‘The Preist’s Final Act’

Sermon 2 Lent:
John 11:45-53; 18:12-14, 19-24

Interspersed with the story of Peter and his denial of Jesus that desperate last night of Jesus’ life is the story of Joseph ben Caiaphas, the high priest of the Jewish people, a man of the tribe of Levi who stood in the succession of Aaron. Caiaphas was an important person in the final week of Jesus’ life. He was not a follower of Jesus. Not a friend of Jesus. Not an admirer of Jesus. In fact, it is not clear he had even given Jesus much though until that last week. But he had a role to play. In God’s great divine drama, now about to come to its climatic conclusion, Caiaphas, as high priest, had one single job to perform. He had one key line to deliver. It didn’t even matter whether he understood it or not. His job was to announce, after more than a thousand years of the sacrificial system that he and his predecessors had presided over, the last sacrifice that God would ever accept was to be offered up. The final, ultimate sacrifice.

But before we look more deeply into the part played by Caiaphas, and the meaning of his words, we need to understand a bit more of who he was, and of what the role of the high priest was.

At the time of Jesus the high priest was principally concerned with overseeing the sacrificial system of the temple, and of being a part of the Sanhedrin, or ruling council. But this had not always been the case. Originally there was no ruling council and the role of the high priest was not political. Also, there was in early Israel a much stronger emphasis on the high priest as a teacher and as an oracle or mouthpiece for God than on his role in the temple sacrificial system.

The role of the high priest was inherited, usually passed on from father to son. And the appointment was for life. But by the time of the Romans this had changed. The role of the high priest had become very political. For this reason the Roman governors took an active interest in who was high priest and often deposed those they were not happy with. For this reason many high priests during this period served often for a year or less, and some for a matter of only days. Caiaphas was an exception. He served during the entire time that Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor. But this didn’t earn him any praise or respect among the people. Instead, many saw it as a sign of complicity with the Romans, and of Caiaphas’ ability to do whatever was asked of him in order to stay in power.

Like every other priest, Caiaphas was born into a priestly family from the tribe of Levi. But more than that, he had had the good sense to marry the daughter of the most influential and wealthy priest of the era, Annas. Whether this was a result of his own ambition or that of his parents, is not clear. Annas had spent time as high priest and when he was made to step down by Pilate’s predecessor, he had one of his sons appointed in his place. When after a year his son was forced to step down, he had his son-in-law Caiaphas appointed to the role. And when Pilate was replaced as governor of Judea and Caiaphas was deposed so that the new governor could put his own new team in place, Annas managed to have a succession of four more sons serve for brief periods in the role of high priest. So for many years, including the entire ministry of Jesus, Annas was the power behind the high priesthood and the de facto high priest, even though it was Caiaphas who was technically high priest during this period. Hence the reason that both men are referred to in the gospels and in contemporary records at the time as being ‘the high priest.’

John, who shows more awareness of the role of the temple and of the priesthood than the other gospel writers, gives us much more detail about what happened after Jesus’ arrest. For instance, we find that Jesus was taken to Annas’ house first for his trial, and then afterward as a formality to the house of Caiaphas, the actual high priest. For it was Caiaphas who needed to officially hand him over to Pilate, probably under instruction from his father-in-law Annas. It is also John that tells us that Caiaphas was ‘high priest that year’, making is sound as if the office was transferred annually. But John knew that it was not an annual office. It was meant to be held for life. But as many high priests served only a year or less, this had become something of a running joke in Jerusalem. John is not giving incorrect information here, as some have supposed. He is using a hint of sarcasm to remind his readers what a mess the office of the high priesthood had become in its final years. Possibly for the same reason he makes a point of the fact that two different men (Caiaphas and his father-in-law Annas) were acting as high priest at the same time, having the guard with Annas refer to him as the high priest, and then John immediately tells us that Annas, who has just been called the high priest without correction the guard, has Jesus sent to Caiaphas, the high priest.

John knows the system of the priesthood very well, and he is critical of it. But how does John know it so well? And how does John know the high priest, (whether he meant Caiaphas, Annas or both is not clear) so well that he is able to gain access to the trial of Jesus and get Peter into Annas’ courtyard? Why also is John so concerned with the temple and its worship (hence putting the story of its cleansing at the beginning of his gospel?) Why is John at the Jordan river as a disciple of John the Baptist, the son of a temple priest from the hills of Judiah, instead of being with his family fishing?

These perplexing questions have one improbably solution. And the answer comes from one of John’s successors as leader of the church in Ephesus.

Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus in the late 2^nd century, just under a century after John’s death, knew in his youth old men who had known John. And stories of John would have still been very well known in the Christian community where John had spent his last decades.  And it is bishop Polycrates who tells us not only that John is the beloved disciple and the author of the fourth gospel. But that he was one of those faithful priests, referred to in Acts 6:7 who wore the sacerdotal plate’.

But how could this be possible. John was a fisherman from Galilee, not one of the thousands of priests living in Jerusalem. But what we often forget is that not all priests resided in Jerusalem. In fact, only about half were required to. The rest were to live spread around the country. After half of these congregated in Jericho (hence the priest in Jesus’ story of the good Samaritan was going down to Jericho), the rest were spread throughout the rest of the land, like Jesus’ relative Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, who was a priest living in the hill country of Judea. Others would have lived in Galilee.

And because there were so many priests, they were assigned to come to the temple with their group only twice per year, and sometimes also for high holy days, to assist. But many did not come every time and remained home and offered prayers during their week of service. And when they were not serving in the temple, they were expected to dress as everyone else, so as not to make a show and stand out.

Of course, the temple could not support so many priests financially. The records of the time speak of priests who were poor and how those who were not should assist them. So very many priests, especially those outside Jerusalem, worked most of the year in some ordinary, non-priestly job.

What seems then quite probable, if the early church tradition is correct, is that John and his family, though priests, worked as fishermen. But John would have been sent to Jerusalem as a young man to do the required training to serve as a temple priest. There he would have met other young priests in training, as well as the high priest and his family.

A further indication that John may well have been from a priestly family is that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was from a family with priestly links. Hence her cousin Elisabeth was married to a priest. And priestly families tended to look for daughters from priestly families to marry.

As an aside here, this would well mean that Mary was not only a descendant of King David, but of Aaron. This would mean Jesus has family links to both the David line of kings and the Aaronic line of priests. This is significant as Jesus is called in Romans a priest after the order of Melchizedek. And while we do not understand what all this entails, we do know that part of the uniqueness of Melchizedek is that he was both a king (of Salem, which would become Jerusalem) and a priest.

In any event, with Mary’s family connections to the preisthood, it is not impossible that her sister, Salome, was not also married to a priest. And we know Salome was the name of Mary’s sister because she is one of the women at the cross with Mary (Mark 15:40), identified in Matthew as the mother of James and John, and in John’s gospel simply referred to as ‘Mary’s sister.’ (Mt 27:56, Mark 15:40; John 19:25). If the best solution to the puzzle of why this list varies with the different gospels is that Salome, the mother of James and John, and the sister of Mary are ways of referring to the same person. And John, as was the custom of authors at the time, would speak of his mother as he spoke of himself (the disciple whom Jesus loved) in the third person and not by name. So this means that John is Jesus’ cousin. Which by the way helps to explain why James and John had the audacity, at the urging of their mother, to ask Jesus to give them positions at his right and left hand in his kingdom, and why John was the disciple whom Jesus loved (he was his young cousin whom he had grown up with) and why Jesus gives his mother over to John’s care at the cross.

But those are all stories for another time.

For now, it is enough to understand that, for whatever reasons, John had a great interest in and understanding of the priesthood and the temple. And he was very disappointed in what it had become. But John also wants to highlight that God still used the institution of the priesthood, and he used it one last time in the old sense of what it has once been, of being also a prophetic office.

When the Sanhedrin first begin to conspire to put Jesus to death, after they learn of the raising of Lazarus (11:45-53), it is the actual official high priest, Caiaphas, who is there. And in the midst of their discussions he suddenly states: ‘Don’t you people understand anything. It is better for one man to die for the people than for the whole nation to be destroyed.’ And John points out that he made this prophecy about Jesus even though he did not understand what he was saying. So the high priest himself prophesies the final sacrifice that will be for all people. He announces the end of the sacrificial system, and indeed the coming of a new high priest. And this statement of Caiaphas is so important that John reminds us of it again in chapter 18 (verse 14).

The high priest has one final role to fulfil in the divine drama. Despite the low state of affairs in the current priesthood, the fact that the high priest has become a political role and a puppet of the Romans, there was still a high priest in Israel at the time of Jesus. And this is important.

A bird or animal could not be sacrificed until inspected and approved as spotless by one of the priests on duty. For Jesus to be brought before the high priest and examined before being handed over to the Romans to be killed is a symbolic moment that John does not want us to miss. Hence John reminds us again of the words of Caiaphas when he spoke of Jesus in the meeting of the Jewish ruling council a week earlier.

So it was that the high priest had one last role to fulfil. The high priest was to the announce the one sacrifice that would end all sacrifices. The high priest would declare that Jesus, God in human flesh, was the acceptable sacrifice not only for the nation, but for all people. For John it didn’t matter that Caiaphas and Annas did not understand what they were saying and doing. That was not necessary. God used them to fulfil the true role of the high priesthood. The high priesthood of Israel, established at the time of Moses, and working through the period of the Tabernacle and two separate temples, finally comes to its fulfilment. The sacrifice was examined and accepted. One man, Jesus, was to die for all people.

Amen.

Pastor Mark Worthing.