A Lamb for the Nation
Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. “What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! You do not realise that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for the nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. So from that day on they plotted to take his life John 11:47-53
The Romans were behind much of the anxiety of the Jews in Jesus’ day, both ordinary Jews and their leaders. The Romans had taken over most of the Middle East a century earlier. While there weren’t many soldiers in the towns and villages, whole legions were stationed to the north in Syria and north-west in Caesarea. Though many Jewish leaders longed to be free from this threat, they generally preferred the semi-freedom that Rome granted them to the devastation that would follow if a major revolution developed.
And that’s clearly what they thought might happen if Jesus went any further. Healing the sick could be seen by the Romans as superstition or quackery, but not raising the dead. Jesus was gathering support but to do what? The leaders couldn’t sit back waiting to find out.
The Sanhedrin was the highest ruling body of the Jews and had responsibility for local rule over the Jews in the Roman province of Judea. Presided over by the high priest this council of 70 men was made up mainly of the priestly Sadducees but included many Pharisees and some socially influential but less religious Jews.
“Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” Their concerns were finally more personal than national. Any unrest would destroy their position and power. Expediency ruled over principle. Jesus would have to be stopped.
Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! You do not realise that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” Much of what John includes in his gospel has deeper levels of meaning that he wants the reader to personally search out, but here he adds explanation. ‘He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation.’ Caiaphas’ solution is ruthless but to his own mind rational. Better one man die than the whole nation perish because of a Roman crackdown. The model of lambs slaughtered in temple ritual to redeem the nation becomes the basis for a political strategy. A lamb for the nation; but not just for the nation ‘but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one.’ Jesus will die, not just for Israel but for the sins of the world, uniting the people of God among all the nations in every age.
God is able to turn what the enemy means for evil, into good. If He did it here using the leaders of Israel then He can certainly do it for you right now. Trust Him in the midst of all you’re going through to make a way even where there doesn’t seem to be a way.
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