Sermonstudio

Good evening. The execution of radical rabbi Jesus of Nazareth has made headlines far beyond the borders of Israel. What began as a power struggle among competing schools of Hebrew thought has now come to the attention of millions who are not at all familiar with the intricacies of Jewish theology. Here tonight to help clarify the matter for our viewers is the High Priest of Israel, joining us live via satellite from his office on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Thank you for joining us, Annas.

How rightly the prophet Jeremiah spoke when he said, "His name will no longer be remembered." My name is not Annas. I am the High Priest Caiaphas. I am the one and true High Priest of Israel. Praise the Lord!

Oh, it appears our information is mistaken.

It's sadly out of date, friend. Annas, my father-in-law, used to be the high priest, and some people still call him by that title as a thing of honor, but the Lord called me to this office about fifteen years ago.

I would like to apologize for ...

Relax, friend. I wouldn't expect a godless pagan like you to know any better. As it says in the book of Proverbs: "The mind of a fool broadcasts folly."

Oh. So, how does one get to be the high priest?

Almighty God chooses the high priest each year.

Each year? Yet you said you have been the high priest for fifteen years now.

Yes. That is what I said, and I have truly spoken.

How can that be?

Well, clearly the Lord keeps choosing me. How truly wise is our God!

What exactly is the role of the high priest?

As high priest it is I alone who is the direct link between the Lord and his chosen people.

So you represent all the people of the world to God.

Not all the people, just God's chosen people, Israel.

I'm not sure I understand.

Well, of course you don't! But while you're sitting at home in your stocking feet drinking whiskey, watching Britney Spears videos, and playing on-line poker, we're over here living as the people of God „ praying and reading the Holy Scriptures and following his commandments. Someone say, "Amen!"

Excuse me, Anna ... er, Caiaphas, but many of the world's people have laws very similar to the Ten Commandments.

Having heard of the Ten Commandments, or even trying to make poor imitations of them is not enough to bring you along the paths of righteousness. And which ten commandments would you choose? The Lord has blessed his people with no less than 613 commandments, written in the law and the prophets.

Six hundred thirteen? How can people possibly remember that many laws?

They can't always. Satan, the Accuser, sometimes causes the people to sin and break the holy covenant of God.

What happens then?

Why, son, that's why the Lord has blessed them with me.

What do you do?

Why, I offer prayers and sacrifices to God on behalf of the people.

What kind of sacrifices?

The kind acceptable to God. The kind proscribed in the Holy Scriptures. Bulls, rams, doves.

To many of our audience, the practice of animal sacrifice quite frankly sounds repugnant. What does the slaughter of animals have to do with God?

Giving up something that you depend on for your livelihood, something dear and costly, is a way of giving a part of yourself. It is a way of apologizing for your sin. The blood of a perfect bull or a perfect lamb, the giving of its life, is how we obtain God's forgiveness for our sins.

So that is your job as high priest, to represent the people to God?

There's more to it than that. Once a year I enter into the Holy of Holies in the Temple, behind the temple curtain, into the direct presence of God.

What do you do back there?

We don't even tell the faithful all of it, only what is beneficial for them to hear. The temple curtain is very large and very heavy for a reason. It would be too much for anyone but the High Priest to be in the direct presence of God. For verily it says in Exodus that even "Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God." So it is up to me not only to speak for the people to God, but I am also the voice of God for the people.

To say that you speak for God makes it sound like you have a rather high opinion of yourself.

I do have a high opinion of myself, and so do all the faithful. And so they should. Even God has a high opinion of me. I am the High Priest.

Are you saying that you are the one who really rules Israel?

No one as humble as I am would ever say anything like that. God is the one who rules Israel. I am nothing more than his spokesman, and the only one who can say what God wants for his chosen people.

What about King Herod?

Which one? There are two of them.

I'm sorry, I meant Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee. And I thought Herod the Great had three sons.

Actually Herod had a bunch of sons; not sure how many myself. He had most of them killed to protect his own throne. Killed one of them just a few days before he died himself. It says in the second book of Moses, "For I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of the parents." There were three sons left to divide up Judea. One of them, "Archie" - something, did a bad job of it even by Roman standards and they took him out and put their own man in „ oh, it's got to be twenty years ago now. So there's only Antipas and Phillip left now of the Herod boys.

But then the two of them would be rulers of Israel.

The Lord rules Israel. The Herod boys are nothing more than Roman stooges, under the control of that wicked man Pilate.

But weren't you also appointed by Pontius Pilate?

Why, of course not! I'm a servant of the Lord, not the pawn of the Evil Empire!

But our investigative reporters have found that you were indeed appointed by the Imperial Governor.

Pilate had nothing to do with my elevation to the high priesthood.

Oh, wait. Fifteen years ago would be before Pilate was Governor. Then you would have been appointed by his predecessor, Valerius Gratus, correct?

(Visibly shaken) I didn't come on your show to discuss politics.

Then you are a Roman appointee?

If God wants to work through the Romans to appoint the right man to the job, that's God's business. I'm afraid I'm too busy to waste time talking about the Romans.

Yes, sir, we have gotten off the subject. Let's go right to the point you wished to make in so graciously granting us this interview.

I merely wish to point out, in all humility, that I single-handedly saved the world from God's terrible, swift sword.

Oh?

Yes. I (with God's help, of course) put an end to that rabble-rouser who was misleading God's chosen people.

You mean Jesus of Nazareth.

His name you know! You get my name confused with my father-in-law, but you rattle off the name of this heretic as easy as pie. These are evil times! It's a sure sign that the forces of Satan are running amuck in the world when this charlatan gets better press than I do!

What would Jesus do that you would call him a heretic?

What would Jesus do? What wouldn't he do? This man had no regard for the laws of God. He openly broke our commandments and spat on our traditions.

Caiaphas, if you could please give us an example.

(Hesitating) Yes. Although it goes against my better judgment, I will give you an example. I hope the good people of Israel will forgive me for some of the shocking and explicit things I am about to say. Most of what Jesus did shouldn't even be mentioned by God-fearing people. If there are any small children watching, please, in the name of all that's holy, I plead with you to leave the room.

What did he do that was that terrible?

He worked on the Sabbath.

The Sabbath? That's Friday night, right?

Over here we don't divide our days by random numbers on man-made clocks. When God causes the sun to set, the day ends and a new one begins. The Sabbath goes from sundown on what you call Friday, until the next sundown. "Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it Holy," says the Lord. It is a day of sacred rest. But Jesus treated it like any other work day.

You mean he didn't take time off from his carpentry business?

I don't know about that, but it wouldn't surprise me. What I'm talking about is he picked grain on the Sabbath and egged his friends on to do the same. But worse than that, he used synagogues, houses of worship, like they were his own personal doctor's office.

You mean he was healing people? We've heard some remarkable stories about what he could do. Wouldn't God want him to heal people?

Not on the Sabbath. Remember, I'm the expert here on what God wants. People were there in synagogue to be with God, not to be made well! They would have been just as sick the next day; he could have healed them then!

And so that's why you arranged to have him killed?

Doesn't anybody understand that it is better to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed? No! His working on the Sabbath is not the whole reason. It's just the tip of the iceberg. He claimed to be the son of God. He claimed to be able to forgive sins. He passed himself off as the one person who could get you to God, and he's not. I am!

So, this is about jealousy?

It's about heresy. No one can forgive sins but God. It was like Jesus was saying he was God. That would give us more than one God. I know you pagans believe there are bunches and bunches of gods: Ba'al and Hathor and Elvis and the Tele-tubbies, but those are false gods. There is only one true God! It says in the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone." Jesus didn't play by the rules; he didn't know his place. He had to go, and there's no two ways about it.

Then why was Jesus executed by the Romans and not by your guard?

It needed to be more public than we could make it. That, and since it was around the time of the holy day of Passover, we would have been forbidden from the work of the execution, and from handling the dead body. A corpse is an unholy thing.

When we spoke to Governor Pilate he said that he didn't find Jesus guilty of any capital offense.

Not to the mind of an ignorant Roman maybe, but we have a law, and according to that law, Jesus had to die. He committed blasphemy. If we had let him live, we would have been sinning. And the wrath of God would have come down on us all. God in his anger would have given us into the hands of the Romans. I had to act. I am the High Priest!

Governor Pilate tried to release Jesus.

Yes, and thanks be to God we were able to see that that Roman devil was going to try to undermine us. He asked the crowd what prisoner they wanted released, thinking they would ask for Jesus.

But they didn't.

No, before Pilate had a chance to come out and pervert their minds, we reminded the people that a good and pious warrior for the cause of Jewish liberty was rotting in Pilate's prison.

Barabbas.

Yes, Barabbas, now a free man, thanks be to God.

And Jesus?

Jesus is dead, as he should be. And now everything will go back to being the same as it always was.

You're sure that he's dead? We've heard stories that the tomb was empty.

Grave robbers. It's a sad and evil age when people can't even let heretics decompose in peace.

Grave robbers?

Probably the Romans did it, just trying to make life more difficult for us like they always do.

Thank you for speaking with us. But if I might mention just one more thing before we run out of time.

Certainly. I would be glad to enlighten you with God's holy truth.

Well, it's not that exactly. But we understand that there was an act of vandalism in the Temple on the day that Jesus died.

Yes, the temple curtain was torn in two, from top to bottom.

This is the curtain that only you are allowed to go behind?

The very one. But don't worry, we have turned it in to our insurance.

And they have agreed to replace it?

Not yet. We're having a little trouble with their investigators. They claim it wasn't vandalism.

What do they say it was?

They're calling it an act of God. What do they know? Why would God tear the temple curtain? Without that curtain, there is nothing separating God from the people. Act of God indeed!

Thank you, Caiaphas.

You're certainly welcome, my child.

Please join us next week as we continue our examination of the story of Jesus of Nazareth with an interview with the man Jesus called "Rocky": Simon, Son of Jonah. Thank you, and good night.