Note: On Saturdays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all! You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.” (John 11:49-50, NRSVCE)
Caiaphas was right, of course.
But he didn’t realize it.
It was better for all of us that one man would die so that the rest of us would not perish eternally. It was better because God loves us all so completely and wants reconciliation for us.
But Caiaphas was speaking from a sense of his understanding of the Torah and the prophets and not a little sense of self-preservation. Jesus was dangerous. In addition to all those water into wine and people with disabilities cured public actions, Jesus had now raised a friend who had been dead for four days. D-a-n-g-e-r-o-u-s. The status quo was threatened in a way that seemed likely to cause still more problems for the people Caiaphas led that year, and that scared him.
Like Caiaphas, sometimes we think we understand God. We seek to arrange our lives to eliminate problems and protect those we love and lead. Change is as difficult for us as it was for the chief priests and Pharisees. But if we believe, truly believe, that one man died so that we need not perish for all eternity, if we don’t just pay lip service and go through the motions, then we need not fear change, for we have hope in how our story will end.
