When Religion Becomes About Control: What Jesus's Trial Actually Reveals

We are in Holy Week, the period between Jesus' entry into Jerusalem and his Resurrection. In each of the four biographies of Jesus' life, the authors spend more time on this single week than on any other period. It is a big deal. One part of this story, often overlooked, is the trial of Jesus. After his arrest in the Garden, he is paraded from one leader to another. But here is something that gets completely lost when we tell this story. All of it happened in the middle of the night.

We often picture this big dramatic scene, right? Daytime. Crowds. Thousands of people screaming "crucify him" in some grand public square. We've seen the movies. But that's not what the text says. Jesus gets arrested somewhere around midnight. And from that moment, he gets shuffled between Caiaphas, Annas, Herod, and Pilate in this frantic back-and-forth that lasts maybe nine or ten hours. All of it under the cover of dark. All of it moving fast. All of it feeling, when you read it, like something that was never supposed to be seen.

And I think that's actually the point.

Because the people running this thing weren't operating out of some calm, settled theology. They were panicking. They had a window. A limited window. The sun was going to come up, the city was going to wake up, and the same crowd that had just rolled out the palm branches and shouted hosanna as Jesus came into Jerusalem was going to be in the streets. And once that happened, it was over. They couldn't touch him. So they moved fast, in the dark, before anyone could notice. Before anyone could ask questions.

And when I read it that way, I start to ask a different question than maybe I was taught to ask.

Now look, I understand the theological framework. I get that there's a conversation to be had about what Jesus's death means and why it had to happen. I'm not dismissing that. But I think we do ourselves a real disservice when that's the only lens we look through, because when you do that, the religious leaders just become props in someone else's story. Instruments of a plan. And you stop asking the more uncomfortable question, which is: why did they actually want him dead?

So just stay with me here for a second. Set the theology aside. Just look at what's happening on the ground.

What you've got in the Pharisees and the Sadducees, are people who had it figured out. And I don't mean that in a dismissive way. These weren't cartoonish villains. These were people who were, in their own minds, being faithful. They were holding on to something that had been handed to them across generations. They had a system. They had answers. They knew how to lead people, how to interpret the scriptures, how to maintain order in a world that was already under the boot of the Roman Empire. They had built something that worked. And it was theirs.

And then Jesus shows up. And he starts asking questions their system wasn't built to handle. He says things like, maybe you've misread the scriptures. Maybe Moses said that because of your hard hearts, not because it's the final word. He eats with the wrong people. He heals on the wrong days. He keeps talking about this kingdom of God that doesn't look like any kingdom anyone has ever seen. And everywhere he goes, people follow him.

That's not just a theological disagreement. That's a threat. To the system. To the power. To the whole arrangement that kept certain people at the center of things.

So they moved to eliminate it. Quietly. Quickly. Before the city woke up.

And here's where it gets really interesting to me. Because when Jesus finally ends up in front of Pilate, the one guy in the room who actually has the authority to do anything, Pilate asks him point blank: are you the king of the Jews?

And Jesus says something that I think people quote all the time without really hearing it. He says, my kingdom is not from this world.

Now we tend to spiritualize that immediately, right? We hear "not from this world" and we think he's talking about heaven, about some faraway place, about the afterlife. But that's not what he's saying. He's talking about kingdoms. He's talking about how power works. The Roman Empire brought peace to the world by conquering it. By force. By domination. By making it very clear that if you stood in the way, you would be destroyed. That's how kingdoms of this world operate. That's the only playbook they know.

And Jesus looks at Pilate and says, mine doesn't work like that. If it did, my people would be fighting right now. There would be a revolt. That's what you'd expect. That's what kingdoms do. But that's not what this is.

And if you're familiar with the story, you know that just a few hours earlier, back in the garden when the soldiers came to arrest Jesus, it was Peter who pulled out a sword and started swinging. Trying to protect Jesus the way you protect a king. The way empires protect themselves. And Jesus tells him to put it away.

God's kingdom does not advance by the methods of the kingdoms of this world.

I think that's one of the most important moments in the whole story. And I think we skip past it way too fast.

Because here's the thing that I keep coming back to. The people who handed Jesus over to be killed weren't outsiders. They weren't atheists. They weren't enemies of God in any obvious sense. They were the most religiously devoted people in the room. They knew the scriptures. They kept the traditions. They built their whole lives around being faithful. And they still couldn't hear what Jesus was saying, because hearing it would have cost them something. It would have required them to loosen their grip. To sit across from someone who was disrupting everything they'd built and actually listen without feeling threatened.

And they just couldn't do it.

So Jesus gets crucified. The system wins, for a weekend. And the people who had just celebrated him riding into Jerusalem wake up that morning to find out it's over. Done. Before they even knew it was happening. And I think about those two disciples on the road to Emmaus, walking home, and they say, we thought he was the one. We thought this was finally it. And now he's gone.

That's what happens when you expect God to work the way every other empire works. You miss it entirely.

So the question I want to leave you with, especially heading into Easter, isn't just the theological one. It's not just what do you believe about the resurrection. It's this: does the way you're living actually look like someone who believes the kingdom works differently? Can you sit across from someone you disagree with, someone who's disrupting your system a little, and actually listen without reaching for a sword?

Because Jesus said put it away. There's another way. And I think we're still figuring out what that means.