What Have we Decided

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

WHAT HAVE WE DECIDED

John 11:45-53

45 Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him. 46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47 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 miraculous signs. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation." 49 Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, "You know nothing at all! 50 You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish." 51 He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, 52 and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. 53 So from that day on they plotted to take his life.

NIV

Here we are faced with the choice people make about Jesus. After Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, an actual dead man that had been in the grave four days was up and walking around as if he had never been dead. There just isn’t any greater miracle then giving life to a dead person. We have several truths here we can explore. First, Jesus told his disciples and us, for that matter, that we would do even greater things then he has, which we will get to later in this same Gospel account. But for now let us just touch on the idea that when we share the Good News with someone and they are touched by the truth and come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ; have not we in some sense been a part of giving life to a dead person? The next truth we are faced with is that some believed and some did not, but went off to tell the Pharisees what Jesus had done. Sure we might think those tattletales went off to try to convince the Pharisees that Jesus was the Christ, but John divided those who put their faith in him, and those who told the Pharisees. This implies those tattletales had made their minds up not to believe and to side with the establishment. We could make the case from this that each man has a choice to make, to believe or to side with the establishment. Of course in this case the establishment was not a bunch of atheists, but the religious leadership of the nation. We could make the comparison of some religious leadership today that really do not believe the truth about Jesus, but would rather been drenched in their religion, as the Pharisees were. Still we even get a deeper look into the motives of the Pharisees here and see a third truth. Even though they were so ingrained in their religion, their version of the Law, it was not for this reason they wanted to do away with Jesus. It was their own selfish egos which drove them. Their place and their nation was their motive. They thought if Jesus was to be allowed to go on doing all he did, the Romans would surely see him as the leader of the Jewish people, and the arrangement the Pharisees had with the Romans would be in jeopardy. Their position as the religious leaders would be over, and they would no longer have the power over the people. This is the internal struggle all mankind is faced with. When each of us is faced with the truth about Jesus, we must decide, are we going to believe and make Jesus the leader of our lives, or are we going to try to put him away, so we can go on being in charge of our lives. Even those of us who are religious, who follow the rules, who call ourselves Christians, do we still struggle with giving authority to Jesus? Are we somewhat like the Pharisees in this sense? Are we afraid of what will happen to our authority if we let Jesus keep doing what he does? This is a personal struggle within, but there is also a truth here about the establishment and how it has its way of doing things, the church has its set rules for life, and maybe some of them just do not have room for Jesus, so let’s keep our establishment at all costs. We could also focus on the words of the chief priest who prophesied those words about one man to die for the people then the whole nation perish, but we know that truth so well, it is deep within our spirits, so we should focus our thoughts on what kind of choice have we made. Have we put our faith in him, or have we decided we need to retain our own establishment, either personal or communal? What have we decided?