CRUCIFIXION AND RESURRECTION The Trial of Jesus.—There is considerable variation between the Evangelists in the reports which they give of the judicial or quasi-judicial proceedings which followed. Mark reports a for mal meeting of the Sanhedrin held at once in the house of the High Priest ; which seems unlikely especially if it were followed by another formal meeting next morning. Luke reports that Jesus was taken to the house of the high priest, but defers the investi gation till the next day. The tendency of Mark's narrative is to throw a greater responsibility upon the Jewish authorities, and to suggest that the Sanhedrin had more independent jurisdiction than probably belonged to it. The object of the chief priests was to frame a charge against Jesus which would lie in a Roman court ; and this they found in the admission which He made to the High Priest that he was the Messiah. For that admission could be easily interpreted to Roman ears as involving a claim to be "the King of the Jews," and one who was therefore politically dangerous. Evidence that He had publicly made such a claim does not appear to have been forthcoming. But when directly challenged by the High Priest "Art thou the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?" Jesus replied, "I am," the first and only time when, according to Mark, He formulated the claim in express words. On this His own confession the Sanhedrin adjudged Him guilty of blasphemy, and after being overwhelmed with brutal insults He was hurried off to be tried before the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate.
Luke, whose account of these events is largely independent of the other twa Synoptists, describes the religious authorities as laying three distinct charges against Jesus, out of which Pilate selects for following up the charge that He called himself "Christ a king." To Pilate's question whether He did indeed claim to be King of the Jews He returned only an ambiguous reply. What follows is in effect an account of the struggle in Pilate's mind between his conviction that his prisoner was an innocent man and that it was "through envy" that the high priests had sent him for trial, and the fear lest by offending the Jews he might be involved in a riot at Jerusalem and a charge of maladministration at Rome. As a last resource he threw on the crowd the responsibility of choosing whether they would have Jesus or another prisoner, Barabbas, a bandit, released to them. When they had chosen Barabbas and Pilate asked what then was he to do with Jesus, the shout went up, "Crucify him," and Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they demanded.
The Gospel narratives present Jesus as bearing Himself through out with unswerving dignity towards men, with uncomplaining submission towards God. Deserted by His followers, betrayed by one of His Apostles, publicly denied by another, beaten and spat upon by the soldiers, jeered by the populace, crucified between two criminals, forsaken by man, and, as it seemed, by God, no form of bitterness was wanting to the cup which He drank, the cup of failure, shame, pain and death. He "obeyed unto the death
of the Cross," "for the glory that was set before Him." The Resurrection.—On "the third day," the first day of the week, the same Jesus appeared to some of those who had known Him and believed on Him, alive. And on the conviction that He rose from the dead and "liveth for evermore" the faith and life and hope of the Christian Church are founded. It is to this faith that the Gospel narratives bear collective witness, despite their variations as to the mode and circumstances of the event. The earliest and the strongest evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus is provided by the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Paul. The early chapters of the Acts (whatever be the date of their final composition) contain source-material which testifies to the existence, very shortly after the death of Jesus; of a fellow ship or community of men and women for whom the verdict of the Cross had been reversed. They were bound together by a common loyalty to Jesus, a common readiness to suffer "for his name," and a common expectation of His early and visible return. That by which they were animated and sustained was the belief that He was alive, and apart from such a belief there is no expla nation to be given of the existence of such a community. Evidence of the vividness and impressiveness of this conviction is provided in the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, for which we must find one of the predisposing causes in the tenacious witness borne to the Resurrection by the disciples whom he had "haled and committed to prison." Some 20 years after, when writing to the Corinthians, Paul summarizes part at least of the Gospel which he had been taught when he became a Christian and which he in turn trans mitted to others; and in the short list of points he includes the fact that Christ "hath been raised on the third day," and goes on to recite a list of persons to whom He had appeared—Peter, the Twelve, more than five hundred brethren at once, James, all the Apostles, himself. But the fact or event of the Resurrection is for Paul only the beginning of a new and risen life for Jesus of which His followers have experimental proof in daily life and in victory over the world and sin. The living Saviour is even more real to him than the historical fact that He had risen from the dead. And Paul is not alone; the Epistle of Peter, that to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse bear witness to the like conviction confirmed by the like experience.