“High Priest, sir. Huff... huff... This is terrible.”
My servant Malgo, whom I had sent to Bethany to observe, burst in, panting and out of breath.
“What happened?”
“Just now... huff... huff...”
“Take a moment and catch your breath. What’s all this commotion about?”
“Jesus is... entering Jerusalem.”
“What are you talking about?!”
The very thing I dreaded is now happening. Jesus is entering Jerusalem—the man causing the greatest uproar in Judea. His followers claim he teaches love, but it’s all nonsense. Wherever he goes, he causes division. Even the Pharisees, who agree with some of his teachings, want him dead.
Of course, as a Sadducee, I welcomed his disputes with the Pharisees over doctrine. But he didn’t stop there—he crossed a line that should never have been crossed. He challenged our belief that there is no resurrection. The Pharisees have always insisted on the resurrection, citing the historical books and the prophets, but the Torah, which God gave directly to Moses, says nothing about resurrection. That’s why we Sadducees reject it. Now, he’s spreading rumors that he raised someone from the dead in Bethany, directly challenging our doctrine. How can the dead come back to life? It’s impossible.
But foolish, desperate people are easily swayed by such rumors. As soon as word spread that Jesus was coming to Bethany, crowds flocked there. Pathetic fools. They must be hoping this so-called Jesus is the Messiah. But he’s not. As he himself said, he brings not peace, but a sword. If we let him be, the entire Jewish nation could be destroyed.
That’s why the Sadducees have joined with the Pharisees—at least on this issue—to arrest him. But he always travels with his disciples and is surrounded by crowds bewitched by him, making it impossible to reach him. That’s why we considered eliminating Lazarus, who is also at the center of these rumors. But even that seems too late now. I had hoped to deal with Lazarus before Passover, but Jesus arrived sooner than expected, and everything has already gone awry. Now he’s entering Jerusalem itself. What am I supposed to do?
High Priest Caiaphas pressed his aching head and stepped out of his office.
* * *
From the direction of the Mount of Olives, a roar erupted, shaking the city.
“Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
The ancient cry, “Hosanna!”—which means, “Oh, save us, we pray!”—once shouted with all their hearts as they circled the altar during the Feast of Tabernacles, was now being lifted up for Jesus.
“Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel!”
People rejoiced as if Jesus were already king. They laid down their cloaks and palm branches, covering the road into the city. The Romans built paved roads everywhere to rule by force, but this path of cloaks and palm leaves was far more powerful than any road they had ever built. It was a road built by faith, leading into the holy city of Jerusalem.
“Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming.”
People cut down and waved palm branches to welcome him. These long, beautiful leaves, symbols of glory, beauty, joy, and victory, reminded everyone of the words from the Psalms: “The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree.”
“Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest!”
Jesus was approaching Jerusalem, riding on a young donkey, just as the prophet Zechariah had foretold:
“Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion! Shout, daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King comes to you! He is righteous, and having salvation; lowly, and riding on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
As Caiaphas, the High Priest, watched this unfold, a sudden fear gripped him. From ancient times, Passover and other festivals had often sparked unrest and even rebellion. When Archelaus came to power, three thousand people died in the temple around Passover. That’s why he and the other priests always paid special attention during festivals, but this Passover was already off to a troubled start. If things went wrong, it could escalate into something much worse. Ultimately, the responsibility would fall on him. He knew that more than a few high priests had been dismissed by the Roman governor for displeasing him. Though he had managed to keep his position for several years by being careful, he could be removed at any time.
Moreover, the current governor, Pontius Pilate, was not easy to deal with. He had secretly brought military standards bearing the emperor’s image into Jerusalem, and he had hung golden shields inscribed with pagan gods on the city walls to oppress the Jews. Under the pretext of building an aqueduct, he had used temple funds, and when Galilean pilgrims protested, he had them slaughtered so that their blood mingled with the sacrifices. When Zealots occupied the Tower of Siloam, he had the tower collapsed, killing eighteen people. Though his influence had waned recently, he was not a man to let things slide. Everything happening now would be reported by the Roman troops stationed at the Fortress of Antonia, adjoining the northern wall of the temple.
While Caiaphas was deep in thought, some Pharisees from the council approached him.
“High Priest, are you all right? You don’t look well.”
“I’m fine.”
“That’s good. In any case, what should we do about this Jesus? His arrogance is sky-high.”
“What’s happened now?”
“We told him to rebuke his noisy disciples, but do you know what he said?”
“What did he say?”
“‘I tell you that if these were silent, the stones would cry out.’”
The Pharisee shook his head. Another sighed and said,
“See how you accomplish nothing. Behold, the world has gone after him.”
Jesus finally passed through the city gate and entered the temple. The temple was filled with people asking who he was, and others excitedly answering that he was Jesus the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee. Who could possibly stop him now?
* * *
“How should we deal with him?”
Two days before Passover, a small group of council members had gathered at my residence. They were my closest confidants.
“What if we just leave him alone for now?”
“Leave him alone? How can you say that? Aren’t you ashamed of the insults we’ve suffered these past days?”
As these two opinions show, we’re in a bind—unable to ignore him, but unable to act easily. The reason we can’t simply leave him alone is because of his bold actions. Right before my eyes, he overturned the tables of those selling animals for sacrifices and those exchanging money for temple shekels, and he even forbade people from carrying goods through the temple courts. I was so stunned I just watched, but then he went so far as to say:
“It is written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations,’ but you have made it a den of robbers!”
Anyone could see he was attacking me and my family, the house of Annas. Everyone knows the merchants are connected to us. If those around me hadn’t stopped me, something serious would have happened right then. I barely managed to suppress my anger, but then the children around him started shouting, “Hosanna to the son of David!” It was getting on my nerves. So I said, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And, as if proud, he replied:
“Yes. Did you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of children and nursing babies you have perfected praise?’”
It was outright disrespect. How dare he challenge me with a line from the Psalms, when only the Torah is truly Scripture to us! I was furious and confronted him again with the elders, demanding to know by what authority he was doing these things. But he avoided answering by asking a different question:
“I will ask you one question. If you answer me, I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John—was it from heaven, or from men? Answer me.”
He’s clever—always asking questions that put us on the spot. If we say John’s baptism was from heaven, he’ll ask why we didn’t believe him. If we say it was from men, the people might riot, since they regard John as a prophet. So we could only say, “We don’t know.” Then he said he wouldn’t tell us by what authority he did these things either. I could have endured it up to that point, but then he began mocking us with parables.
“What do you think? A man had two sons. He came to the first, and said, ‘Son, go work today in my vineyard.’ He answered, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he changed his mind and went. He came to the second, and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but he didn’t go. Which of the two did the will of his father?”
“The first,” someone answered.
He immediately turned it against us.
“Most certainly I tell you that the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering into God’s Kingdom before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you didn’t believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. When you saw it, you didn’t even repent afterward, that you might believe him.” If he had stopped there, it would have been tolerable, but he continued.
“Hear another parable. There was a man, the master of a household, who planted a vineyard, set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a tower. He rented it out to some farmers and went into another country for a long time. When the season for fruit drew near, he sent a servant to the farmers to collect his share of the fruit of the vineyard. But the farmers took him, beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. Again, he sent another servant; they beat him as well, wounded him in the head, treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty. He sent a third servant, and they wounded him also and threw him out. He sent still other servants, more than the first, and they did the same to them—some they beat, some they stoned, and some they killed.
Now he still had one, his beloved son. Last of all, he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the farmers saw the son, they talked it over among themselves and said, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ So they took him, seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. When therefore the lord of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those farmers?”
“He will miserably destroy those miserable men, and will lease out the vineyard to other farmers, who will give him the fruit in its season.”
“That’s right. He will come and destroy these farmers, and will give the vineyard to others.”
“May it never be!”
Until that moment, we still did not fully grasp his meaning. But the instant he added one more word, we realized what he was saying.
“Did you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone which the builders rejected was made the head of the corner. This was from the Lord. It is marvelous in our eyes’? Therefore I tell you, God’s Kingdom will be taken away from you and will be given to a nation producing its fruit. Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him as dust.”
He once again brought up the Psalms—which are not even truly Scripture—to attack our faith and convictions. He was clearly condemning us, likening us to the tenants in his parable. The servants in the story must have been prophets like John the Baptist, and the son was surely meant to represent himself. I heard that the Pharisees were angry because he called himself the Son of God, but truly, he was out of his mind. How dare he call God his Father? At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to seize him, but the crowd around him made it impossible. To those who mourned John the Baptist, he was considered equal to, or even greater than, John.
After that day, he taught in the temple daily, saying all sorts of things. None of it pleased me, but the ignorant people listened eagerly and took his side. The idea that we could not just leave him alone was shared not only by the Sadducees but also by the scribes, the Pharisees, and the leaders of the people. Each tried to find fault with him, but he always managed to slip away.
The Pharisees and Herodians questioned him about whether it was right to pay taxes to Caesar, but he answered, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” He silenced them with the image and inscription on the denarius.
Next, the Sadducees questioned him about the resurrection, but he gave an answer none of us expected. He interpreted the Torah’s phrase, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,” as meaning that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
Moreover, when the scribes asked him about the greatest commandment, he summed it up as love for God and love for neighbor, winning their agreement. He even silenced them by asking how David could call the Messiah “Lord” if the Messiah was his descendant.
Reflecting on these answers, I have to admit he is an extraordinary man. I can’t deny it. But sadly, he’s wasting his remarkable talent on the wrong things. He attacks the leaders without understanding how much we have devoted ourselves to this nation and its people. No matter how remarkable he is, how can we just let him be? That’s why we’re meeting now to discuss how to handle him, but it’s not easy to reach a conclusion.
“We will surely have our day to repay the insults we have received. But for now, we cannot seize him.”
“Why not?”
“First, there are too many people who follow him. To arrest him, we’d have to send the temple guards, but no matter how capable they are, they can’t overcome such a crowd. And with the festival approaching, his followers keep gathering, beyond our ability to control.”
“What’s the second reason?”
“Suppose we do manage to seize him. What then? If we imprison him, his followers will riot. And if that happens, will Rome stand by? Will Pilate? Absolutely not.”
“You’re right. Not during the feast, lest a riot occur among the people. Although he causes trouble, he has said that if there is any disturbance, he will leave. So we can only hope he leaves quietly this time as well.”
Just as everyone was nodding in agreement, Malgo entered.
“High Priest, someone has come who wants to hand Jesus over to us.”
The eyes of those who had just been saying not to act during the festival suddenly changed. If we could just capture him, we could figure out what to do next. If he could break through our questions in ways we never imagined, then what couldn’t we do ourselves?
* * *
Late at night, Judas Iscariot appeared before the high priest and the chief priests.
“What are you willing to give me, and I will deliver him to you?”
Judas Iscariot was openly seeking a reward. He thought that, since he was acting to fulfill Jesus’ words anyway, it wouldn’t hurt to make some money on the side. The high priest and his party offered him thirty pieces of silver—Tyrian shekels, each worth about four denarii, totaling one hundred and twenty denarii. It wasn’t an insignificant sum, but it was woefully inadequate compared to the value of Jesus. Judas privately thought he would have made more just managing Jesus’ money bag, but since this was unexpected income, he took it.
In fact, the high priest had deliberately set this amount because thirty pieces of silver was the price paid if an ox gored a male or female slave to death. It was meant to belittle Jesus as no more than a servant. Yet even this only served to fulfill God’s prophecy about the suffering servant Messiah, spoken through Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah. In this way, God was accomplishing His plan even through the actions of evildoers.
The passages from Psalm 92:12, Zechariah 9:9, Matthew 21:9, 13-16, 21:24-44, 22:21, 32, 26:5, 15, Mark 11:10, 17, 11:29-30, 12:1-11, Luke 19:38-40, 20:3-4, 20:9-18, John 12:13, 12:19 quoted in this narrative are taken directly from the World English Bible (WEB) translation. Of the parallel passages, I have combined them into a single version that includes all the content.
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