Violence born of necessity

There is something very 21st Century about the AD 30 incident (above in bold) recorded by the Apostle John in his eye-witness first-century biography of Jesus Christ.

It seems that “many of the Jews .. had .. with Mary .. seen what [Jesus] did, .. but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.” Straightaway “the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the Sanhedrin council.”

What they, and Mary, had actually seen Jesus do with their own eyes was of enormous significance to them. It was a major, major threat. They said, “If we let [Jesus] go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”

What had they seen Jesus do?

As I write, a leading Russian journalist, Vladimir Kara-Murza, opposed to President Putin, is critically ill in a Moscow hospital with kidney failure. In February this year, a politician, also opposed to President Putin, was shot dead outside the Kremlin. In 2006 in London, another dissident, Alexander Litvinenko, died after being poisoned with a radioactive isotope after taking tea with two Russian security officers. These are not alone.

But the point is that today’s decisions to kill are taken in similar circumstances to the AD 30 incident above.  The person in the chair in AD 30 was “Caiaphas, who was high priest that year.” The original Greek used by John is archiereus. This is a compound of arch meaning “above” and hiereus meaning “holy man”. This “above-holy-chairman” said, “You know nothing at all. Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.”

Have you experienced a chair-person who truly knows what is for the good of all – despite it being especially bad for others? Jesus must die – for the good of the people, for the good of the nation. Of course. That’s right. As John reports, “So from that day on they made plans to put him to death.”

But what had the eye-witness Jews (along with Mary) seen Jesus do? What had so incensed and threatened the “above-holy-man” and the other (holy) Sanhedrin members? Why was this decisive violence necessary?

John the biographer sees something which other observers cannot see. John knows that the above-holy-man is not only speaking this out of murderous self-interest but that he is also, simultaneously, stating in advance what is in fact the will and purpose of Almighty God. “He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.”

This murder was in the plan of God and would gather together the children of God. This death would give birth to men and women who would be God’s children for ever.

But what had the eye-witnesses reported to the “above-holy-chairman” and the Sanhedrin to make them fear for the people, the nation – and themselves?

Let me put it very briefly. They were told that Jesus had just come to the tomb, close to Jerusalem, where a man named Lazarus had been buried four days earlier.  They were told that Jesus had instructed the removal of the entrance stone and had called Lazarus to come out. They were told that Lazarus had come out, alive. They couldn’t compete with that.

Jesus must die.