“Jesus’ Beloved Enemies”
Noel K. Anderson
First Presbyterian Church of Upland
Text: John 11: 45-53 NRSV
45 Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. 46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what he had done. 47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, “What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.” 49 But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all! 50 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.” 51 He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, 52 and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God. 53 So from that day on they planned to put him to death. †
The sword of god
Jesus divides in order to unify
Today’s text immediately follows the raising of Lazarus. Jesus has revealed himself as Lord over life and death, and as this news spreads to Jerusalem’s religious elites, they are more convinced than ever that it is their duty to put him out of their misery.
This entire text is dripping with sad irony. Jesus, the Messiah and Son of God, does everything he possibly can to show his hand. He is the one they’ve been awaiting, and better than just saying so, he shows them by miraculous signs. He fulfills their prophecies and comes to them not to dominate but to serve, and still, they reject him.
In every episode, we see that Jesus does not unite the Jews but is the source of their division. Some are for him, some against. Wherever Jesus goes, and whatever he does, we see the people divided for him or against him. He is the sword that divides and separates the sheep from the goats. Jesus is Judgment Day for the Jews, calling his sheep who recognize his voice and allowing the others to go their own way.
In Matthew, Jesus speaks of the sword directly:
Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38 and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. [Matthew 10: 34-39]
Jesus, the sword of God, divides in order to win God’s children to himself. The council of Pharisees, seeking to keep Israel united and secure, will sacrifice the Lord and see their nation dispersed to the winds.
Jesus, the resurrection and life, has proven he is beyond the greatest powers of this world, including death, by raising Lazarus. The Pharisees, encountering the power of life over death, call for him to be put to death.
Just as in the gospel of Mark, everything is backward, upside-down, and blindness rules the world.
“WE Got THIS”
A sin we can all relate to
You may be already familiar with Fyodor Dostoyevsky. "The Grand Inquisitor" is a story within the larger story The Brothers Karamazov. In the story, Jesus comes back to Seville, Spain, at the time of the Inquisition. But he is arrested by Inquisition leaders and sentenced to be burnt to death the next day. The Grand Inquisitor visits him in his cell to explain to Jesus why his return would interfere with the mission of the Church. The grand inquisitor says, in effect, "You've given us the keys of the kingdom; we don't need you anymore."
This could be the story of the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin as well, couldn't it? Although they profess faith in God and claim they've given their all to serve him, once he appears to them as the Son and Messiah, they don't seem to want him. They've got it handled themselves—they manage a careful balancing act with Caesar, which allows them to play God's chosen people while living under Roman occupation. They did not need a Messiah—or even the Son of God—coming in and rocking the boat. They say to him, in effect, "We got this!"
And here is a sin with which we can all identify—I got this. As in, "Thanks all the same, Lord, but I got this." Do you know what I mean? "I got this one handled, Lord, so no thanks." It's not the areas of our insecurities that trip us up, but the areas of our greatest self-confidence.
Wherever we are insecure or fearful, we beg the Lord for his help. We seek him and lean on his word at every step. But in our areas of total self-confidence, we don't need him, do we? "I got this, Lord."
Maybe it's your work—your long-term expertise and hard-earned wisdom—that can make you feel like you got this yourself, so you no longer need to seek his power and presence. Perhaps it's a long-term relationship with a spouse or family members—in this area, "I got this, I don't really need God here."
In the areas of our self-confidence and personal strength, we may need God the most because those same areas are the places where we are most vulnerable—most likely—to discount our need for him.
This can be true of our groups as well. We may feel we need him all the time on our own, but once we are with our team, group, or tribe—all is well, and we don't need him because "We got this."
Prophet caiaphas
God told me, so we got this
“We got this” is the delusion of self-sufficiency, and this delusion of self-sufficiency may stand at the heart of all people’s rejection of Christ.
The council of Pharisees felt perfectly self-sufficient in running the temple and keeping the political balancing act between Rome and the Jewish masses. When they hear about Jesus raising Lazarus, they immediately go into an executive hand-wringing session. “What to do! What to do?”
“Jesus Christ Superstar,” the 70s rock opera by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Weber (and of which you saw the clip at the start of this sermon), got a lot of things wrong as they tried to translate the gospel into a musical, but one of the things they got right was this passage. The council of Pharisees, let by the high priest Caiaphas, determine that Jesus must die for the sake of the nation. They saw the crowds supporting him and feared a popular revolt because they believed Rome would utterly crush them if rioting broke out.
But more than this, we have a strange, religious revelation at work. Caiaphas, the high priest, had a prophecy from God that he had shared. “You know nothing at all!” says Caiaphas, “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.”
While this sounds like political calculation, and it is, there is another element at work. Verses 51 and 52:
51 He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, 52 and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God.
Caiaphas prophesied that Jesus would die for Israel and that it would gather the dispersed children of God. What is more, that prophecy was true! Question: Is Caiaphas the bad guy here, or is he the legitimate bearer of God’s truth to Israel? What he says is, in fact, accurate, and we can assume it comes from God, so what are we to think of him?
It is strange indeed. Caiaphas foresees Jesus’ death for Israel, so it’s weird for him to say, “therefore, let’s kill him!” Even though he and the other Pharisees may have believed God had revealed this truth, they are unwilling to let God see to it himself and in his own way. Instead, they say, “We got this—let’s kill him ourselves.”
He got this
Surrendering in every hour
It sounds simple, but one significant aspect of our spirituality is the simple move from saying, “I got this” or “We got this,” to “Thy will be done.” It means that in every area where we feel relative self-sufficiency and self-confidence, we need to grow into praying, “Lord, what would You have me do?”
It’s not enough to invite God only into our problems and insecurities; we must ask him into our successes, joys, strengths, and pleasures. Despite what we may sinfully feel, there is no part of our life for which we do not need God.
We should never say to God, “I got this,” because we do not get as much as we think.
We should never say, “We got this,” because we know we may be pushing Jesus out of the picture.
Instead, our hearts should resonate with that old hymn: I need Thee, Oh, I need Thee; Every hour I need Thee.
We are all on a spiritual journey moving from “I got this” to “He got this,” and the more we leave in his hands, the more we turn over to him our positives as much as our negatives, the more we know the joy of walking with him.
Finally, just a word of encouragement: Jesus loves his enemies. He loves the Pharisees, though they’re wrong about so many things. He loves Caesar and the Romans. He loves the Samaritans, Egyptians, Persians, and Greeks. He loves the poor but also the rich. He loves the commoner but also the elitist Sadducees. He loves Lazarus, and he loves Caiaphas.
Jesus would not command us to love our enemies if he weren’t already fully committed down that path. We can be sure that Jesus loves his enemies, which includes you and me on our very worst days.
In The Grand Inquisitor story, after Jesus is told that the Church no longer needs him, he stands up, kisses the grand inquisitor on the forehead, and walks out.
This is a cautionary tale to the Church in every era. The mission of the Church is nothing other than Christ himself—the person of Christ—not his purposes, or his coming kingdom, or his righteousness, or his teaching—but he himself. He is the message. He is the mission. He is all in all.
May we all grow eager to invite him into every aspect of our lives, insisting that he always be our leader and guide. †
Questions
- These verses tell us the people’s reaction after the raising of Lazarus. What were the different reactions?
- Why were there deepening divisions amongst the Jewish people?
- Why do some Christians risk everything to follow Jesus?
- How does Caiaphas unknowingly summarize in his comment in verse 50 the political perspective and Jesus calling to protect the sheep?
- Jesus’ ministry was different from any that came before or after. How are the followers of Jesus (the church worldwide) still remain different and unique?