Do not be the elite… [Jn 12]

Further comments on the elite. Now that Lazarus was notoriously alive, he had to die.

Because many were believing in Jesus because of him.

The body count never stops at just one.

When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came, not only on account of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.

The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written,

“Fear not, daughter of Zion;
behold, your king is coming,
sitting on a donkey’s colt!”

His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him. The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign. So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.”

(John 12:9-19 ESV)

This is fairly brief. Why did the Pharisees go feral? Because they had lost the people. “The world had gone after him”. He was doing too many mighty acts of power. The people were claiming him as King. And after the event, the disciples realized that this was the fulfilment of yet another prophecy.

The people can (and were) lead easily astray…. but the leaders, invested in their own sense of righteousness, stayed the course. By the end of the week Jesus was dead and they damned themselves in doing it.

I’m sitting in a meeting room in Wellington. Dragged here before dawn. For a leadership meeting.

And I’m quite aware that in those times I am the kind of person who would have ended up in the councils of the Pharisees.

My warnings about the elite are, today, for me.