Some of the persons who heard Jesus teaching in the temple, but who misunderstood what it was he had to say, were produced at his church trial. They had misunderstood Jesus so badly that they were unable to agree amongst themselves on what it was he had said. They had heard him say something about the temple and its destruction. And therefore, they assumed that he had threatened to destroy it. And further, that he had intended to replace it with one "not made with hands."Mark says that these people were false witnesses. These were people to whom the truth would have been a stranger.

They never intended to tell the truth. They were interested only in co-operating for a conviction. Their stories didn't agree with one another. As a result of which their evidence was useless, and ought to have been thrown out of court. An attempt was made to have Jesus reply to the false trumped-up charges against him. He remained silent. He refused to refute lies either about his person or about his teaching. A little later he was asked whether he was the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God. This was a different matter entirely, and Jesus answered it affirmatively."I am the Messiah, I am the Christ; the one who fulfills the prophecies of the Old Testament, and the hopes of all those who look for the end of all things."The representatives of true religion reacted to this admission on his part as people do who are scandalized beyond belief."Blasphemy!" they cried, and not for the first time. They had chanted the same thing against him, at the beginning of his ministry, when he had pardoned the sins of a paralyzed man. He had done then, according to them, what otherwise only God can do.

He was claiming now what no person had the right to claim,-- a special place in relation to God. Jesus was not yet condemned to death,-- the court seems not to have had that authority. And so it condemned him as deserving death. They needed only the means of inflicting the death penalty. In the meantime, they began to treat him as if his death had already been decided.

When confronted with the tales of false witnesses, Jesus remained silent. When asked to identify himself in terms of the truth, he spoke without hesitation. In the end, therefore, he was condemned for telling the truth. And once again, as earlier in the olive orchard, Jesus was alone. His own received him not! He was condemned as deserving death-- without a dissenting voice. As a result, the process of rejection was complete. The whole nation, as represented by the Council, had rejected its Messiah sent from God. In the years that followed his condemnation, one of the questions that bothered the early Christians had to do with the messiahship of Jesus. How was it possible for the Messiah to have been rejected, condemned and crucified? This passage from Mark's gospel answers that question. It was possible because his teaching was misunderstood.

And he was condemned as deserving death, as worthy of death, for telling the truth about himself. He was crucified, according to Mark, by his own people who knew precisely what they were doing. And no one had intervened to support him. His friends behaved like enemies. And when that happened there was no possibility his death could have been prevented. All the way through the beautiful gospel of Mark there is a contrast between who Jesus actually is, and the way in which he is treated. The One for whom his people prayed and waited was humiliated, rejected and left alone when he came.

There has never been a time when the church did not need to hear this story. It comes to us, as it came to its first readers and hearers, with the example of Jesus. When he was slandered, he said nothing. And always he was ready to tell the truth, regardless of the consequences. This story comes to us, as it came to the early church, with a clear confessional statement about Jesus. He is the Christ of God! He is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. He is at the right hand of God. He will act as judge in the reign of God among us. He shares in the power and the glory of God.

These are the statements, and these are the truths to which the Christians in Rome were told to hold fast. And what was true for them, is true as well for us.-- Amen.

Prayer: Mighty God, we think of all the bad things that happen to good people. We think about the injustice in our society; of the lies told about innocent people, of the ways in which people are manipulated and used against their will, of the inhumanity in our established institutions. We remember these things too were the experiences of Jesus. We remember his silence in the face of falsehoods about his teaching. We remember his courage in the challenge to his identity. We remember his loneliness in his rejection by those he came to save. Help us, Good Lord, so to confess Jesus as the Lord of all life that by our words and deeds we challenge injustice in his name, wherever it appears.-- Amen.