I come from a family of servants. Many of my relatives serve the priesthood, and some even the High Priest himself, sharing my duties.
It has been said that there is nothing more disillusioning than to come to know the personal habits, thoughts, and unguarded words of those in authority whose very role requires holiness.
Not wishing to speak ill of the damned, I will say only this about Annas and Caiaphas, they were not worse than our brutal Roman conquerors.
Nonetheless, I was still mystified.
Temporarily ear-less, I had contemplated the mystery of godliness and God's plan of redemption through His Son, but as I followed the One who healed me, watching Him dragged harshly back into the city and the temple precincts, I began to see the unbridled irrationality of the soldiers' and officers' hatred of this Man. And I was astonished.
What had He done? Many of these same men, despite their high calling, were cynically ambitious, using our ancient religion as a means to personal ends. They were human chameleons and sponges, adapting their outward appearance to their audience at any given time.
When it suited, they were diligently pious. When the circumstance demanded otherwise, their craftiness enabled them to put on various other cloaks of pretense. And the best of them, the most facile deceivers, were also the most dispassionate and cunning beneath the surface. Intense emotion, other than for the benefit of their spectators, was something they rarely displayed.
But here and now, these same men were growling, cursing and spitting like demons. It was night, and only their trusted cohorts and some rabble-rousers were present, and yet they spewed poisonous venom from their hearts and mouths with a depth of evil sincerity that took my feeble breath away.
In turn, one or another high-ranking officer would purposely yank on my Lord's bindings, or shove Him roughly down the hillside, so that He stumbled without benefit of being able to break His fall with His bound hands. And there was a deadly intent behind their actions that went beyond all reason and human sense.
It was their proximity to Jesus that changed them.
Why such hatred?
Unlike many other enemies of our people and faith, this Man had injured no one. While it is true His teachings could be seen as a threat to the established religious authorities, and His popularity a potential cause for disruption, other more threatening and more disrupting criminals guilty of actual violence had been treated, if not humanely, at least not in this debased manner.
Murderers and thieves, even zealots, were demonstrably held in less vile contempt.
Why?
I myself had seen the vituperation and invective belch forth from the usually aloof ruling Sadducees in regard to this Jesus, and was more than a little bemused by it all.
But this? This went beyond all human explanation.
Having been raised under the tutelage of my masters, philosophical materialists all, who routinely and privately mocked the superstitious thinking of the masses who held belief in angels, miracles, and divine mysteries dear to their uneducated hearts, I, too, was unconvinced that anything beyond what could be seen and heard existed.
But this had all the eery trappings of a supernatural event. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand upright, similar to a rainless summer thunderstorm. And it made my skin crawl with a cold-hot clamminess, as if I were walking across the unclean burial places of the dead.
Looking back, even my description of it here lacks clarity, for in truth, it was not animal hatred being displayed, but something far worse.
Up until this very night, I did not believe in the afterlife, or angels… or demons.
But having encountered this Man, and been healed by Him, I now knew my conception of reality was infantile in its materialistic simplicity. There were things and beings beyond what could be seen with the eye of man.
And they were here, now, turning these soldiers into something unrelenting and immortal in their hatred.
I was shaken to the very core of my soul, for I now understood that I indeed had one, and she was trembling in abject fear.
Then my Healer turned at the silent cry of my despair and I swear He looked right into my heart even in the midst of the murderous crowd.
And my fear was transformed into love and adoration.
I now understood that I was witness to the undisguised enmity between God and rebellious man, augmented on man's part by the unclean spirits of lore and tradition.
This was a culminating battle in the long war against God, and in anticipation of victory, the veil between the worlds had been ripped aside and I was glimpsing the maelstrom of ancient hatred.
I found it difficult to breathe, until I again looked into the eyes of the One who had touched my face, and healed both my body and spirit.
And in the midst of what appeared to be His utter defeat, I saw the glory of ultimate victory, and I was convinced beyond shadow or turning that these events were unfolding just as He purposed.
