Christ before the High Priest by Gerrit van Honthorst
A Meditation by Nicola Perry
Gerrit van Honthorst. Christ before the High Priest. Circa 1617, oil on canvas. National Gallery, London.
I remember the first time I was falsely accused of something. I was about twelve years old, school had ended early for the Easter break, and some friends and I had wandered into the nearby town. We were in a newsagent’s and a friend picked up a Cadbury’s Cream Egg to buy. I pulled another one out of my coat pocket that I’d been given that day and said, “Here, you can have mine, I don’t like them.” We loitered around the shop for a few more minutes and soon it became clear that the shopkeeper was following us towards the door. It suddenly dawned on me that he thought I had shoplifted the chocolate. Horrified and embarrassed, I desperately tried to explain myself and he seemed to accept it. We swiftly left the shop but the horrible feeling of shame stayed with me.
Fast forward a few years into my late teens and word gets back to me at school that two friends I’d known since Kindergarten were saying things behind my back. They said I was a “social climber”, deliberately excluding them and always in search of better people to hang out with. I felt a messy concoction of indignation, hurt, and a strong need to defend myself. This time, however, something else threatened to be even more unsettling and pervasive - a fear that maybe what they were saying about me had been true without me realizing it.
As I grew up, the times when I have faced the accusations of others, implicit or explicit, have been rare. Why have these memories stayed with me so vividly then? Because their impact taught me something about the power of accusation. Even in adulthood I have occasionally felt that same involuntary, visceral impulse to defend myself in the face of untruth, or felt insecurity when my character or motivations behind my actions were misjudged. There are still parts of me that fear that what others believe of me is truer than the truth.
In van Honthorst’s work, Jesus has at last come face to face with his accusers - those who would see him fall from grace and condemned to death and also have the power to make it happen. On the table separating the two men is a single candle, placed perfectly in the center, like a weighing scale giving us the clarity to see what is really transpiring. The light of the candle falls predominantly on Jesus’ figure and the seated figure’s (most likely Caiaphas’) finger of accusation. We are meant to feel the impact, the power, of this threatening gesture juxtaposed with the flame. The finger of accusation is higher than the flame. It tries to assert its dominance: “Agree, admit to what you really are and what we know you have done, or…” Yet it cannot compete with the truth, clarity, and intensity of the naked flame, just as Jesus, the light of the world, is a light that the darkness cannot overcome (John 1:5). The finger can only even be seen because of the light the flame gives to it, and the accusers have no power over Him that has not been given to them by His Father (John 19:11).
All the power and drama of this battle is found within the gaze between the two men. Jesus’ posture is absolute stillness, yet His eyes are locked with Caiaphas’ eyes and show us He will not back down. He does not deflect, deny, cringe, or retaliate. He allows the hateful words to wash over Him, He absorbs them without agreeing with them, becoming them, or rejecting them. His silent dignity, taken to its fullest expression in His carrying of His cross, we know to be the dignity of One who knows fully who He is. This is what gives Him the strength to face false accusations without needing to defend or sending Him into a spiral of self-doubt. He knows that if His Father has brought Him to this place and is allowing this to happen, then this is what needs to happen. And so the words of the accusers cannot penetrate His heart.
These days, like me, you are probably not accustomed to hearing the false accusations of others like you might have experienced in the social animal kingdom that is high school. But I bet that, like me, you face accusations in the sound of your own inner voice multiple times a week, if not daily. As mature Christians, we should be seriously reflecting on what our stance is in the face of these accusations. Are we able to face them like Jesus, in stillness and rootedness in our identity as sons and daughters of the King? Or do we cower, troubled to even hear them. Do we full-sail agree with them without even considering their source? Do these voices sound like the kindly convicting voice of the Holy Spirit working through our consciences? Are we able to sift the truth from the lies? Are we so accustomed to hearing the same old accusations that we don’t even question whether we have agreed to stories about ourselves that are fundamentally untrue?
As the Rumsfeld matrix famously points out, there are things we don’t know we don’t know. We all instinctively know that this is true about our own self-knowledge, and the accusations and judgments of others tap into our insecurity about how well we really know ourselves. These have the potential to either reveal genuine blind spots in a way that can be constructive, or throw our sense of self off-kilter if they do not align with the truth. Yet there are no gaps in Jesus’ self-knowledge, nor His knowledge of our true and false selves. As we fix our eyes contemplatively on van Honthorst’s great work, let us not be afraid to meditate on Jesus’ meeting his accusers here, as He will show us how to meet our own accusations with His own perfect knowledge of who we really are.