After Jesus raised Lazarus, many Jewish observers believed. Still, some ran to the Pharisees and told on Jesus…It raised such a stir, that there was a special session of the Jewish theocratic government. The High Priest, Caiaphas addressed the counsel who were literally in a panic as they realized they had become obsolete and somewhat a laughingstock to the people on the street.
The Jewish elite had invested much time and energy to discredit the Lord, and now, He was winning the hearts of the people and devaluing the worth of the religious leadership. They were literally concerned that Jesus’ popularity would drive them out of business and Rome would foreclose on the temple.
Caiaphas said in effect, one cannot underestimate the value of one man’s death saving a nation. It seemed like Caiaphas was being a bit sarcastic, but John stops and takes a moment to document the fact that the High Priest, sworn enemy of Jesus, had actually prophesied the sacrifice of our Lord for the Jewish nation and the world! What an irony!
As a result, Jesus and His disciples had to go into seclusion. They could no longer walk openly among the people. God’s time for the sacrifice had not yet come, but, the clock was ticking. It had to be a little frustrating to the Lord to have to stay secluded and not love on the people He was sent to save.
We can never appreciate fully the struggle it must have been for Jesus to know his time was coming to an end. Like any loving parent, He would spend the rest of the ministry preparing the 12, they had to be equipped to build the nation of priests God called for in Exodus 19. None the less, Jesus knew and operated from that point on as if it was “Game On”!
God Bless You
Therefore, many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. 46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47 Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.
“What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many signs. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.”
49 Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! 50 You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”
51 He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, 52 and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. 53 So from that day on they plotted to take his life.
54 Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the people of Judea. Instead he withdrew to a region near the wilderness, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples.
55 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, many went up from the country to Jerusalem for their ceremonial cleansing before the Passover. 56 They kept looking for Jesus, and as they stood in the temple courts they asked one another, “What do you think? Isn’t he coming to the festival at all?” 57 But the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who found out where Jesus was should report it so that they might arrest him.
Walking With God 