Law & Order: Very Special Victim

We all watch them.  The CSI's, the Law and Orders.  I don't know what the appeal is.  Right over wrong.  Does it satisfy the bad boy/girl in each of us.


In the book of John, chapter 11, we read about a meeting of the church leaders:


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.” 


Funny, have been to some tough committee meetings, but not one quite this subversive.  This is written immediately following the raising of Lazarus and Jesus had become a person of interest, to say the least.   Until I read this, I did not realize how complicated and pre-planned the death of Jesus was.   They probably had spies observing friends and family.  They knew that Judas was the one to approach for the betrayal.  He was the weak link, the one greedy enough to take the bait.  They not only had a populace to incite to riot, but a government to manipulate.  They had no jurisdiction so the very entity they were worried about upsetting was the very one they would have to upset to their advantage.  Took a lot of fore-planning and work behind the scenes.


This was a pre-meditated murder,in the literal sense.   How ironic!  One man to die to save the whole nation.   No truer words were spoken by no falser lips.   Because it was not only a pre-meditated murder, it was a pre-meditated salvation.   One man would die and the world as they knew it would be give the greatest gift it would ever receive.  Not only the present but future generations would benefit from their underhanded, wicked, destruction.  An innocent slain for the guilty.  God had planned for this evil from the beginning of time.   


These words are in the Bible because there were men, such as Nicodemus, who would realize the truth.  They would add these words as another testimony, another prophesy coming true.  Another bit of encouragement to a group of fearful, guilty, and troubled disciples, wondering if the person they followed, the man they gave their lives to, was in fact the Christ.


And the resounding answer is YES!  


Hope is not in our circumstances, but in the One that knows before our next breath what will happen in our lives and the lives of the ones we love.  Is He worthy of my faith - yes!  Is He worthy of my love - yes!  Is He worthy of my hope!  There is none other!