The Unfair Trial of Jesus

Throughout the scriptures we find instances of righteous people facing spurious charges, the most detailed of course being the trial of Christ. Another example is Abinadi - after a ridiculous trial, the king pronounced the following verdict, punishable by death: "For thou hast said that God himself should come down among the children of men." Here's the kicker. You'd think that if this was the real reason why Abinadi was on trial, then the king might release him if he signed some contract to never preach such things again, right? Get this, the king's next words: "and now, for this cause thou shalt be put to death unless thou wilt recall all the words which thou hast spoken evil concerning me and my people." (Mosiah 17:8) Ah, and thus we see that the king was a bit irked by Abinadi's words against him, not about God coming down.
Christ's trial is similar - the Jewish leaders' positions were threatened by this revolutionary character, so they made up a reason to kill him. They bond Jesus and took him to the high priest. In attempting to find an accusation worthy of death, they threw out things like "Oh, um, he said he'd, like, destroy the temple in 3 days." but none of their testimonies agreed. Finally the high priest, who was on their side anyway, got fed up and just asked Jesus: "Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" A loaded question, but Christ knew his time had come, so he answered: "I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." Now the high priest had a witness, however false it was.
"What need we any further witnesses?" exclaimed the high priest, "Ye have heard the blasphemy: what think ye?" So on this wise was Christ crucified.
Now this is interesting: I came across a humorous IM conversation of two law students about whether or not Jesus should be held accountable for Judas' suicide. When I first read it I found it quite entertaining, but I got thinking about it and I realized that if that accusation were to play out into a full-blown trial, how identical it would be to the unfair trial that Jesus endured before his death. As spurious as can be, but twisted so as to present it as valid and even just. That's the world we live in - Your legal status as innocent or guilty, regardless of what really happened, depends on how much money you have and your lawyer.

Click here to read IM conversation

11:30:24 PM: Would Jesus be civilly liable for the wrongful death of Judas?
11:31:07 PM: lol
11:31:28 PM: Think about it.
11:31:38 PM: do you mean that the other way around?
11:31:41 PM: Jesus assumed responsibility for the disciples.
11:31:44 PM: NO.
11:31:46 PM: no
11:31:59 PM: He knew that Judas would betray him and then kill himself.
11:32:18 PM: His failure to stop Judas’s betrayal was a direct cause of Judas suicide.
11:32:23 PM: hahahaha
11:32:25 PM: ok
11:32:33 PM: I’m just wondering.
11:33:12 PM: I bet it would be get past a frivolous lawsuit test.
11:33:57 PM: jesus is already dead at that point
11:34:03 PM: so you would have to sue his estate
11:34:06 PM: True.
11:34:10 PM: So…Dan Brown?
11:34:16 PM: haha
11:34:30 PM: He’s got deep pockets.
11:34:42 PM: true
11:35:27 PM: Although D– helped me get over the process of service issue.
11:35:39 PM: haha
11:35:51 PM: for serving jesus?
11:36:05 PM: As he supposedly hears our prayers, and according to the Nicean Creed he’s everywhere and nowhere at the same time, we figure he’s probably in the jurisdiction so all we have to do is service of prayer.
11:36:49 PM: service has to be in paper form, though
11:37:20 PM: Doesn’t the Church have little boxes you can submit stuff to that you want prayed for?
11:37:28 PM: some do
11:37:37 PM: There you go.
11:38:00 PM: maybe you could serve the pope
11:38:19 PM: Isn’t he supposed to be Jesus’s designated representative?
11:39:06 PM: And all of the lower level dioceses are the pope’s representatives, so you really would just need to serve the church in the proper jurisdiction.
11:40:24 PM: true, like the designated agent for service of process of a corporation
11:40:30 PM: jesus does business
11:40:35 PM: in california
11:40:39 PM: Yep.
11:40:43 PM: serve his agent in california
11:40:47 PM: Exactly.
11:40:49 PM: lol.
11:40:52 PM: Now I want to try it.
11:40:54 PM: lol
11:40:56 PM: haha
11:41:02 PM: see who shows up to the hearing
11:41:09 PM: rofl.
11:41:22 PM: I think I’d have a problem of standing, though.
11:41:40 PM: what is the harm you would be suing over?
11:41:49 PM: Yeah, exactly.
11:41:58 PM: If I could show some relation to Judas, maybe.
11:42:08 PM: ah, that still
11:42:41 PM: Yeah, that part’s going to take some thought.
11:42:59 PM: might be moot
11:43:31 PM: Yeah.
11:43:46 PM: Hmm, what would make the controversy live?
11:46:23 PM: I dunno
11:47:00 PM: What about this? We sue for a loss of consortium with Judas bloodline.
11:47:05 PM: Judas’
11:47:20 PM: Because he killed himself we were deprived of generations of little Judases.
11:49:54 PM: hmm
11:50:10 PM: but would have to prove some sort of a connection still
11:50:20 PM: that we would have known them or something
11:50:32 PM: True.
11:50:48 PM: Well, according to my step-grandmother we’re descended from the bloodline of Jesus.
11:50:58 PM: So as good Jewish folk, we probably would have grown up together.
11:51:06 PM: Played together as kids.
11:51:20 PM: Gotten bar mitzvahed together.
11:51:25 PM: Etc.
11:51:27 PM: hahaha
11:51:55 PM: But that didn’t happen because Jesus failed to fulfill his duty to protect his disciple.
11:52:07 PM: As a result I’m not Jewish, and I never got to know poor Itzhak.

(thanks to thesiegeperilous for a great post)