Jesus, the Threat - John 11:45-57

John 11:45-57

©May 9th, 2021 by Rev. Rick Goettsche SERIES: John

People do strange things when they are scared. When I was in college, my roommate decided it would be funny to jump out at me as I came around a corner. My response in that moment was to grab him by the shirt and toss him over my hip. As he was laying on the ground behind me he asked, “What’d you do that for?” I said, “I could ask you the same question!” On the flip side, when I encounter a snake, I tend to have a very different reaction—often jumping back and giving this tiny little creature a wide berth, regardless of whether it seems dangerous or not.

Sometimes people do worse things when they are scared. As a country, we have sometimes acted rashly out of fear. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japan, the United States rounded up Americans of Japanese descent and put them in internment camps, to ensure they couldn’t hurt the United States from within. After the 9/11 bombings, we as a country were willing to permit almost any action, including war, torture, invasive surveillance, etc., to try to keep such things from happening again. We manage to justify all sorts of behaviors in order to preserve that which we deem most important to us. When it comes to protecting our way of life, we tend to be willing to do most anything—often to our detriment.

Things in Jesus’ day were no different. Rome had conquered Israel and tended to rule with an iron fist. The Romans allowed conquered nations to exercise some level of autonomy as long as they didn’t cause problems. Israel still had many of their own leaders, but those leaders could only maintain their positions of power if they stayed in Rome’s good graces. To these leaders, Jesus was a threat to this delicate balance. They were afraid he would cause problems. And as we’ve seen, people do strange things when they’re afraid.

The Fallout from Lazarus

We turn our attention today to the end of John 11. Last week we looked at the first part of the chapter, which tells the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead. To recap, Lazarus fell ill and his sisters sent for Jesus. Jesus, however, chose to delay. Lazarus died, and by the time Jesus arrived, he had been dead for 4 days, which in Jewish minds meant that the soul had left the body. Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb, and he came! Jesus brought Lazarus back from the dead!

Jesus did many extraordinary miracles throughout his ministry, but bringing someone back to life after they had been dead for 4 days was amazing by anyone’s standards. Needless to say, Jesus’ actions created quite a stir. But not everyone was happy with what Jesus had done. Jesus’ amazing actions also made him a threat in the eyes of the religious leaders. Here’s how John records what happened,

45 Many of the people who were with Mary believed in Jesus when they saw this happen. 46 But some went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47 Then the leading priests and Pharisees called the high council together. “What are we going to do?” they asked each other. “This man certainly performs many miraculous signs. 48 If we allow him to go on like this, soon everyone will believe in him. Then the Roman army will come and destroy both our Temple and our nation.” (John 11:45-48, NLT)

Some of the people who saw Jesus raise Lazarus went and told the Pharisees what Jesus had done. The Pharisees were worried, and called together the Jewish high council, known as the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin was one of the Jewish institutions Rome allowed to continue. It was a body of 71 men (the high priest and 70 other members) who exercised power over a wide variety of issues within Israel. The members of the Sanhedrin fell into two major groups.

The first was the Pharisees. The Pharisees were the minority group in the Sanhedrin. They were not priests, but were men committed to holiness. Today they would be considered religious conservatives. People tended to respect them, as they lived exemplary lives. Unfortunately, the Pharisees placed greater value on their position than they did on following God. Jesus saw this and criticized them because of it. They feared that because of Jesus, they would lose the respect of the people.

The second group was the Sadducees. The Sadducees held the majority in the Sanhedrin. Theologically, they were more liberal. They minimized the supernatural and didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead (so Lazarus being raised was a real problem!) These men were priests and had gained power by cooperating with Rome. This had given them power, prestige, and wealth. Understandably, they wanted to maintain the status quo. Jesus was a threat to their way of life.

The conversation in the Sanhedrin is striking. They started debating what they were going to do about Jesus because he had done many miraculous signs. In other words, they didn’t dispute that Jesus had done miracles! They had given up trying to discredit Him, and maybe had come to grips with the fact that He was genuinely performing miracles. They concluded that if they didn’t do something about Jesus, then everyone was going to follow Him!

You would think if they thought everyone was going to believe in and follow Jesus, then maybe they would take a second look at him for themselves and see if they should follow Him…but that’s not what they did. Instead, they concluded the people weren’t smart enough to see the real issue. They said the real problem was that if everyone started following Jesus, it would destabilize their delicate balance with Rome and the Romans would come in and destroy everything, including the temple.

Of course, that’s a bit of a leap, though not entirely out of the question. But that was really just an excuse. The deeper issue was they were afraid Jesus was going to upset the status quo. Their concern wasn’t really that Jesus would upset Rome and then they’d destroy the temple—it was that if people followed Him, they would lose their positions of power. That was unacceptable, so they came up with whatever story they needed to justify the conclusion they wanted to reach. They had decided they wanted to get rid of Jesus, so they tried to find a way to justify their actions.

We’re not so different from the Sanhedrin. We are masters at finding ways to justify what we want. We can even make things sound noble, holy, and good in the process. But what’s in our hearts is often different. We have to be honest with ourselves about our true motivations. We may be able to fool others with our arguments and explanations, but God knows what’s really in our hearts. Many times, our real motivation is that we want to get our way, or we simply don’t want to change. We must learn to recognize these attitudes and motivations within ourselves and deal with them, rather than trying to find ways to justify them like the Sanhedrin did.

In a similar vein, some resist the gospel because they are afraid God will bring change in their lives. He is going to change you. But He is going to change you for the better. What we may be asked to give up is nothing compared to what God gives us instead.

We don’t like change. We don’t want to upset the status quo. But following God often requires us to change, and often does upset the status quo. We should learn a lesson from these religious leaders, that sometimes we need to revise our beliefs, sometimes we need to make significant changes, and sometimes the status quo isn’t worth maintaining. Change is usually hard, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad.

Caiaphas’ Prophecy

After the debate in the Sanhedrin, we hear from Caiaphas, the high priest. Before we look at what Caiaphas said, we should talk about who Caiaphas was. The position of high priest went all the way back to the time of Moses. The high priest was supposed to serve for life. He was to be the spiritual leader of the people, including performing the important rituals of the Day of Atonement and leading the people in other rituals.

By the time of Jesus the high priesthood was different. It was no longer a lifetime appointment and high priests could be replaced at any time by the whims of the Roman government. As such, you could only remain high priest as long as you didn’t cross Rome and didn’t let the people cause problems. Understandably, this created a conflict of interest between doing what’s right and keeping your job.

Caiaphas served as high priest for 18 years, meaning he had learned how to keep the people in line and make Rome happy. By this point, he had probably been in power for 12 years. His statement gives us a glimpse into how he’d managed to stay in power.

49 Caiaphas, who was high priest at that time, said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about! 50 You don’t realize that it’s better for you that one man should die for the people than for the whole nation to be destroyed.”

51 He did not say this on his own; as high priest at that time he was led to prophesy that Jesus would die for the entire nation. 52 And not only for that nation, but to bring together and unite all the children of God scattered around the world.

53 So from that time on, the Jewish leaders began to plot Jesus’ death. (John 11:49-53, NLT)

Caiaphas maintained his power by being ruthless. He was cold and calculating, and saw no problem with eliminating anyone he deemed a threat. Caiaphas didn’t see why this was a difficult decision. To him, the math was easy: killing one man (Jesus) would save the lives of many, so they should just kill Jesus. Surprisingly, what Caiaphas said was accurate, just not in the way he intended it.

John tells us that even though Caiaphas was working against God, God was using him to prophesy truth about Jesus. Jesus would, in fact, die to keep Israel from being destroyed. But Jesus was not trying to protect Israel from the destruction the Romans might bring, He was going to protect the people from the destruction that sin would most assuredly bring.

John explained that not only did Jesus save the nation of Israel, but that His death brought together and united all the children of God scattered around the world! Jesus’ death would not only provide salvation for the Jewish people, but would make it so people all over the world could be saved from their sin, reconciled to God and become a new nation united under the headship of Christ. Caiaphas’s words were accurate, just not how he intended them. What a good reminder of how God can use even evil leaders to accomplish His good purposes.

To John’s original readers, there would have been a bit of irony in Caiaphas’ words as well. Most people believe that John wrote his gospel somewhere around 90 AD or later. In 70 AD, the Jewish people rebelled against Roman rule and Rome did destroy the city and tore down the temple, ending the delicate balance that had previously existed. The people reading John’s gospel would have known this, and they would have understood the irony that Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin killed Jesus to try to keep Rome from destroying the temple, but it got destroyed anyway. They killed Jesus to try to silence Him and his followers but failed in that too. They failed in their purposes, but God’s purpose prevailed!

Jesus’ Response

At the end of this passage, we see Jesus’ response to the fact that the religious leaders were trying to kill Jesus: he withdrew and taught in a different place. Jesus wasn’t scared of the Jewish leaders. Quite the contrary. Jesus would soon return to Jerusalem, knowing He was going to be killed at their hands. He would do so resolutely and with great courage. But Jesus also knew the time had not yet come for that to happen. So He moved his ministry out of Jerusalem until just the right time.

John tells us the city was abuzz with talk about Jesus as Passover drew near,

55 It was now almost time for the Jewish Passover celebration, and many people from all over the country arrived in Jerusalem several days early so they could go through the purification ceremony before Passover began. 56 They kept looking for Jesus, but as they stood around in the Temple, they said to each other, “What do you think? He won’t come for Passover, will he?” 57 Meanwhile, the leading priests and Pharisees had publicly ordered that anyone seeing Jesus must report it immediately so they could arrest him. (John 11:55-57, NLT)

Everyone knew Jesus had a target on his back, so they wondered whether he would come back to Jerusalem or not. I don’t think these people were necessarily followers of Jesus, I think this was just the major news of the day. It was “water-cooler gossip”. Everyone was curious to know how the story would end.

Meanwhile, the Jewish leaders increased the pressure, issuing orders that anyone seeing Jesus must report it to them immediately so they could arrest him. The stage was set for the final week of Jesus’ life.

Conclusions

This passage helps to set the stage for the final week of Jesus’ life, but it is not just a scene-setting story. It contains some important truths and lessons we should take away as well.

First, self-interest often makes us blind to the truth. The reason the Jewish leaders didn’t believe in Jesus wasn’t because they doubted his miracles. They believed Jesus had done miracles. Their issue was that they didn’t want to believe in Jesus, because if they did, it would upset the status quo. Believing in Jesus might cause them to lose their power, influence, or comfort. Believing in Jesus might make things harder for them, and they didn’t want that to happen.

Don’t we do the same thing? We don’t want to hear contrary opinions because we don’t want to consider that someone else might be right. Or more importantly, we don’t want to consider that we might be wrong! So, we ignore opinions that are inconvenient. We try to discredit those who disagree with us. We do whatever we have to do so we don’t have to change.

This is a major problem in our country right now, and I believe it is a major problem in our churches. We often lend greater weight to what we read on Facebook, what our friends tell us, or what our favorite news outlet says than what God says. When God’s Word says something contrary to what we want, we ignore it or minimize it. When God tells us to do something that might be hard or that might cost us something, we are turn the other way. We’re good at rationalizing our behavior or attitudes, even when it’s contrary to what God says. Beware—that’s the same thing the Sanhedrin did. We must learn to submit our lives to Jesus—recognizing that sometimes that means going a different direction than we want, sometimes it means things will be hard, sometimes it means we have to change. We must learn to put our desires aside, and instead to take God at His word, eve if it’s hard. Following Jesus is always the better course.

Second, God is working His plan out, even through evil people. I love that God used Caiaphas to prophesy about Jesus. Even as Caiaphas was trying to oppose God, he was unwittingly speaking the truth about Him! Even as he was trying to assert his own power, he was demonstrating God’s power! This is a good reminder for us as we face a world that seems to oppose God at every turn. The world can oppose God, but they cannot frustrate His plans. God uses those who are trying to oppose Him to accomplish exactly what He had planned all along.

We fret about our world leaders today (sometimes they give us good reason to do so!) But we must remember God is still in control of these leaders. They may be hostile to Him, they may try to fight against Him, but He will use them for His purposes. We don’t need to wring our hands in fear; we need to be faithful and trust God’s plan. God’s purpose will always prevail—and that is a comfort as we look at our world today.

Third, sometimes doing what’s right is costly.Jesus had a job to do, and it would ultimately cost him his life. But Jesus didn’t shy away from what was right because it was going to cost him greatly. On the contrary, Jesus continued resolutely toward Jerusalem, knowing what lay ahead. Sometimes we can avoid some pain and hardship by not doing what God has commanded. But that’s a short-term gain and a long-term loss. Ultimately, compromising on our faith always costs us more.

Sometimes doing what is right is will put us at odds with the rulers of this world. Sometimes it is going to cost us dearly. But doing what is right is still less costly than compromising our faith. The world today is becoming more antagonistic toward the truth of Christianity. We must be prepared to pay whatever cost is necessary to maintain the truth of the gospel message and be obedient to Christ. Christians throughout history have faithfully served the Lord against incredible odds. My prayer is that you and I would do the same.

Finally, we must decide what we will do with Jesus. Jesus proves he is worthy of following. At the same time, we know following Him means change and upsetting the status quo. The question is what will you do with Him? Will you ignore Him and his commands, pretending they don’t exist? Will you oppose Him, trying to stand against what He has told us to do? Or will you follow Him, wherever that may lead, even when it goes against your own desires? Encountering Jesus demands a response, and each of us must decide for ourselves what our response will be.

This is a cautionary tale. It reminds us that when we value our own comfort or the way things are too much, we can make grave mistakes in trying to just maintain the status quo. It’s a reminder following God and doing what He says will often cost us. But it’s also a reminder that the costs are far higher for those who stand against Him. My prayer is that you and I will learn the lessons of those who have gone before, and follow the Lord, no matter where He leads and no matter what it costs.

©May 9th, 2021 by Rev. Rick Goettsche SERIES: John