NOTES for Joh 11:47-57

When one reads the Gospel, it becomes completely clear that the Synagogue and the Temple leadership treated Jesus in entirely different ways. For representatives of the Pharisaic brotherhood, which in those days was the core of the Synagogue, Jesus was, on the one hand, a Teacher, a Prophet, and perhaps even the Messiah; on the other hand, depending on how His activity was assessed by representatives of particular Pharisaic circles, He was a deceiver, an impostor, and a false prophet. But one way or another, the issue was an assessment of Him and His activity in essence, in a spiritual and religious context. Such an assessment could evoke respectful reverence or hatred toward Him, but His words and deeds left no one in the Synagogue indifferent.

The Temple's reaction was different. There, a miracle was considered not from the standpoint of its authenticity or falseness, but from the standpoint of whether it was appropriate or inappropriate, expedient or inexpedient; and both appropriateness and expediency were considered exclusively in political terms. The Pharisees said: He performs miracles that can be explained only by the fact that He is from God, but He does not meet our criteria for a man of God. How are we to explain this? The high priest frames the question differently: He performs miracles that are inappropriate because this may lead to an uprising, a revolt, whose consequence will be a punitive expedition by the Romans that will put an end to the very existence of Jerusalem and the Temple.

The Pharisees respond to the situation as consistently and thoroughly religious people. They ask themselves: how should we relate to Him and to what He is doing? Is He right, or not? The high priest's reaction, despite the religious duties laid on him, is the reaction of a secular politician, who asks himself and others: is what He is doing useful for us? Is this Man dangerous to us? And if He is dangerous, how can we stop Him? In one case, before us is a question about the meaning of what is happening, even if the answers are not always adequate. In the second, there is a purely pragmatic approach to the matter.

This is why, no doubt, Jesus still found supporters and followers among the Pharisees, but not among the representatives of the Temple leadership. The question of meaning, even when answered incorrectly, always opens a spiritual perspective for the one who asks it, although of course this still does not guarantee that the questioner will manage to make the right spiritual choice. Pragmatism, however, opens no perspectives except those that do not go beyond the bounds of the untransformed world. These perspectives have no relation to spiritual life. None at all.