Saturday in the Fifth Week of Lent, March 23, 2024

John 11, 45-56

Many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what Jesus had done began to believe in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and said, “What are we going to do? This man is performing many signs. If we leave him alone, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our land and our nation.” But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing, nor do you consider that it is better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish.” He did not say this on his own, but since he was high priest for that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not only for the nation, but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God. So from that day on they planned to kill him.  So Jesus no longer walked about in public among the Jews, but he left for the region near the desert, to a town called Ephraim, and there he remained with his disciples.  Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before Passover to purify themselves. They looked for Jesus and said to one another as they were in the temple area, “What do you think? That he will not come to the feast?”

Here, St. John shows us the inner workings of the movement that resulted in the Death of the Lord Jesus.  It is curious in that John identifies the moment in which the high priest and his circle made the decision to do this as that in which they learned of the raising of Lazarus.  John specifically shows the high priest himself as initiating this: “It is better for you that one man should die instead of the people.”  In other words, the high priest goes about his work of sacrificing a Lamb for the sins of the people.

Now, we notice the motivation.  The Jewish leaders spoke of their fear: “If we leave him alone, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our land and our nation.”  That is, just as many of the Lord’s own followers expected Jesus, as the Messiah, to lead the revolt against the Romans, despite his earnest efforts to disabuse them of this notion, so did the Jewish leaders.  The Lord had fought against this materialist interpretation of the Messiah, telling the Jews who held it that they were “of the world”, while he himself was not.  Ironically, it is the greatest materialist in the land, Pontius Pilate, to whom the Lord explained that his kingdom was not of this world, who saw the Lord as a spiritual leader and sought to release him.  

But behind all this is the raising of Lazarus.  The panicked reaction of the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin to this news tells us of their obstinacy in the face of God’s glory.  They will let nothing change their minds about the Lord.  They see the gift of life as a threat to themselves.  Their reaction also proves that they never really wanted the Messiah to come, for his work would be to overthrow the Romans.  If the public raising up of a dead man was not a sign of the Lord’s ability to defeat the Romans, then there could be none.  All their teaching the people to await the Messiah was a sham, after all, and so we see the greatest reason why the Lord labeled them as “hypocrites”.  

“So Jesus no longer walked about in public among the Jews, but he left for the region near the desert.”  Not wishing to die at any other time than at Passover, the Lord withdrew until all was in readiness.  

“Many went up from the country to Jerusalem before Passover to purify themselves.”  This little detail, so easy to overlook, reminds us that it is a Jew telling this story to other Jews, that is, to Jewish Christians, and, in conjunction with other evidence, we know that St. John “is the disciple who is bearing witness to these things, and who has written these things; and we know that his testimony is true.”  Let us also be disciples whose testimony to Jesus is reckoned as true so that others “may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10, 10).