An Expedient Killing

Jesus had just done what we all know to be impossible. He had given life to a man who had been dead for several days. He had done this before many witnesses, in the town of Bethany, which was just two miles from Jerusalem. The religious leaders had been troubled for some time about the stories of miracles that Jesus had performed, and about the following that Jesus had attracted, but this was the final straw. For Jesus to do something so astounding, so close to the temple, to do it publicly, before many witnesses, was to force the hand of the religious leaders. They convened a meeting of the Sanhedrin, the chief deliberative body of the Jews, and determined what they would do with Jesus. They were fearful that if many more people believed in Jesus as the Messiah, the Romans would hear of it, and they would remove the chief priests from their positions, and perhaps even disperse the citizens. As they discussed the matter, Caiaphas, the High Priest, intervened. He said, in effect, "This is a no-brainer. Why are we even discussing it? Don't you see that it's expedient that one man should die, rather than the whole nation perish? So they decided to find a way to execute Jesus. Here we see human depravity in all its horror. What they should have done was consider the evidence: Search the Scriptures for all that was said about the Messiah; summon the men and women who had been healed by Jesus; interrogate the disciples; speak to Jesus' mother Mary, etc. Instead, they determined to get rid of Jesus to maintain the status quo. How about you?

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