Sacrificial Lamb
When you truly believe the fate of a whole nation rests on the actions of one person, what do you do?
Many of the Jews who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what he had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, “What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.” But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all! You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.” He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God. So from that day on they planned to put him to death. - John 11:45–53
Jesus is often depicted as a sacrificial lamb. It is our Easter image, along with bunnies and colored eggs for the kids.
In this case, though, the lamb is not being sacrificed to God, but to Rome.
It is Caiaphas who has developed the strategy for dealing with these pesky troublemakers. Before they can amass too large a following to control, kill the leader, and the followers will disperse.
They had done this before and it worked well, but this time something might go wrong.
We know they were focusing on the wrong thing, acting to save themselves from the Romans, when they should have been saving themselves for God.
We see this shift of focus wherever religious leaders rule.
God warned them that they didn't need a king, but they insisted.
The big question is this. Don't we have a right to do what it takes to preserve our way of life?
What would Jesus do?
We are struggling with this today, as we have for generations. We want to welcome those who come to us with different ways and beliefs, but we don't want the trouble that may come in through our welcoming doors.
The Pharisees could have accepted what Jesus was preaching if they understood that it was possible for the Messiah to come in their time.
I try to imagine what the world would be like today, if they did accept him and protect him from the Romans, fighting on the side of faith rather than cowering in fear.
More to come...