April 12, 2025

John 11:45-56

Today the events leading to Jesus’ crucifixion, his painful death, and before that his night in the Garden of Gethsemane sweating blood, are being set in motion. The gears are moving through time and space.

The chief priest Caiaphas has determined that it is better for one man – Jesus – to die than for the Israelite nation to be lost to the Romans.  Jesus’ truth-speaking is such a threat to their land and nation that they think they are doing the right thing. 

For us who love Jesus, this is very sad, very sad for him to suffer and die, very sad that he had to withdraw to a town near the desert because he was a wanted man.  But this reading sees the flip side of the powerplay that decided Jesus must die to protect the Jews’ power and landholdings.  The flip side is that the high priest “prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not only for the nation, but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God.”  Perhaps he did not know the true meaning of the words he said.

Jesus’ pain, and indeed our own personal pain, is part of the warp and weft of destiny, our own and our country’s and our planet’s.  Our pain is interwoven with all the events in motion through time and space, and we do not know the longer term meaning or effects of this pain or these events.  We ask, why must my child suffer illness?  We ask, why must an authoritarian try to harm our country?  We do not see the fully woven cloth of destiny.  Amen.