The Plot to Kill Jesus John 11 45-end (nsv)
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.
When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, many went up from the country to Jerusalem for their ceremonial cleansing before the Passover. They kept looking for Jesus, and as they stood in the temple courts they asked one another, “What do you think? Isn’t he coming to the festival at all?” But the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who found out where Jesus was should report it so that they might arrest him.
This reading is straight after the raising of Lazarus and as Jesus’s profile is getting more and more noticeable the question for The Sanhedrin was “ what do we do next?”. Let's face it Jesus was proving to be a very imposing threat. On the face of it there was nothing he couldn’t do. Among other things that he had proved to be the Lord of nature by calming the storm, the Lord of darkness by allowing the blind man to see, the Lord of death by raising Lazarus from the grave and to feed 5000 people didn’t seem to be a problem. So this problem that Jesus presented seemed insurmountable….what to do with him…..whats going to happen next?
“What's going to happen next” is something today we are all asking ourselves, so many questions so many deadlines. Will it be three weeks?, will it be six months?
As we move along this Lent journey going towards the hill at Calvary we know what happened next. Jesus proclaimed “ I am the resurrection and the Life”. So the answer to our question of “ what happens next?” is simple “ whatever happens next is in the hands of our Father God. The Father who gave us his son. This man who gives us so much that when we sing " alleluia what a saviour" gives us so much security and confidence and grace. So what happens next? He knows and it's in his hands. Amen
