Lenten Reflections, Day Thirty nine, Sixth Saturday of Lent, "What would Love have me do?"

Day Thirty nine, Sixth Saturday of Lent

What would Love have me do?

John 11: 45-57

Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what he had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, “What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.” 

But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all! You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.” 


He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God. 

So from that day on they planned to put him to death. Jesus therefore no longer walked about openly among the Jews, but went from there to a town called Ephraim in the region near the wilderness; and he remained there with the disciples. 

Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves. They were looking for Jesus and were asking one another as they stood in the temple, “What do you think? Surely he will not come to the festival, will he?” Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who knew where Jesus was should let them know, so that they might arrest him.

According to John, Jesus is in deep shit. The Jews have enough trouble with the Roman occupation and don’t need one of their own stirring up more trouble leading to the Romans cracking down on them even more. So the boss of the Jews, Caiaphas, decides that it's better to kill Jesus to shut Him up than to give reason to the Romans to impose even stricter control over them.

Jesus, according to John, high tails it out of town. But with Passover coming the question arises as to whether He will  come back for the ritual celebration or not?

Caiaphas and his buddies put out the hit order that if Jesus were to show His face back in town, people should let them know so they could arrange to have Jesus arrested and have Him killed..

Things have not changed with human nature in 2,000 years. Those in power are still willing to sacrifice a few poor, oppressed, and easily victimized people to maintain their power and control. It’s not so much a matter of sacrificing a few for the good of the country as it is the powerful being able to stay in power. This is the dynamic of national war making and the dynamic of mob control of corrupt and lucrative enterprises.

As we have been studying this Lenten season, this scenario is a major dynamic of the world of the ego which seeks power at others expense. Once this scenario unfolds we have created a world of fear and attack. Jesus is operating in quite a different world, the world of the Spirit, which is the world of Love. The world of the Spirit, though, cannot be entered when one is still in the world of the ego. The world of the ego must be renounced and given up.

Only when we are liberated from the conditioning and socialization of the world of the ego, are we free to enter into the world of the Spirit. Jesus’ life is a demonstration of this “truth” but few people apprehend it.

We always have a choice. We can choose the world of the ego or the world of the Spirit. That choice becomes manifest when we answer the question, “What would Love have me do?”