The Sanhedrin

PRAYER OF CONSECRATION Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.  Abba, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Abba, we belong to you.  Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.  John 11:32–54 (NIV) When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied. Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.” Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 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 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 temple 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 realize 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 that 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. Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the people of Judea. Instead he withdrew to a region near the wilderness, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples. CONSIDER THIS The scene portrayed in our text takes place in Bethany, a couple of miles from Jerusalem. Lazarus, the friend of Jesus and the brother of Mary and Martha, has died. In seeing Mary as well as the Jews who accompanied her weeping, Jesus was deeply moved and wept. Even during this time of grief with its painful human emotions, some of the Jews simply could not stop their criticism of Jesus, which in this setting was most inappropriate: “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” This insensitive and unthinking comment may help us to understand the nature of the emotional condition of Jesus as he was deeply moved once more when he approached the tomb. The Greek word which is behind our English translation of “deeply moved” suggests not only emotional depth but also indignation. Jesus ordered that the stone which sealed the tomb be taken away. Martha objected that there would be a bad odor since her brother had been dead for four days. The body of Lazarus had likely begun to decompose, to rot, to putrefy. It would be awful. Accordingly, as our text clearly indicates, this was not the resuscitation of a body that had simply lost consciousness or had swooned, nor was it the reviving of a body whose several vital functions had waned, giving merely the appearance of death. No—Lazarus was flat-out dead, just like all those other human beings centuries before him who had died. Given the severity of the situation, Jesus responded to Martha with words of comfort: “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” After they took away the stone and before Jesus issued his second command, he prayed to God, the Holy One of Israel: “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” This heartfelt expression of thanksgiving reveals not only that Jesus had already prayed concerning the matter at hand, and that he had been heard by his Father, but also that his own working was ever a participation in the life of God. Earlier, after Jesus had healed a man on the Sabbath, who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years, he exclaimed to the Jewish leaders who were then persecuting him: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed” (John 5:19–20). In a loud voice, Jesus cried: “Lazarus, come out!” And so, “The dead man came out,” at which point Jesus ordered, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” Observe that this coming to life again of Lazarus is different from the resurrection at the last day when the faithful will rise with immortal bodies. Clearly, Lazarus did not receive such a glorious body as he came forth from the tomb. That promise yet awaits. Lazarus would, after all, die again, which is an impossibility for those who are resurrected at the last day. Indeed, at that climactic event, the dead will be “raised imperishable,” as the apostle Paul points out in 1 Corinthians 15:42. Moreover, since the raising of Lazarus was neither the resuscitation of a never-really-dead person nor the resurrection to eternal life promised for the future, then the situation of Lazarus was distinct. Among other things, it was an occasion to reveal not only the power and glory of God but also who Jesus is. Its radiance had shown forth. As a result of this miracle, many Jews believed in Jesus. Why wouldn’t they? What’s difficult to understand, however, is that other Jews, who had seen the very same miracle, went to the Pharisees to relate what Jesus had done. In doing so, they probably were not well motivated. Such a response, if it were the case, would demonstrate that not even a stupendous and spectacular sign, taken in by eyewitnesses, would necessarily lead to faith. The human heart and will are remarkably complex and at times very strange things. In any event, the Pharisees and the chief priests soon called a meeting of the Sanhedrin—a body that was supposedly made up of seventy men—which would include both Pharisees and Sadducees, as well as the high priest (in this case, Caiaphas) who presided over them. Evidently concerned about the future of the Sanhedrin, someone complained: “If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.” Caiaphas, who had been appointed high priest by the Roman governor Valerius Gratus back in AD 18, abruptly countered: “You know nothing at all!” High priests, in a class by themselves, were not known for being prophetic, but Caiaphas unwittingly took on the mantle of a prophet that day when he declared: “It is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” Jesus would indeed die for the Jewish nation as predicted, but not in the way that Caiaphas had imagined. The death of Jesus would be so rich in meaning that it would burst the bounds of a simple execution, as Caiaphas and others had wanted, and it would even embrace the “scattered children of God,” which John’s gospel seems to suggest are Gentiles who would be united with the Jewish people. Seeing Jesus only as a threat to themselves, and with that concern intermingled with their fear of Rome, the members of the Sanhedrin “plotted to take his life” from that day forward. What was the cause of this death sentence for Jesus? What evil had he done? What crime had he committed? In short, he had the audacity to raise a man from the dead. There it is in all its glory. For the good work of bringing a man to life, Jesus was condemned by no one less than the highest religious authority of the Jewish people. Simply put, out of life will come death. The reward for a very good deed will be destruction. But why? What’s going on in this topsy-turvy world? This question cannot be answered adequately if the focus is simply on the miracle itself, the raising of Lazarus. Indeed, that’s something the members of the Sanhedrin hardly considered at all; their concern was largely directed elsewhere. That is, its members were focused on the consequences of this miracle for themselves—their power, their privileges, their very way of life. They saw a good, a great good, that they had enjoyed for years. Jesus would threaten all of this by ushering in something new which the old ways, the long-lived traditions, the usual circumstances, could not embrace or, better yet, even tolerate. Here was a fork in the road that the Sanhedrin could only view as a detour. But there’s more. In failing to consider the miracle itself and what it revealed about the identity of Jesus and the work of God among the Jewish people, the religious leaders were taking on a self-imposed blindness that would allow them to participate in greater and greater evil. Accordingly, not only must Jesus be eliminated, but the one associated with this great miracle must be destroyed as well. We have already encountered the evil of a double degree of separation (see John 12). Now we have the evil of a double degree of death. As John reveals in his gospel just beyond our text: “So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and believing in him” (12:10–11, emphasis added). Spiritual blindness can actually lead to madness—even for religious people. THE PRAYER Lord of goodness and beauty and truth—may I recognize the work of your hands around me everywhere, cherishing it as gifts for me, your child, and for the world which you affectionately love. Remove from me any blindness to your ways and grant me grace to follow you faithfully.