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<strong>PART</strong> T: Trial<br />
<strong>PART</strong> T: TRIAL<br />
Jesus is tried by the Sanhedrin and shuffled off to Herod who ridicules him.<br />
The traitor, Judas, has second thoughts.<br />
A man who broke the Law outrageously<br />
no longer need be treated with respect –<br />
abuse, in fact was what the man deserved.<br />
The guards and soldiers had their bit of fun.<br />
They jeered and spat and covered both his eyes<br />
and played an ancient, cruel children’s game<br />
the Greeks called ‘Kollabixe’. One by one<br />
they all gave him a punch. After each blow<br />
the cry went up, ‘Who struck you? Prophesy!<br />
You claimed to be the Christ. Then prophesy!’<br />
Still dark, the Sanhedrin, all seventy one<br />
of them, we can assume, had gathered as<br />
a court, to try, in haste, this Nazarene<br />
on unsupported charges in dispute.<br />
Undoubtedly this was irregular.<br />
The High Priest Caiaphas was in the Chair.<br />
The man before them no doubt bore the marks –<br />
the blood and bruise – of punching and misuse.<br />
This fact made little difference to the Court<br />
for, innocent or guilty legally,<br />
they had decided, well before they met<br />
that he must be despatched without delay.<br />
The charge was made that Jesus said that he<br />
would devastate the Temple on his own<br />
and without further help from human hands<br />
within three days would build another one.<br />
Though witness after witness took the stand<br />
their testimonies did not correspond.<br />
Charge after charge was seen to contradict.<br />
Jesus made no attempt to intervene.<br />
To everyone’s surprise he said no word.<br />
Here was a man in mortal danger who<br />
refused to say a word in self-defence.<br />
So this was not the way he could be trapped.<br />
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A gospel in blank verse with rhymed parables<br />
The High Priest chose to try another tack.<br />
‘The men you call disciples, what of them?<br />
And what exactly is it that you teach?’<br />
But Jesus would have none of this. He said,<br />
‘Why question me? What I have taught, I’ve taught<br />
quite publicly, in synagogues, in fields<br />
or in the Temple’s precincts – anywhere<br />
where anyone who wanted to, could hear.<br />
They are the ones you should be questioning.<br />
The listeners all know what I have said.<br />
Why don’t you question them?’ At which response<br />
an officer smacked Jesus in the face.<br />
‘Is that the way to answer the High Priest?’<br />
‘If what I have just said is not the truth<br />
then bring in witnesses to contradict.<br />
Why use brute force when what I say is true?’<br />
Almost in desperation, Caiaphas,<br />
aware that Jesus might well slip the net,<br />
since neither by paid witnesses nor trick,<br />
could he be tempted to condemn himself,<br />
then posed again the question he’d been asked,<br />
by many who had seen his miracles…<br />
did Jesus claim to be the very Christ?<br />
‘I urge you, by the Blessed One Himself,<br />
to tell us if you are the Son of God.<br />
Come, tell us now, in all solemnity.’<br />
‘Oh, yes. It’s as you say’ was the reply.<br />
‘Indeed, I’ll tell you more. The day will come<br />
when you, you all, will see the Son of Man<br />
as David prophesied, at God’s right hand<br />
in clouds of glory, coming down from heaven.’<br />
The High Priest knew his Psalms and recognised,<br />
at once, the implications of the claim.<br />
This man had turned the tables. He would rule:<br />
and some day he would judge their makeshift trial.<br />
Whatever qualms of conscience troubled him<br />
the wily Caiaphas could see at once<br />
that Jesus by these words condemned himself.<br />
The man whose wisdom and whose innocence<br />
frustrated all their tricks and villainies<br />
by this assertion played into their hands.<br />
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<strong>PART</strong> T: Trial<br />
Outrageously he claimed to be the Son<br />
of God. No pious Jew could stand for that.<br />
A gesture silenced all the witnesses.<br />
Triumphantly, and as the Law prescribed<br />
the High Priest tore his vestments and called out.<br />
‘Have we not heard enough? This blasphemy!<br />
This monstrous insult to Almighty God!<br />
You sitting here are witnesses enough.<br />
What is your verdict on the Nazarene?’<br />
And by acclaim they shouted to a man<br />
that he deserved to die. So hurriedly<br />
they dragged him off to Pontius Pilate’s court<br />
for he alone could sentence him to death.<br />
That power had been denied the Sanhedrin<br />
when Rome had conquered them and took control.<br />
In Caesarea, on the coast, was where<br />
the Roman procurator, Pilate lived.<br />
It was unusual for him to be<br />
sojourning in Jerusalem. No doubt<br />
he felt a public celebration such<br />
as Passover deserved a Roman eye<br />
and an emphatic hint of Roman power.<br />
This suited the Sanhedrin perfectly.<br />
They rushed with Jesus, now condemned, en masse<br />
towards the Roman Governor’s residence.<br />
The time for trial was the crack of dawn.<br />
That was the Roman way and Passover<br />
was almost on them. Normally his court,<br />
where he alone was judge, took place inside<br />
the palace that he used as headquarters<br />
while in Jerusalem. The members of<br />
the Sanhedrin could not go there that day.<br />
They would undoubtedly defile themselves.<br />
Thus, all the Jewish notables were forced<br />
to make a clamour just outside the doors<br />
of the Praetorium. How Pilate must<br />
have sighed! More trouble he could do without!<br />
Appeasement was the watch-word for the feast.<br />
A Passover must pass without a hitch.<br />
So swallowing his pride, he compromised<br />
and went outside himself to face the fray.<br />
‘Why bring this fellow here to me?’ he asked.<br />
‘Take him away and judge him for yourselves.<br />
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A gospel in blank verse with rhymed parables<br />
You’ve laws and courts enough. Why bother me?’<br />
‘But we are not allowed to execute,<br />
‘and this man’s crimes are such that he should die:<br />
and you will think so when you hear him speak.<br />
He claims to be the Christ, the King of Jews.’<br />
It is of note that this was not the charge<br />
on which the guilt of Jesus was pronounced.<br />
The charge was blasphemy: and that infringed<br />
no Roman law, and therefore no concern<br />
of Pilate as the Roman Governor.<br />
The introduction of a regal claim<br />
designed to show that Jesus was a threat<br />
to Roman rule was much the better bet.<br />
Rebellion and insurgency they knew<br />
was what would spark the Governor’s interest.<br />
So Pilate signalled Jesus to go in<br />
while those accusing him still stayed outside.<br />
What happened next is quite remarkable.<br />
Jesus and Pontius Pilate seem to talk<br />
as it were, ‘man to man’. No voices raised.<br />
The tone is almost philosophical.<br />
‘You’ve heard what they are saying in the street:<br />
that you misguide the people and forbid<br />
the payment of the Roman tax and claim<br />
to be a king – the King of all the Jews’.<br />
What is it you can say in your defence?’<br />
But Jesus offered no defence at all.<br />
Here was a man who might be crucified<br />
who made no move at all to save himself.<br />
The Governor could not believe his ears.<br />
‘I’ll ask you once again, “Are you indeed<br />
‘The King of all the Jews?” Jesus replied<br />
at last, ‘So tell me, do you just repeat<br />
what you have heard outside, or could it be<br />
that you do genuinely want to know?’<br />
‘I don’t know if you are or if you’re not.<br />
Am I a Jew? All that I know is this.<br />
The priests and dignitaries of your tribe<br />
have passed you on to me. What have you done?’<br />
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<strong>PART</strong> T: Trial<br />
‘My royal throne is of another world.<br />
My soldiers would be fighting for me now<br />
to save me from the clutches of the men<br />
outside if I were claiming to be king<br />
of territory of the kind Rome rules.<br />
The kingdom that I claim is not that kind.’<br />
‘Right, then’, said Pilate, ‘so you are a king.’<br />
‘I am indeed, and that is why I’m here.<br />
The reason I was born was to proclaim<br />
the truth, and everyone who seeks the truth<br />
will listen to my words and follow me.’<br />
‘Ah, yes, but what is “truth,”? ‘ said Pilate.<br />
He’d heard enough and went out to the crowd.<br />
‘I find no fault in this man,’ he announced.<br />
‘He should be tried and sentenced by your Law.’<br />
The furious explosions of offence<br />
that greeted this announcement and the spleen<br />
and anger it engendered were all plain.<br />
Among the voices raised were those who said<br />
that Jesus represented wider threats<br />
to Rome than any local lawbreaker.<br />
He was a Galilean who had spread<br />
his own rebellious message far and wide.<br />
Here Pilate saw his chance, ’Well if he comes<br />
from Galilee then I shall seek the view<br />
of Herod. That will be appropriate<br />
for now.’<br />
So, as was half the world beside, Herod<br />
himself was also in Jerusalem<br />
and when he heard the Governor had sent<br />
this Galilean sorcerer he’d heard<br />
so much about for him to interview<br />
he was delighted. He should do some tricks<br />
for him. He settled down to entertain<br />
himself. The prisoner refused to say<br />
a word. Whatever questions he was asked:<br />
however loudly priests and scribes accused:<br />
the prisoner made no response at all.<br />
Thus, interest soon changed to ridicule.<br />
‘Was it a king he claimed to be? they asked.<br />
Then they would dress him up appropriately<br />
Something bizarre, something to make them laugh<br />
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A gospel in blank verse with rhymed parables<br />
A something to amuse the royal guard<br />
Something to make a mockery of his claim.<br />
Something to demonstrate his pettiness.<br />
King Herod’s judgement of the prisoner,<br />
far more significant than any words,<br />
was demonstrated by the way in which<br />
he sent him back to Pilate in a robe<br />
ill-fitting, gaudy and ridiculous.<br />
Some private joke between them -not quite clearwent<br />
with him and resulted in a change<br />
of mood; a sort of handshake between men<br />
who’d long been enemies. One thing it did –<br />
confirm what Pilate had already judged.<br />
The Nazarene did not deserve to die.<br />
It was the custom at each Passover<br />
to free a prisoner that the Romans held.<br />
The practice was designed, presumably,<br />
to curry favour with the populace<br />
by demonstrating on their festive day<br />
a leniency that was not typical<br />
of Roman rule. Pilate must make a choice.<br />
The Procurator was considering<br />
his course of action when the Nazarene –<br />
this Jesus – had been brought to him for trial.<br />
He had received petitions on behalf<br />
of one Barabbas who had made himself<br />
a reputation as a murderer,<br />
a robber and accessory to what<br />
might well be thought of as insurgency.<br />
He was not Pilate’s favoured candidate.<br />
As well as this, a message from his wife<br />
was passed to him as he took up his place<br />
upon the Judgement Seat from which he must<br />
pronounce the fate of the young man they called<br />
‘The Christ’. She said she’d had a dream that nighta<br />
dream which troubled her considerably.<br />
‘Be sure that you set free the Nazarene.<br />
Do not condemn a just and upright man.’<br />
And thus is was that Pilate sat inside<br />
determined that he would go out and face<br />
the hostile crowd and tell them that his mind<br />
was made up to release the Nazarene.<br />
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<strong>PART</strong> T: Trial<br />
While Pilate was considering what next<br />
to do to ease his way through Passover<br />
and cause as little fuss as possible<br />
the Jewish elders had a visitor.<br />
The man who’d helped them seize the Nazarene,<br />
now conscience-stricken, re-appeared to say<br />
that Jesus was completely innocent<br />
and furthermore that he had gravely sinned<br />
in playing any part in his arrest.<br />
The Chief Priests had but little time for him.<br />
If Judas the Betrayer changed his tune –<br />
well! – turncoats sometimes turn their coats again.<br />
The fool thought he could save the man on trial<br />
by handing back the money he’d been given.<br />
‘If that is what you’ve done, you’re on your own.<br />
Don’t come to us for sympathy’ they said.<br />
The thirty silver pieces hit the ground –<br />
the normal price for which you’d buy a slave.<br />
The bribe which had suborned fidelity<br />
lay gleaming on the Sanctuary floor<br />
flung there by one who could no longer bear<br />
the thought of his own stupid faithlessness.<br />
A haunt where heathen kings once burnt alive<br />
their fellow men and women, Judas knew.<br />
Gehenna was close by. They called it ‘Hell’<br />
There was a gorge, steep-sided: just the place<br />
for accidents: or where a man might go<br />
intent to harm himself. And there, it’s said<br />
that Judas hanged himself: or may have tried<br />
and slipped and left his guts caught on a rock…<br />
as what was left of him slipped down… and down.<br />
But all of this was of no consequence<br />
to those to whom Iscariot went for help.<br />
Their minds were occupied with niceties.<br />
This money they now had! What could they do<br />
with it? Blood money it was called. It was –<br />
a bribe paid to a killer they had hired.<br />
To put that in the Temple Treasury?<br />
Impossible! The Law would be infringed!<br />
It was a sum of some significance.<br />
Whatever were they going to do with it?<br />
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A gospel in blank verse with rhymed parables<br />
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