A beautiful day away with Karen and Massey! Thank You, Father, for the adventure, such as it was – good exercise, good food, a good time all around!
John 11:45-57 (<<click here to read the passage)
It’s hard to believe, but we’ve been in our house now for over 30 years. When we moved in, it needed quite a bit of work.
One of the big challenges for me was electrical work. I knew the bare essentials, but not much more. So, when we got ready to renovate our backroom – someone had enclosed the attached carport years before we moved in – I was working from scratch. The main part of the room had no electricity at all. So, I installed four outlets, two on the right wall and two on the left.
Now I’m not foolish, so we got a real electrician to check out my work before we powered everything up. And I’m glad we did! Somehow, I had reversed every single outlet! It was simple for him to fix but what I had done would definitely have given us issues!
When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, it was the last straw, as far as the Pharisees were concerned. And in the Father’s perfect timing, Jesus knew that His time was quickly coming to a close.
By this point, Jewish leadership had had enough. Because of their arrogance and the humiliation at the tongue of Jesus, they had become blind. A man had literally been raised to life after four days in the tomb, and their reaction was to freak out! All they saw was this whole “Jesus-movement” snowballing out of control. They jumped from Jesus’ many miraculous signs to the belief that everyone will believe in him to the Roman army coming to destroy both our Temple and our nation. vs47-48 NLT
It had been building for months, and now it was so “bad” in their minds and hearts that they were crossing wires left and right. They were so blind to the truth that they were prepared to do whatever it took to take Jesus out. They and all they held dear were quickly heading to total annihilation! They were losing it!
Caiaphas, who was high priest at that time, said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about! You don’t realize that it’s better for you that one man should die for the people than for the whole nation to be destroyed.” vs49-50
In his mind, Caiaphas was setting things in motion to ensure the future viability of his people. He knew that it was better to eliminate this troublemaker once and for all. He, for one, wasn’t going to let this carpenter-turned-“Messiah” take the whole nation of Israel down with Him. Caiaphas’ actions and mindset did not communicate that he was a man of God. Yes, he was a fool, but God used him…
…to prophesy that Jesus would die for the entire nation. And not only for that nation, but to bring together and unite all the children of God scattered around the world. vs51-52
The stage was set. Jesus had lived His life preparing for what was ahead. In just a matter of days, he would do exactly what Caiaphas had foretold. And although Caiaphas knew nothing of it, because Jesus was ready to lay down His life God’s salvation would be made available for all of mankind!
Aug 6th, 2021, Fri, 8:38 pm
