Playing Games by Dudley Hall

So the band of soldiers and their captain and the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound him.  First they led him to Annas for he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year. It was Caiaphas who had advised the Jews that it would be expedient that one man should die for the people. John 18:12-14 (ESV)
     

It is comical to watch the powers of the world trying to control and manipulate the order of God. They actually think they are fully in charge and can rule over everything. They have no awareness that there is a power greater than any earthly source who is guiding everything to a glorious end.
 

The Psalmist knew this comedy:
Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together,
Against the Lord and against his Anointed...
He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying,
"As for me, I have sit my King on Zion, my holy hill." Psalm 2:1-1, 4-6 (ESV)
 

The two "high priests" of the day who were supposed to be representing God's kingdom on earth were trying the real High Priest for treason. But they had compromised their own hearts by aligning with the political powers of Judaism and of Rome. Those responsible for transmitting truth from God to man could not even recognize truth when he stood before them in the flesh.
 

And the soldiers - they could not have known how ridiculous they looked using swords and spears against the King of the universe. He could have evaporated them with a glance. They were feeling their oats, so to speak, as they pushed him around and mocked him. Like mice in an endless maze they thought they were ruling their prison, but were only carrying out the eternal plan God had put into place before the world was created.
 

Jesus said that his kingdom is not from this world. It operates in the world but does not get its source from it. Those who can't hear the sound of his kingdom can't recognize its presence. Those who can hear can join in the chorus of praise for the Lamb who was slain and then roared as a lion over all his foes. No matter what the "powers that be" are doing, they don't have the last word. That word has been spoken in the person of Jesus who rules over all. While some are terrified over the circumstances, the heavenly perspective shows that all those who reject the King are just playing games.