I hear Jesus’ voice cutting through the noise, telling his
disciples to stop fighting and demanding something about why he shouldn’t be drinking
from a cup or something that didn’t make any sense to me – and then he touched
me.
I can’t describe
it really. It was immediate heat, like the
sun on my face on a summer afternoon, like a torch held at a perfect distance
so it warms but doesn’t burn, like a stone chafed to perfection at a soldier’s
fire and then tucked into a sack on a frigid night and hugged close, radiating
a warm glow all through me.
My head stopped
hurting. My face was no longer leaking
blood and – I felt for my right ear – it was there and didn’t even sting when I
touched it.
The rest of what
happened is all like a dream to me. I
guess the others took Jesus with us. My
friend, Samuel, was holding me up and I was stumbling along, but more in shock
than anything else. I was certainly not
in pain. I was just drained of emotion.
The priests who
met us at the Eastern gate simply looked intently at me for a moment then
turned their attention to Jesus. All but
one of his disciples had melted away.
Soon, he was completely alone.
They whisked him off to Annas’ house, of all places, but I didn’t
go. It was the last I saw of him.
I simply went
back to my quarters in the recesses of the Temple courts. No official asked me about the incident or my
healing. Everyone was sneaking off to
watch what was happening. They were all
going that way, but I was now heading in another direction.
When I got back
in my room, I suddenly started to cry. I
don’t know why. I haven’t cried since I
was a child. But I cried that
night. I think I was crying for
everything:
– for myself and what I had just taken part in
– the arrest of more than an innocent man – the arrest of a good person who had
to have been empowered by the Holy One, blessed be He, to do what he had done
for me.
-
And I cried for Jesus and what
was going to happen to him now that they finally had him in their claws.
-
And I cried for Jerusalem, my
city, and for my beloved nation and how it always killed the prophets that the
grace of God sent to it.
-
And I cried for everything I
dreaded which might happen now.
And I was
right! What happened, happened swiftly,
just as Caiaphas and Annas
had planned it out. A makeshift trial was
whipped up - you can believe they had all that in place already, all they needed
was the victim.
Then they
paraded Jesus in front of that incompetent Roman knuckle bone[8] Pilate, who tried to roll
in any direction to get out of it all, then, when he couldn’t, he played right
into their hands and did their dirty work for them.
Within a matter
of hours Jesus was nailed up on the hill of the skull and dead by the early next
afternoon.
I walked
aimlessly through the city as people ran in panic around me. They were screaming at the darkness, shouting
that the graves were opening and the dead were rising out. Somebody yelled that the thick Temple curtain
protecting the holiest place of worship had ripped down the middle. And some people were yelling that they must
have just killed the Son of God – and others that it was actually an appearance
of God-Among-Us and we were all doomed.
I just walked
through the center of it all. None of it
made any impact on me. All I felt was a
sense of calmness, actually a great relief – as if all the questions of my life
were resolved, and above all I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude.
Two days later
the reports started up again. Jesus’
grave was broken open. His body was
gone. His disciples were hiding and then
they weren’t. Sightings of Jesus were
witnessed in the city, in the country, at the seaside up in the Galilee region. Five hundred people at once were all claiming
to have seen him. He was now alive and
well again. And, you know, somehow I was
not surprised. Of course he was the Son
of God and God-Among-Us, just as he had said.
Didn’t I know that in my heart of hearts when he touched me and healed
me?
Instead of
running to the tomb – what was the point?
His body wasn’t there - I went back to the Temple. I was a slave. I had to.
It was in total disarray. The
priests were crying and heaping ashes on their heads – not for the murder of
Jesus, but for the incomprehensible tearing of the Temple veil.
It wasn’t
incomprehensible to me. The Spirit of
God in the Holy of Holies had obviously left them – as surely as it had departed
from King Saul when God had finally had enough of his faithlessness.
I didn’t have to
puzzle for the reason. I simply packed
up the few things I owned – amidst such devastation no one would miss me - and I
walked out of the Eastern Gate without having to answer anybody. I crossed the little valley just as I’d done
that fateful night and set out for the Mount of Olives and its beautiful garden
once again to search for Jesus. But this
time my mission was different.
You see, I
realized I owed him a debt. I had never
thanked him.
Bill
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[1]
John 12:13. I translated the scriptural
quotations from the Greek and then compared the narratives using Robert L.
Thomas and Stanley N. Gundry’s The NIV
Harmony of the Gospels (HarperSanFrancisco, 1988).
[2] Matt
21:4-9.
[3]
Matt 26:5.
[4]
John 11:47-48.
[5]
John 2:13-22, cf. Matt 21:12-13.
[6]
I’ve been to the Garden of Gethsemane, but I also picked up data from volume 2
of J.H Bernard’s classic (and in my estimation unsurpassed) commentary on John
in the original International Critical
Commentary series (pages 582-591) and from various entries in the
appropriate volumes of The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible and Ronald Brownrigg, Who’s Who in the New Testament (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
1971), 30.
[7]
Matt 26:49
[8] A
knuckle bone “marked with letters that were also numbers” was used in a circle
game that Plautus describes (Henri Daniel-Rops, Daily Life in the Time of Jesus, 315). My idea in having the observant Malchus use
the image here for Pontius Pilate is that, like a die tossed about and coming
up with different values in a single
game, Pilate thrashes around to find a way to extricate himself from
responsibility, while still issuing the order to crucify Jesus.
