And as soon as it was day, straightway all the chief priests and ancients of the people and scribes came together and held a council against Jesus to put Him to death. And they brought Him into their council, saying: If Thou be the Christ, tell us. And He said to them: If I shall tell you, you will not believe Me; and if I shall also ask you, you will not answer Me nor let Me go. But hereafter the Son of Man shall be sitting on the right hand of the power of God. Then said they all: Art Thou, then, the Son of God? And He said: You say that I am. Then they said: What need we any further testimony? For we ourselves have heard it from His own mouth. And the whole multitude of them rose up, and led Him away bound, and delivered Him to Pontius Pilate the Governor. - Matthew 17:1,2; Mark 15:1; Luke 22:66-71, 23:1
1. Our Lord's last night on earth is spent in prison. That fact has been the ground of endless meditation for all Christianity above all, for those whose devotion clings about the Prisoner of Love in the Blessed Sacrament. What a lonely night! What a contrast to the quiet nights at Nazareth, or on the hillside with His Father, or even those nights in His preaching life when He had nowhere to lay His head, but depended on the charity of others! It is easier now to "watch one hour with Him" than in the Garden; now there is something that fascinates, and stirs compassion and love, in the lonely Prisoner.
2. And now the Jews can scarcely wait till daybreak; one wonders that they left Him at all. They assemble first among themselves to make sure of some safe course of action. Then comes the third trial. This time they will have no preliminaries. They have had enough of the false witnesses. They have found Him willing and foolish enough to play into their hands of His own accord. So they will begin there: "If Thou be the Christ, tell us." He had told them the night before. But this time He is not so easy to control. He begins with a rebuke, to which there is no answer but brute force; that rebuke which the persecutor must always meet with cruelty. "If I say yes, I shall not be believed. If I prove, you will not meet My proofs. What ever I do or say, you will condemn Me." Then, again with that strength which dominates the whole story of the Passion, He speaks the plain truth; first, enough to give them an escape if they will, but secondly, when they have explicitly rejected the grace, a clear statement of His divinity.
3. The condemnation follows. They do not pass the sentence in so many words; they are too cowardly for that. They just assume His guilt among themselves. "What need we more?" And before they have given them selves an answer they are already on their way through the streets. Is there anything more bitter to endure, by those who are in the right, than to be assumed guilty with out trial? If on trial, to have all they say assumed to tell against them; whichever way they turn, to whatever they appeal, having all taken as proof of guilt, and all the time to be aware that the enemy more than suspects their innocence? Is not this the galling element of all persecution of the Church, particularly since the Reformation? Her error cannot be proved, because she is not in error; therefore either it must be assumed, or her truthful words must be so twisted till they become error.
Summary
1. The night with Our Lord in prison.
2. The last trial in the Jewish court.
3. The condemnation: "Not proven, but guilty."
- from The Crown of Sorrow, by Archbishop Alban Goodier