Mark 14:53-65
The soldiers took Jesus to the palace of the high priest, the leader of the Jewish people; his house was near or a part of the Temple. It was night, but there were priests, scribes, and others waiting, as had been planned to question and witness against Jesus. They wanted to ‘luny through a trial of Jesus when most of the people would not see or know what they did.
These men gathered in the palace, knew the laws given to Moses to direct them how to give any accused person a fair trial with witnesses. They would know the words by the prophet,
“O, man, what is good, and what loth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”
They did not do justly or love mercy; they had before tried to puzzle Jesus with questions, and have Him speak wrongly. They were so angry because He had told them God’s words and shown their wrong ways, that they were determined to condemn Him to death, although He had done no wrong.
There were men for witnesses, but they did not speak truly, and they did not agree in what they said. At last the high priest asked Jesus,
“Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?”
The Lord answered plainly, “I am,” and told them of His coming with power.
The high priest called His answer blasphemy,” words against God. Then they all agreed Jesus deserved to die.
There were certain things people of those days did to show their feelings to others they “rent”, or tore their clothes to show great grief or shame. But the high priest was not to do so (Lev. 21:10), yet the high priest that night rent his clothes, to show he thought the words of the Lord Jesus were shameful.
Some of the men spit in the face of Jesus to show their contempt of Him; others covered His eyes, then struck Him with their hands (called “buffeting”), and said for Him to name who struck Him.
Yet Jesus did not answer or resist: He proved the words written long before of the Holy One to come:
“I hid not My face from shame and spitting.” Is: 50:6. It was also written of Him,
“He was despised and rejected of men.” “He was taken from... judent” (not given righteous judgment) Isaiah 53:3,8.
However, those men had no right to punish anyone by death: all they could do was to accuse and witness against Jesus, and send Him to the Roman ruler for another trial. They hurried to do this early in the morning.
Do you know what time of the year this was? It was the time of the passover feast, also called the feast of unleavened bread, because they then ate only unleavened bread (without yeast) for seven days. This was in their month Abid, the same as late March or early April to us. (see Exo. 13:3,4,6; Luke 22:1).
ML 08/06/1944