Scripture Daily

Context No. 738 of 4322 · John

Context · Reflection

John 11:49-57: in context

49But a certain one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all, 50nor do you consider that it is advantageous for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.” 51Now he didn’t say this of himself, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, 52and not for the nation only, but that he might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. 53So from that day forward they took counsel that they might put him to death. 54Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews, but departed from there into the country near the wilderness, to a city called Ephraim. He stayed there with his disciples. 55Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand. Many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover, to purify themselves. 56Then they sought for Jesus and spoke with one another as they stood in the temple, “What do you think—that he isn’t coming to the feast at all?” 57Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had commanded that if anyone knew where he was, he should report it, that they might seize him.

The raising of Lazarus has forced the council's hand. If everyone follows this man, they reason, the Romans will come and destroy the temple and the nation, and they cannot allow it. Into the anxious debate the high priest, Caiaphas, cuts with cold arithmetic. You know nothing at all, he tells them. You do not grasp that it is better for one man to die for the people than for the whole nation to perish. It is a politician's calculation: sacrifice the one troublemaker and save the institution.

John stops the story to point out what Caiaphas did not hear in his own words. He did not say this on his own, John writes; being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for that nation only, but to gather into one the scattered children of God. The cynical sentence is truer than the man who spoke it. Caiaphas means, kill the inconvenient prophet to protect us; and what comes out of his mouth is the heart of the gospel, one man dying for the people to gather the scattered home. From that day they plot Jesus's death. God has let his deepest truth be spoken by the very man arranging the murder, who meant something else entirely.

Caiaphas said something far truer than he intended, in the act of plotting a death. Have I ever spoken more truth than I meant, or heard it from someone who meant the opposite of what they said?

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