Day 28 – What’s the worst that could happen?

John 11:45-57

Because of these things, many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary and saw what Jesus did believed in him. But some of them went away to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.

So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council, and said, “What are we doing? This man does many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”

But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You don’t know nothing! Don’t you think that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, and not let the whole nation perish?”

Now he didn’t just say this as his own opinion, but as high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not just for the nation, but also for God’s children who had been scattered so that they would be gathered together as one.

So from that day, they plotted to kill him. Because of this, Jesus no longer walked openly among the Jews, but went away into the region near the wilderness, to a city called Ephraim. He stayed there with his disciples.

Now the Jewish Passover was getting near. Many went up from that region to Jerusalem before the Passover, to purify themselves. So they looked for Jesus and spoke with one another as they stood in the temple courts, “What do you think—will he not come to the Festival at all?” The chief priests and the Pharisees had commanded that anyone who knew where Jesus was should report it, so that they could arrest him.

For reflection

Consider the tension among the Jewish leaders as they thought about what was best for their people. How do conflicting desires in you make Jesus hard to approach sometimes?