What are we going to do?
This man is performing many signs.
If we leave him alone, all will believe in him,
and the Romans will come
and take away both our land and our nation.
The ability of the darkened human mind to blind itself to the action of God among us is striking. When many others, for good reason, came to believe that Lazarus had been raised, and therefore came to believe in Jesus, the Sanhedrin didn't even consider the possibility that they might be right to do so. They were so worried about the persuasiveness of the signs that they feared that eventually "all will believe in him". Perhaps they saw themselves as intellectual elites who would not be fooled like everyone else. But it is not exactly clear that they were certain his signs were false. They seemed more concerned about the practical matter that his signs were inconvenient for the status quo which they enjoyed at that time in relative comfort. Yes, they were under the power of the Romans. But at least they still possessed their land and their nation, and were able to enjoy their ancestral heritage. Things were far from as good as they could be. But they were mainly concerned about all of the ways in which they could easily become worse. But they were so concerned as to miss the much bigger picture which was nevertheless clearly unfolding in their midst.
You know nothing,
nor do you consider that it is better for you
that one man should die instead of the people,
so that the whole nation may not perish.
Caiaphas clearly intended to say that Jesus ought to be put to death so that the Romans would not turn hostile and dispossess them of their land. Without realizing it, he was in fact suggesting that the greatest possible goods, the possibility of reconciliation with God and eternal life, should be sacrificed for the political status quo. All that was represented by the raising of Lazarus was rejected in favor of a basic affirmation of the Roman occupation. In a way, it was like the people who complained when they were led forth from Egypt. They preferred the comfort of servitude to the freedom of the Sons of God.
Through the gift of prophecy at work because Caiaphas was the high priest, however, God said something else. He stated the truth of the value of the sacrifice of the lamb of God: that it was better for one man to die, bearing the sins of the people, and thus saving all. If Jesus died in this way the whole nation need not perish in a way that was spiritual and eternal. And it was not only the nation that stood to gain from the sacrificial self-offering of Jesus. It was all of the dispersed children of God who would be gathered together as a result of his death and resurrection into a new and everlasting Kingdom who would benefit together. Thus there was something at stake much greater than the political status quo. By giving himself up to death Jesus would unlock the promise made through Ezekiel in our first reading:
I will take the children of Israel from among the nations
to which they have come,
and gather them from all sides to bring them back to their land.
I will make them one nation upon the land,
in the mountains of Israel,
and there shall be one prince for them all.
Hopefully we ourselves are not so blind to the goodness of God as were the religious leaders in the time of Jesus. But we nevertheless sometimes encounter situations in our world in which people seem shockingly oblivious to the true, the good, and the beautiful. By the actions they take they absolutely seem to put first priority on the wrong things, ignoring or actually sabotaging higher goods as collateral damage. But we see that, as with Joseph, what man intends for ill good is more than able to use for his own purposes (see Genesis 50:20). It usually involves a cross before it involves a crown (as it did for Joseph). It almost always goes beyond our ability to understand or predict. But, and this is important, it is certain, more than the coming of the dawn.
I will turn their mourning into joy,
I will console and gladden them after their sorrows.
Matt Maher - Behold The Lamb Of God
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