But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done, so the chief
priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and said, what are we going to do?
If you were to read this verse or verses, these several verses from St. John's Gospel
from the 11th chapter out of context and were to know nothing about it, you might think
that Jesus had done something horrible.
There were some people that saw something Jesus had done and they went and they reported
it to the Sanhedrin and they convened the whole council to deliberate on what was to
be done about this man.
What are we going to do?
But if you go on, you read that they acknowledged very clearly exactly what he had done and
it wasn't something bad at all, it was actually something very good.
This man is performing many signs.
If we leave him alone, all will believe in him.
And our Lord worked the signs precisely so that people would believe in him.
That's exactly what he was trying to accomplish.
And it was this that the Pharisees, exactly this, the Pharisees feared.
It is the reason why they plotted to kill our Lord.
And so it's the tragedy of bad faith.
Men who looked into the face of truth and saw it guaranteed for them by extraordinary signs.
And rejected both the signs of the truth and the messenger who is the truth.
So in God's providential way, he shows to this particular passage of the gospel
how it was.
He shows that in spite of this bad faith and malice, besides this conspiratorial gathering
to put out the flame of truth, God brought prophecy through this event to the high priest.
Not because he was holy or pleasing to God, but because he had the office of high priest.
And Caiaphas prophesied that it was better that one man should die.
Than the whole nation should perish.
What he meant, of course, when he said it, was that he had no trust in God.
Even though he saw the signs and they spoke about the signs, he had no trust in God.
If we let this man continue, he's going to have us all destroyed.
The Romans are going to get angry and they're going to come in and they're going to destroy all of us.
They had no trust in God.
It was a, you know, it's an age old story where God manifests his signs to his people.
And they reject his signs and want to go in their own human way.
In fact, even though they did reject our Lord by the year 70 AD, Jerusalem was destroyed, completely wiped out.
So their rejection of Jesus didn't save them.
But in any case, that's what he meant.
But what God meant through him, of course, was that in spite of this malice and this terrible crime of deicide,
that it was in the end actually better that Christ should die for our sins
than that all of us should perish by the will of God, by the will of his heavenly Father.
So our Lord enters into this providence, which is, you know, powered you might say,
first of all by the goodness and mercy of God, but also by the malice and wickedness
But God's providence is stronger and infinitely better than the malice of men and is even able to sanctify it.
So this is the last gospel that we will read during this regular part of Lent.
We begin Holy Week with Palm Sunday tomorrow.
And so we are left with this providence and we are left in the world today with Jesus and amidst the wickedness of the world.
We are called to recognize the providence of God and remain steadfast with our Lord in spite of the fact that his truth is rejected.
And very often we are identified as we rightly should.
We should be with his doctrine.
If we are not identified with his doctrine and hated for it, then we are probably not very good disciples of our Lord.
Our Lord is the one who leads the way into Holy Week.
May we pass through the veil and enter into the mystery of Christ's suffering, death and resurrection as we continue to celebrate this Mass.
And proclaim.
And prepare for the holiest part of our liturgical year.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.