“ARE YOU THE CHRIST?” – “I AM”
Sermon Text, St. Mark 14:60-65. And the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus, saying, “Do You answer nothing? What is it these men testify against You?” But He kept silent and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked Him, saying to Him, “Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” Jesus said, “I am. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “What further need do we have of witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy! What do you think?” And they all condemned Him to be deserving of death. 65 Then some began to spit on Him, and to blindfold Him, and to beat Him, and to say to Him, “Prophesy!” And the officers struck Him with the palms of their hands.
Lord, this is Your Word and these are Your words. Sanctify us by the truth. Your Word is truth. We pray You: Give power and strength to our faith as we see that You bravely confessed Your faith, how You took away the accusation against us by being falsely accused, and that You were mocked, beaten, struck and hurt to completely remove the devil’s power to mock, beat, and hurt us. Amen!
Dear fellow redeemed by the Great I Am:
It’s a sham trial, and both Jesus and Caiaphas know it.
Only a few years before, Rome took away from the high priest and the Sanhedrin the power to put a person to death. They’re trying to come up with a verdict that they can bring to Pontius Pilate so hewill put Jesus to death for them. This is less a trial than a hearing.
Nevertheless, there were still rules – but Caiaphas isn’t following them. No trial before the Sanhedrin was to be done after sundown, yet they’re doing this in the middle of the night. The witnesses don’t agree, so the case should be thrown out. If they call for a verdict, they’re supposed to hear from each member of the council one by one; they don’t do that.
None of this is going according to law and order. Out of frustration, Caiaphas gives up on getting a credible witness, and despite no evidence being proven, he jumps ahead in the proceedings and asks Jesus directly: “Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” In the other gospels he precedes this with: “I put You under oath by the living God …”
Jesus doesn’t need to answer. Yet He doesn’t act out of self-preservation; He does not stay silent. He speaks up. Mark records His majestic answer: “I Am.” Why say the very thing that will result in an unjust verdict?
Because this isn’t a sham trial. On a human level it is. But there’s a trial nobody can see but Jesus. The judge is not Caiaphas or the Sanhedrin. God is the judge. You are on trial. And there is evidence, mountains of it.
God’s Law condemns us as deserving of death, because all have sinned and fallen short of the Law, and the wages of sin is death. We have sinned against the 10 Commandments. Each commandment declares: Guilty!
But not only does the Law accuse us, the Bible says “our hearts condemn us,” and “the conscience bears witness, the thoughts accusing or excusing.”
And the one using the Law and our conscience to accuse us is the devil, who – the Bible says – is accusing us day and night (Re 12:10).
All these accusations! This is the real trial taking place as Jesus stands there. We’re the guilty ones. We hear the verdict: “deserving of death.” It applies to us. There is no excuse we can make. We can’t say anything.
There’s also a connection to what was done to Jesus after this verdict. We heard that they “began to spit on Him, and to blindfold Him, and to beat Him, and to say to Him, “Prophesy!” And the officers struck Him with the palms of their hands.” The devil and his demons taunt us in a similar way with the verdict of our guilt before God.
When you dwell on your sins and your guilty conscience seizes you, you get twisted around, you keep getting hit in the face with this, the devil taunts you with accusations that you are a hypocrite and no child of God. Nothing but constant accusing, with no let-up, and it’s such a loud chorus of voices raised against us, a constant barrage, and it stings and hurts.
This is why Jesus steps forward. He steps in front of you as the accused. He steps in front of you as the prisoner. He will stand trial instead of you. He is silent as the accusations fly, but for a different reason than you. He is silent so that the accusations can fall on Him, and not land on you.
Jesus’ answer to the question, “Are You the Christ?” – as He answers, “I Am” – is saying that He is the God who spoke to Moses from the burning bush, He is true God from eternity. Caiaphas expects Jesus to say this. His saying it is still very brave, for He knows what will come from this. He’ll be taken to the death that was making Him shake with fear in Gethsemane.
But Jesus’ words, “I Am,” are important for another reason too. As Caiaphas asks this question, God the Father is behind it. It’s as if nobody is in the room except God, you, and all your accusers: the devil, your guilty conscience, your sins, the Law, and death.
As Caiaphas asks the question, “Are You the Christ?” God is asking it a different way: “Who is guilty of these crimes?” You know what the evidence says. But Jesus says, “I Am.”
That’s the new evidence. It says you are innocent. You have no sins. That’s how God is using Caiaphas. To make Jesus guilty of your sins. To step in front of you so the guilty verdict, the punishment, and all the torment – that you would be eternally mocked, beaten, spit upon and hurt continuously in hell for your sins — it all hits Jesus and none of it hits you.
And now you are called “the son [or daughter] of the Blessed.” You now have this blessedness. But it’d not a blessedness to hoard for yourself.
If God treats us like this when we’re accused and defenseless, the next step for us is what? – First in our words, to bring this blessedness of Christ to others – to tell and show them how their Savior made Himself guilty of their sins so that it’s really true that their sins are forgiven. To confess our faith, to confess Christ, to speak God’s truth when the world opposes us and threatens us with consequences, as we’ll hear in a bit about a Lutheran martyr named Sir Patrick Hamilton. We don’t know how much even the opponents in the world are presently needing our confession of faith, needing to hear clearly about their Savior from sin and to be rescued from godlessness, empty promises and what is falsely called knowledge.
The second thing after our words, come our actions, to show them the love Christ calls us to: This means, for example, actually to step in front of accusations spoken against others, defend them and speak well of them. It also means to take strength from Christ’s sufferings, so that you don’t burn with anger but instead pray for those who do you wrong and forgive them; to not hold grudges or barely be civil, but to be liberal in showing love, for we have a Lord who gives us His love liberally, wholeheartedly! Amen!