To Save the People

Homily for Saturday of the Fifth Week in Lent

The high priest Caiaphas utters a stunning “prophecy” today: one man should die instead of the people so that the whole nation may not perish. This was no altruistic or messianic-driven prophecy. It was one of self-preservation. The Sanhedrin was afraid that Jesus would cause such problems that the Romans would oppress them even more, taking away both their land and their nation. If that happened, they would be driven into poverty and forbidden from practicing their religion.

Last Sunday we heard the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. This story appears only in the Gospel of St. John, and it appears at the end of the Book of Signs to lead directly into the passion and death of Jesus. In this Gospel, Jesus is executed because of his power over life and death. The Jewish elders realized that if Jesus had that power, which he exhibited in Bethany outside Jerusalem, they would lose control of the people who would come to believe in Jesus as the Messiah.

Jesus spent his life proclaiming God as King and that his realm was for all people, marked by healing and forgiveness. Many marginal types were the recipients of this mercy; there was no further earthly political vision. Jesus was threatening the members of the Jerusalemite hierarchy who consider themselves the keepers of the national integrity in the midst of the Roman occupation. Jesus is branded as marginal – a Galilean after all – and his departure would be a definitive solution for the city. The divine irony is that the Lord’s “sacrifice,” freely accepted, “saved” the people in ways the priestly caste never imagined.

As Ezekiel had foretold: the Lord was delivering the children of Israel from all sides, and bringing them to himself. He said: “my dwelling shall be with them; I will be their God and they shall be my people… My sanctuary shall be set up among them forever.” His prophecy is fulfilled in the person of Jesus who sacrificed his life so that we might live forever.

Tomorrow we will enter the holiest week of the year. Once again, we shall relive the Paschal mystery. God has fulfilled the promise to deliver us from the bondage of sin. One man died that all people may not perish.