telling the story ~ court of kangaroos
Composition version: yes.
lyrics
in the secrets of the night
meets a court of kangaroos
cooking up a charge to write
passing judgment on the Truth
(tell me your secrets
your dirty little secrets)
and comes the light of day
a pagan defender
and a Jewish pretender
can't find a thing to say
but hear the mob's demand
you're no friend of Caesar
if you release him -
you cannot wash your hands
speaking nothing in defense
it's an uncontested fate
and as cruel death impends
like a sheep he stands and waits
so will you go silently
please don't you tell me
you'll go without a fight
please don't go silently
into this evil night
into this evil night...
narrative
The trial of Jesus was a rush job. The leading officials wanted to make their judgment early enough that Jesus could be turned over to the governor and condemned to death early the next day.
Why? Apparently, because they saw being involved in a Roman trial as something that would render them ritually unclean and therefore ineligible to eat the Passover meal. If done early enough, they could have time to go through the appropriate rituals and eat the festival meal.
So they held their own trial in the middle of the night. The charge? Blasphemy. It boiled down to the implicit suggestions, that Jesus had made on numerous occasions, that He truly was the Son of God - in a sense that other human beings were not. (Of course, if Jesus really was the Son of God, then not He, but His accusers, were the blasphemers.) Under the Mosaic law, blasphemy deserved the death penalty; securing a conviction on that charge would satisfy their own leadership, although not the Roman governor, who would need something else to condemn Jesus on.
For His part, Jesus made no effort to defend Himself. If there were well-wishers close by, they must have been frustrated by His approach. It was like He was committing Himself to die, with no resistance!
The trials were actually messy affairs. The condemnation of Jesus was really a "political" issue (in a broad sense) more than a legal one. The Jewish officials themselves had some difficulty getting sufficient witness to condemn Jesus; it was quite another matter when they took Him to the Roman governor, Pilate. Pilate wasn't about to execute a man for blasphemy; on the other hand, his own position in Palestine was rather tenuous, largely due to unwise moves he had made in the past. He could not afford to alienate the indigenous leadership.
Pilate thought he had a way around the problem: when he discovered that Jesus was from Galilee, he shipped Him off to be examined by King Herod, who was in charge of Jesus' native territory but was present in Jerusalem for Passover. It was a shrewd political move, not only because of the Jewish council who had brought Jesus to him, but also because it was a way to repair damaged relations with Herod himself.
But it didn't work. After Herod discovered that Jesus was not interested in performing miracles on demand for him, he ended up sending Jesus back to the governor. The ball was back in Pilate's court.
Pilate examined Jesus and came up empty. He seems to have known that this trial was about envy. At any rate, he told Jesus' accusers that he found no fault in the defendant. He even tried another way out by suggesting that he release Jesus on a special Passover dispensation (a practice where a prisoner was set free, just as Israel had been set free from Egypt). But no dice: they demanded someone else.
Pilate's unstable situation, combined with a mediocre sense of justice, ultimately led him to do as the accusers wished. When they framed the accusation in terms of treason - Jesus is a "king," but they recognize no king but Caesar - he made the decision: an innocent man would die.
Ironically, the man Pilate released to them was Barabbas - convicted of. . . sedition. On the level Jesus' accusers had placed the issue, the real threat to Caesar walked free, while the King with bigger battles went to the whipping post, and then to the cross.