But they, holding Jesus, led Him to Caiaphas the high priest, and all the priests and the scribes and the ancients were assembled together. And the chief priests and the whole council sought false witness for evidence against Jesus, that they might put Him to death. For though many false witnesses had come in, and bore false witness against Him, their evidence did not agree. And last of all there came in two false witnesses. They, rising up, bore false witness against Him, saying: "We heard Him say, I will destroy this Temple of God made with hands, and within three days I will build another not made with hands." And their witness did not agree. - Matthew 26:59-61; Mark 14:55-59
1. The court of Annas was no proper court; it had no authority whatsoever; it was only something that had grown up round a man of strong will, stronger than his relatives whom he had brought into office, to whom the people had learnt to pay deference as to a leader. Hence by it Our Lord had refused to be judged; He had defied it, and had been rewarded by the blow. But the court of Caiaphas was lawful, even though unjust; and at once we find Our Lord treating it with deference. When it was merely brutal and false, He treated it with silence; when the lawful authority asked a lawful question, He gave it a complete answer, be the consequences what they might. As He had said on a former occasion, so He Himself did now: "Whatsoever they command you, observe and do; but according to their works do ye not."
2. The witnesses against Him were many. There will always be found in this world (1) those who will put the right in the wrong; (2) those who will give evidence that will flatter the powers that be. Everyone of us knows what it is to be misunderstood by even one; some of us may know what it is to be deliberately maligned by one, or perhaps two; but how many of us have been so maltreated as to have had many against us, who have, one and all, deliberately borne false witness, whose word has been preferred to ours, though they have clearly lied, and though they have clearly contradicted themselves and one another? Many of us have had our words misquoted against us; some have had them deliberately twisted; but how many have had our mere figures of speech turned into explicit statements, and by an addition of a word here, and a subtraction of a word there, have been convicted out of our own mouths?
3. Yet this and worse is the practice played upon Our Lord. They go back to His earliest days of preaching. They pick out His greatest prophecy. They give it their own interpretation. That interpretation is too absurd even for the Council to accept it. All the time He answered nothing. He might easily have reminded them, had He wished, of His exact words and their meaning. He might have shown them that they were themselves their own accusers; that they had understood perfectly well what He had meant, from the changes they had made in His words. Later, when He was dead and buried, they showed that they had understood from their appeal to Pilate: "This man said while He was yet alive, After three days I will rise again." But He said nothing. He would not argue with such men. To suffer at their hands was no disgrace; it is never a disgrace to suffer at such hands.
Summary
1. Our Lord evaded the question of Annas; in the court of Caiaphas and Pilate He submitted.
2. The evidence against Him was such as is always against the truth, but more intense.
3. It did but prove the greater guilt of His accusers; hence He had no need to speak.
- from The Crown of Sorrow, by Archbishop Alban Goodier