9 But Festus, wishing to do the Jews a favor, answered Paul and said, “Are you willing to go up to Jerusalem and stand trial before me on these charges?” 10 But Paul said, “I am standing before Caesar’s tribunal, where I ought to be tried. I have done no wrong to the Jews, as you also very well know. 11 “If, then, I am a wrongdoer and have committed anything worthy of death, I do not refuse to die; but if none of those things is true of which these men accuse me, no one can hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar.” 12 Then when Festus had conferred with his council, he answered, “You have appealed to Caesar, to Caesar you shall go.” Acts 25:9–12
If there ever was a “political football,” Paul was it, tossed from one man to the next. But there was no trophy to be won, just possession of his severed head. First Felix, now Festus was grappling with the bloodthirsty Jews, who wanted Paul to stand trial on their own turf in Jerusalem, but he would not give them the satisfaction, angling to stand trial on the trumped up charges before Caesar rather than them.
Imagine choosing the likes of Nero over the chief priest and scribes! But at the time the Emperor had not yet gone off the deep end. In Paul’s mind, nothing good would come from a change in venue back to Jerusalem. For Festus, all the conditions were ripe (in Latin they were extra ordinem, or in our words, “extraordinary”) to send him on to Rome, to get him out of his hair, and perhaps to placate the Jews at the same time.
Isn’t the gospel message extraordinary in and of itself, in its straightforward simplicity? When King Agrippa and his sister Bernice arrived in Caesarea to visit Festus on the heels of Paul’s appeal, the governor relayed to them the problem at hand as he saw it, that of the man Paul, with whom the Jews “simply had some points of disagreement with him about their own religion and about a dead man, Jesus, whom Paul asserted to be alive.” (Acts 25:19)
At the heart of our religion is the resurrection of Jesus. With Paul, standing fast for this reality was worthy of his own death, if necessary, for his own resurrection immediately thereafter was for certain, as it is for all believers, for that matter. It is the hope of our salvation.
But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thessalonians 4:8-9
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