Enduring Your Caiaphas

This morning in the barn I read Mark 14:53-72 about Jesus going before the high priest Caiaphas. When Jesus went before Caiaphas, His hands were likely tied behind His back and He was likely pushed down to His knees, as He was taunted and berated by the Sanhedrin. He was spit in the face, slapped and mocked, enduring gross injustice at the hands of those who should have recognized Him as Messiah, more than anyone else.

We see Jesus enduring extreme testing here. He was betrayed by leaders within His own religious system and He was humiliated by those more ignorant and sinful than He. Jesus was allowed to experience both frustration and helplessness in the face of His circumstances, and He did so with His hands tied behind His back. Oswald Chambers said, “Abraham did not choose what his sacrifice would be….never decide the place of your own martyrdom, as if to say, ‘I will only go to there, but no farther.’ God chose the test for Abraham, and Abraham neither delayed nor protested, but steadily obeyed.” And that is exactly what we see exhibited in the life of our Savior and Master.

To endure your own Caiaphas is to be at the mercy of your ordained circumstances and not fight back. It is to willingly allow your hands to be tied behind your back as your circumstances spit upon you and slap you in the face. It is to want to fight back, to want to take control, to want to escape, but to surrender entirely and endure it instead. It is to trust God implicitly despite your circumstances and have Him on His terms, instead of your own. This morning as I sat on the hay loft steps and tears streamed down my face, I looked up to heaven and prayed, “Thank you for not allowing me to have You on my own terms. I will not ask You to deliver me from my Caiaphas, but I will ask for Your continued grace in the midst of it.”

Beloved, God is not in the business of delivering us from the furnace, but in staying beside us as we endure it. He will lead you by the hand into the fire, He will walk with you in the midst of it, but you must choose whether you trust Him enough to enter. “Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me. Yet not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42).

(Isaiah 43:2) When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you go through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched; the flames will not set you ablaze.

(1 Peter 2:20-23) How is it to your credit if you are beaten for doing wrong and you endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His footsteps: "He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth." When they heaped abuse on Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats, but entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly.

(Daniel 3:20,24,25) ….our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not…we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up…then Nebuchadnezzar..commanded some of the strongest soldiers in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego in order to cast them into the furnace of blazing fire….Suddenly King Nebuchadnezzar jumped up in amazement and asked his advisers, “Did we not throw three men, firmly bound, into the fire?” “Certainly, O king,” they replied. “Look!” he exclaimed. “I see four men, unbound and unharmed, walking around in the fire—and the fourth looks like a son of the gods!”