A GROSS MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE

The stillness of the night air was shattered by “a company of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and the Pharisees” who had come “with lanterns, torches, and weapons” (John 18:3). The rabble, led by Judas the betrayer, arrested Jesus and “led him away to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had convened” (Matthew 26:57).

Long before sun-up, a kangaroo court of religious high muckety-mucks was gathered with a predetermined verdict. “ ‘Tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.’ ‘You have said it,’ Jesus told him. ‘But I tell you, in the future 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 blasphemed! … See, now you’ve heard the blasphemy. What is your decision?’ They answered, ‘He deserves death!’ ” (Matthew 26:63–66).

The Hebrew leaders had a problem. They didn’t have the authority to administer the death penalty, so “they spat in his face and beat him” (Matthew 26:67). “When daybreak came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people … led him away and handed him over to Pilate, the governor” (Matthew 27:1–2). 

After examining Him, “Pilate then told the chief priests and the crowds, ‘I find no grounds for charging this man’ ” (Luke 23:4). Even the pagan governor could see that Jesus wasn’t deserving of crucifixion, but the crowds were unrelenting. Because it was politically expedient, Pilate handed Jesus over to the executioners “and had him flogged” (John 19:1).

In a gross miscarriage of justice, “they stripped him and dressed him in a scarlet robe. They twisted together a crown of thorns, put it on his head, and placed a staff in his right hand. And they knelt down before him and mocked him: ‘Hail, king of the Jews!’ Then they spat on him, took the staff, and kept hitting him on the head. After they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe, put his own clothes on him, and led him away to crucify him” (Matthew 27:28–31).

“… think on these things” (Philippians 4:8, KJV).