Caiaphas’ House

We had another unbelievable day touring the holy land. We saw the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem; Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified; and we saw the garden tomb. But, I think the highlight of my day was Caiaphas’ house.

Caiaphas was the high priest at the time that Jesus was crucified. He was the religious leader of the nation. When Jesus was arrested in the garden they took him to Caiaphas’ house. It was there that Peter denied knowing Jesus three times. This is one of the only definitively authentic sites here in Jerusalem.

Being the high priest, Caiaphas had the task of punishing all those who were found breaking the Jewish religious law. There was a prison in the lower floors of his home that would be used, at times very violently, for that purpose. Torture took place here on a regular basis.

Because of his crime, Jesus was believed to be taken to the prison there, and thrown into a deep pit for holding till his case was heard. That pit was away from all the other prisoners, and would have been very dark. Today I stood in that pit, in the very room where the suffering of my Lord began.

While there, we read Psalm 88 together, which gives a glimpse of what Jesus must have felt like in the pit. It says,

¹ LORD, you are the God who saves me;
day and night I cry out to you.
² May my prayer come before you;
turn your ear to my cry.

³ I am overwhelmed with troubles
and my life draws near to death.
⁴ I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
I am like one without strength.
⁵ I am set apart with the dead,
like the slain who lie in the grave,
whom you remember no more,
who are cut off from your care.

⁶ You have put me in the lowest pit,
in the darkest depths.
⁷ Your wrath lies heavily on me;
you have overwhelmed me with all your waves.
⁸ You have taken from me my closest friends
and have made me repulsive to them.
I am confined and cannot escape;
⁹ my eyes are dim with grief.

I call to you, LORD, every day;
I spread out my hands to you.
¹⁰ Do you show your wonders to the dead?
Do their spirits rise up and praise you?
¹¹ Is your love declared in the grave,
your faithfulness in Destruction?
¹² Are your wonders known in the place of darkness,
or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?

¹³ But I cry to you for help, LORD;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
¹⁴ Why, LORD, do you reject me
and hide your face from me?

¹⁵ From my youth I have suffered and been close to death;
I have borne your terrors and am in despair.
¹⁶ Your wrath has swept over me;
your terrors have destroyed me.
¹⁷ All day long they surround me like a flood;
they have completely engulfed me.
¹⁸ You have taken from me friend and neighbor—
darkness is my closest friend.

We know about the beatings that followed, but I had never thought about Jesus’ incarceration between the garden prayer, and the beginning of his 6 illegal trials. Jesus suffering began with him being separated from his friends, and imprisoned in total blackness. All he could focus on was the punishment that was soon to come.

I wish you could be here to see the things we are seeing. What a moving experience.

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