Herod Antipas

Our text in Luke picks up where our last one in John 18:28–38 left off: Pilate was convinced, after his own questioning, that Jesus was innocent, and he told the religious leaders as much. However, these same leaders then objected to Pilate that Jesus “stirs up the people all over Judea by his teaching. He started in Galilee and has come all the way here.” At the head of this current chapter, Luke laid out the specific charges drummed up against Jesus in a way that John had not: “And they began to accuse him, saying, ‘We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Messiah, a king’” (Luke 23:2). Observe once again that what had originally begun as a religious matter, that is, the charge of blasphemy, had now become a political offense, a full-blown crime against the state. In short, Jesus, so it was argued, was challenging the authority of no one less than Caesar. So then, if his enemies were to be believed, Jesus was a traveling crime show, an insurrectionist against the state, making his way from Galilee to Judea and on to Jerusalem itself only to cause trouble. Where would he go next? What would he say? What would he do? He simply must be stopped.

Upon learning that Jesus had a connection with Galilee, Pilate came up with an ingenious plan that would free him from this predicament. He would turn Jesus over to Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, who was also in Jerusalem at the time to celebrate the Passover feast. Exactly what motivated Pilate to do this, beyond an attempt to pass the buck so to speak, is difficult to determine. Perhaps Pilate realized that Herod would be much more acquainted with Jewish affairs and, therefore, the tetrarch would be the obvious choice to make such a difficult judgment. Or perhaps Pilate simply wanted to extend a political courtesy to Herod, especially since their past relationship had been rocky. Who knows? In any event, Herod was delighted to see Jesus since his reputation as a miracle worker had undoubtedly preceded him. And, of course, Herod wanted to see a fabulous sign, something special. Indeed, the emphasis in our text on “seeing”¹ suggests that Herod hoped to witness a genuine spectacle, to see a wonderful show—in other words, to be entertained by Jesus. He would, however, be very disappointed in this. Jesus was no performer.

The encounter between Jesus and Herod Antipas was downright odd, even eerie. Recall that this is the same Herod who had wanted to kill Jesus earlier (13:31) and upon learning of this dark intention, Jesus at the time had referred to the tetrarch as “that fox” (v. 32). Interestingly enough, Luke is the only gospel that records this face-to-face incident between the two men now before us. It can hardly be called a conversation or dialogue, because Jesus said nothing, absolutely nothing. And so here we have this awkward scene in which Herod, who was now driven more by curiosity than murderous intent, plied Jesus with question after question—and the response just never came. Herod’s many questions were met with not a single answer, unless silence itself was the answer.

Herod was the only figure in the Gospels to whom Jesus replied not a word when addressed. But why did Jesus act in this manner? It’s puzzling. Perhaps he was tired of being badgered with question after question. Who wouldn’t be? Maybe Jesus realized that Herod was not actually interested in what he would have to say. Or perhaps Jesus didn’t want to give any credibility to this interrogation since he rejected the charges, and the insinuations associated with them, as simply preposterous. But maybe Jesus was being very intentional, after all, in his silence, thinking of his mission, and of the earlier prophecies that had witnessed to it: “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth” (Isa. 53:7).

When Pilate sent Jesus to Herod, the chief priests and the teachers of the law tagged along, perhaps fearful that Jesus might be acquitted by the tetrarch from all their trumped-up charges. And so, when Jesus wasn’t being pestered by Herod with his round of questions, these religious leaders vehemently accused Jesus, giving evidence of their very strong aversion to him in a display of powerful passions and emotions. Though our text only gives these religious leaders one line, nevertheless, they played an important role in this setting. With their harangue in the form of vehement accusations, they had, in effect, become the prosecutors before judge Herod. But where was the defense attorney for Jesus?

The chief priests and scribes had added to the degradation entailed in this interrogation with their verbal assaults on Jesus such that the accused was by now greatly diminished in the eyes of both Herod and his soldiers. The dynamic that played out in this setting, in this ancient kangaroo court, if you will, is a very familiar one even today. That is, when several people, in a show of strength of numbers, begin to criticize, rebuke, or verbally attack another person, putting them on the spot, then many other people who would have otherwise remained silent in the absence of such an emotionally charged atmosphere now feel free, even entitled, to join in—and they do. That’s exactly what happened here.

Caught up in this emotional frenzy, Herod failed to realize that, in adding his voice to the mocking and ridicule of Jesus by his soldiers, he had actually debased himself. Indeed, a ruler of the people like Herod should have carried himself in such a way that demonstrated both deep wisdom and a steady judgment, attributes that together would have held in place the basic humanity of the accused as well as the dignity of his own office. Instead, Herod took up the contemptuous speech of his soldiers and joined them in their descent, in their sputtering hateful and demeaning speech. Making sport of Jesus (not the show that Herod had originally wanted, but now a parody), they dressed Christ in an elegant robe in the pretense, in the mockery, that they believed Jesus to be someone important, perhaps a king.

For those people, then and now, who are ever swayed by the strength of numbers, for those who can’t get beyond the small world of particular tribes—loud, boisterous, and intimidating at times—and for those who readily take up and participate in charged emotional, social atmospheres, almost like putting on a garment whether it fits or not, Jesus will likely be diminished in their eyes as well. So then, our text, though remarkably brief, is actually packed with much wisdom. Such insight entails distinguishing reality from perception or appearance. That’s a tough lesson to learn, especially in human affairs in which celebrated social forces can play such a distorting, disfiguring role. Though Jesus had indeed been humiliated in the eyes of so many others, people from both high stations in life and in low, such that to them his identity was degraded, he nevertheless remained the very same person that he had always been, marked by both abundant goodness and holy love. Mocking could not change that. Ridicule could not undermine it. Hatred could not destroy it. The actual identity of Jesus, his distinctiveness, endured through all the abuse that was thrown at him, no matter how ill-spirited or angry it was, and in a way that can give us all refreshing and lasting hope: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8).

THE PRAYER