First Century Mafia

Luke 3:2

It's a dark night in the land as Jesus comes to begin His public ministry, and the first century mafia is in control. John comes some 6 months before Jesus to announce that He's coming and to get the people ready.  But, you know, the darkest night is usually right before the dawn and in order that we might see the brightness of the light of Jesus, the backdrop of darkness needs to be carefully understood.

Israel has no true king.  Oh they have lots of petty kings, lots of tetrarchs. [v. 1]  They are small-time and not from the loins of David.  Israel has no unity as a nation, it is fragmented, it is split up into four parts, one ruled by Pontius Pilate, one by Herod, one by Philip and one by Lysanias.  And all of that is under the power of Tiberius Caesar, who has really unilateral power to do whatever he wants to do across the great Roman Empire.

There is no true religion.  The high priests, Annas and Caiaphas, are corrupt.  The priesthood is divided into fragments.  There are legalistic, hypocritical priests called Pharisees and there are liberal priests called Sadducees. There is no real spiritual leadership and there's very little hope for change.  It's been a long time with no prophet, no word from God, and no Messiah, and that's the backdrop.

They were occupied.  They were oppressed.  They were in bondage to the most powerful, most perverse and most petty of Gentile idolaters.  This is a hard time.  None of the promises for which they had waited so long even look possible.

As if that's not bad enough, we come to verse 2 and meet the high priests. Now there was only supposed to be one high priest…just one.  But now we have the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas.  This is not according to the pattern that God had originally established where there would be one high priest and that high priest would have come through the Levitical line. That is, he would be one out of the tribe of Levi who inherited the right to be a priest and was then chosen to be high priest.  But during Roman times the Levitical line was ignored.  During Roman times the Romans appointed the priests, and the high priests.  So that meant that you became high priest by somehow currying the favor of Rome. It is said by historians that the office of high priest was often bought with money, or granted as some kind of political favor.

Now in some ways Annas, who is mentioned first here, who is the older of the two, had a death grip on the high priesthood.  Now get this: Caesar was the most powerful figure in the world.  The four rulers of the segmented land of Palestine had a certain amount of power in the area they were in, delegated to them by Caesar.  But the real power over the Jewish people was not Gentile power. That was only the threat of power. That was only the terrible invasion of idolatry and a certain kind of mental bondage.  The real power exerted over the people of Israel on a day-to-day basis was exerted by the most powerful man in their recognized structure, and that would be the high priest.  He was the real power because he represented God. 

So, whoever was in that place really had the day-to-day power.  Sure, the Romans exacted taxes - which the Jewish people hated.  The Romans hired Jews, would be considered as traitors and outcasts, to operate Roman tax franchises for a price.  [Matthew/Zacchaeus/the Publican] They literally sold themselves to Rome to extort money from their people for an oppressing occupying nation.  They were the worst of the worst among the Jewish people. 

And so the Romans did bring some terrible things to bear on the Jewish people, but nothing as bad as the priests because of the power that was inherent in that position.  Now Annas had a death grip on the high priesthood.  He was high priest from the year 7 to 14 A.D.  During the silent years, the private years of John and Jesus, during those thirty years when Jesus was living in Nazareth and John was out in the wilderness. But he was succeeded in the priesthood by five sons and one son-in-law.  That son-in-law is Caiaphas.

So, as I said, he had a death grip on the priesthood by virtue of the fact that behind the scenes he controlled everything.  It was all really Annas. That's why he's constantly identified as the high priest.  When you go to John 18 and they go and arrest Jesus, they say, "We've got to take Him to Annas first."  It says, "Caiaphas was the high priest that year, but they took Him to Annas first."  He was the real power behind the priesthood.  And the priesthood was not just a position of spiritual leadership, it was a crime family.  It was the Jerusalem mafia. [“never go against the family!”] And the mafioso boss was Annas.  He still had the power.  He probably maintained the title all his life.  It would be like how a former American President will always be referred to as President Bush, Clinton, Hussein, or whatever.  Till they die they always bear the title.  Apparently the high priest would always bear the title of respect because, after all, there was no higher ranking in the land than that. But the fact of the matter is it wasn't just a designation with Annas. He was pulling all the strings and everyone knew he was really the one in charge.

The basic operation of the high priesthood was conducted in the temple and it was tremendously lucrative.  Annas and fam managed to turn the high priesthood into an incredibly profitable business. 

Now, in the execution of Christ, it really came down to Annas and Caiaphas. They drove the plot. They were the ones who cornered Pontius Pilate and put him in a position where in blackmail he felt he had to authorize the execution of Jesus.  And the reason they hated Jesus had less to do with His theology and mostly to do with the fact that Jesus interrupted temple business, and turned hearts away from them.

When Jesus first showed up on the scene, He went to the temple and He made a whip and he cleaned out the place.  You remember that?  And then at the end of His ministry, He did it again.  This did not make them happy.  If you want to carry the analogy a little bit, what happened at the cross was they finally found a hit man to execute the guy who was intruding into their operation. And Pilate was the hit man.

Now the business went something like this.  When people came to the temple, they needed to do two things.  They needed to give offerings and they needed to give sacrifices.  The offerings were a temple tax which was a certain amount that everybody paid.  They were charged about twenty-three percent of their income every year.  They were putting it into thirteen trumpet-shaped receptacles around the wall of the Court of the Women in the outer court, and they came and they gave their offerings.  Some of the Pharisees, you remember, when they came to make their offering, they got a guy to blow a trumpet so everybody would watch them do it so they could parade their spirituality.

On every Roman coin was whose picture?  Caesar’s.  Matthew 22, Jesus pulls out a coin. He says to the people, "Whose picture is on this?"  And they say Caesar's. 

So, they would not allow anybody to deposit any Roman coins in any of the receptacles in the temple.  You had to deposit the Jewish coin and so you had to get your coins changed and you could only get them changed from a temple licensed coin changer.  So Annas can now charge whatever he wants to charge for that enterprise.  This was exorbitant, this was larceny, this was robbery.  That's what they were doing.  The people had absolutely no choice.  This is a monopoly.

Whose tables did Jesus throw over?  Those of the money changer’s. Because they had taken the house of prayer and turned it into a den of thieves. They were just stealing the people blind.

Now the other thing that a Jewish person had to do when they came to a ceremony or a festival at the temple was bring a sacrifice.  Now there was a standard for that sacrifice; it needed to be a ‘without blemish’ sacrifice.  So who's going to determine that?  What's a blemish?

You bring your best lamb.  The guy in the temple says, "Ah, sorry, it doesn't pass inspection.  See this little deal over here, no, that's a blemish.  You're going to have to buy one of ours.  Ours are pre-certified with a 15 point inspection, bumper to bumper."

You know, pretty soon you're not going to drag your animals down from Galilee anymore. We’ll just buy a lamb when we arrive.

So, they were just making a fortune and the high priest and his family were cleaning up.  And Annas was behind this.  He was the big boss.  And he was running this entire system through his family. 

These two men were the real power over the people and they were as wretched as can be.  They weren't any better than the pagans. 

So, all these names are filled with meaning.  And as the story unfolds, they will play amazing parts in the drama that Luke records.  It's a sordid world into which John steps.  And Jesus will enter soon behind him.  Nepotism and manipulation and degeneracy are the words that come to mind.

Shifting gears: Elizabeth and Mary were relatives, right?  So John and Jesus were cousins.  And John knew who Jesus was, and that He was in Nazareth. And they did their preparations, separately for 30 years. So the patience of these men as they awaited for this moment is remarkable. One is in the wilderness and other is in obscurity in a carpenter’s shop.

1 Corinthians 1:26-27

²⁶ For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: ²⁷ But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;

God delights in choosing the humble and the lowly. 

This is the darkest of times.  And it's under the pale of that darkness that the light breaks, that hope is realized, and the Messiah comes to offer salvation.

Now, the sad reality is that they killed both men. The politicians killed John and the religionists killed Jesus.  But in the death of Jesus came the salvation of the world!