John is funny??

I have made no attempt to hide the fact that John's book is my least favorite gospel. But, today, maybe I might change my mind.

"Jesus' trial before Caiaphas ended in the early hours of the morning. Then he was taken to the headquarters of the Roman governor. His accusers didn't go in themselves because it would defile them, and they wouldn't be allowed to celebrate the Passover feast. So Pilate, the governor, went out to them and asked, "What is your charge against this man?"" John 18:28-29

Maybe others might not think this to be a funny quote, but it struck me as ridiculous. Here we have seen a defeated people, the jews, slaves once again in a Roman state, meeting under cover of night to hold a mock trial of another jew (to them). The priests, the only symbols of power in a defeated nation, trying desparately to maintain their tenuous earthly authority, have trumped up charges against a charismatic leader who has threatened to overturn their flimsy power structure. Pious and self-righteous in the extreme, they use their own self-justifying legalistic scriptural interpretation to condemn this man.

Clinging to this self-righteous piety to the end, they then refuse to enter a Roman household for fear that it would defile them to the point that they could not participate in the Passover feast. Brave men, indeed. A defeated nation, depending on the mercy of its oppressors not to kill each and every one of them, refusing to extend that same level of mercy to one of their own tribe, and yet able to cloak that lack of mercy in legalistic arguments used to keep their faith "pure." How ultimately pathetic!

The futile hypocrisy of these "priests" only justified the message of Jesus even greater than he could in his own sermons. By contrast to these laughable clowns, Jesus is magnified.

As I recall, this scene is only played out in the gospel of John. I have underestimated this gospel. Maybe next time, I will be more prepared to read it.