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Where's Your Identity? John 11:47-57

Where’s Your Identity?
John 11:47-57
Remsen Bible Fellowship, 11/10/2019

Introduction: 

Where do you find your identity? If someone were to ask, “Who are you?”, most of us would reply with our name. Which, of course, isn’t a bad place to start. But if you were to dig deeper, where would you go next? 

Many of us would connect our identity to our activities, the things we do. Perhaps that is what you do for a living; I’m a postal worker, or I’m a nurse, or I’m a retail worker. Maybe you find your identity in activities outside of the workplace; a hobby or a passion. Perhaps you think of yourself as an outdoorsman, or a golfer, or a community volunteer, or a sports fan.  

Another place many of us look for identity is in relationships. Perhaps you think of yourself first of all as a wife, or a husband, or a parent. We can find our identity in a lot of different places. 

As we look at our text this morning, we are going to encounter a group of men who have fixed their identity in their place and their nation. Their status and their culture. Their power and their pride. 

And as we examine their interaction with the truth about Jesus, we will see how finding our identity in the wrong things can blind us to the power and glory of God that have been revealed in Jesus.

Read: John 11:47-57

If you’ve been with us the last two weeks, hopefully you remember what has already happened in chapter 11 of this Gospel. John has recounted for us the story of Jesus raising his friend Lazarus from the dead. 

It is a strange story in that Jesus hears his friend is ill, and instead of healing him from a distance or hurrying to his side, we read that Jesus stays where he is, on the opposite side of the Jordan river. And only after Lazarus has been dead for some time does Jesus head to the village of Bethany to comfort the family.

But while this seems strange to us at first, we come to realize that Jesus has already told us why he operating in a manner that’s difficult to comprehend: he isn’t just shooting for Lazarus’, or anyone else’s, immediate earthly good. What he ultimately wants is for them to see the glory of God on display, so that they might see that Jesus is the Christ, and by believing have life in his name.

And in verse 45 we see that this has the desired effect: many people believed in Jesus as a result of seeing him call a dead man out of the tomb. Yet in verse 46 we see that not everyone is convinced. There are those who see and do what we expect-they believe! They trust in Jesus. But there are others who instead run and tell the Pharisees, which brings us to John 11:47-57. 

1: Jesus’ Power Challenges Our Identity, v47-48

The Pharisees, upon hearing of yet another miracle from Jesus, decide to pull the council together. The council here likely refers to the body of 70 men known as the Sanhedrin, who were the ruling body in Israel, underneath the Romans. It is interesting to note that, given the way Caiaphas is referred to in verse 49, this probably is not a formal or official meeting of the Sanhedrin. Were it a formal meeting of the Sanhedrin Caiaphas, as High Priest, would be presiding over the whole meeting, rather than simply being one of them. So we get the sense that there is a problem at hand, and these guys are doing some sort of backroom-type meeting place to hash out a pragmatic solution. We see the problem presented to this council in verses 47-48. What is the nature of the problem? Jesus keeps working signs. 

What we need to see here is that they are beyond even questioning the signs themselves. They know what he is doing is real. And yet, instead of pausing to reflect and think, “boy, maybe this guy is the real deal and we need to listen to him,” they instead recognize the validity of his works and actively seek to silence him. Why are they so dead set on not believing? Because Jesus poses a threat. We see this in verse 48, if we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation. This threat basically breaks into three parts 1) everyone is going to believe, 2) if they do that, the Romans will come, and 3) if the Romans come we lose our place and our nation. 

The first part of the fear seems a little contrary to the evidence. They are, after all, meeting in response to what people who witnessed the resurrection of Lazarus had come to tell them. They had people who were obviously on their side, who didn’t follow Jesus or trust in him. Nonetheless, the crowds had at various points loved Jesus, even desiring to make him king in John 6. If he keeps this up, they think, that kind of fervor will return and they will seek to usurp the established order.

The council is right to fear that, if such an uprising took place, the Romans would sweep right in. The Romans had granted the Jews in Palestine a fair amount of self-rule and autonomy. They could conduct civil and religious life essentially as they chose. Which meant that the folks on this council were sitting in a pretty good spot. But they feared an uprising would bring Rome in to crush them. Which brings us to the third piece of their fear.

Ultimately, the Council is worried about what they might lose. They call it here, our place and our nation. What do these signify? They represent the power and the pride of this group of men. Their place, most commentators agree, refers to the Temple. And of course the temple is the center of their religious life. But for these men, these men who were well-connected, who sat on the council, the temple represented more than simply a place of prayer and sacrifice. The temple represented their position within the social strata. Their control over the temple and what took place there gave them enormous power of other Jews and even over the Gentiles of the area. These men were able to live comfortable lives at a time in history when that was a luxury afforded to precious few people. Their control of the temple, and their place on this council under Roman protection safeguarded that power. 

Second, after the Babylonian captivity, we see an increasing Jewish pride. Before those 70 years in Babylon, the people of Israel were prone to chasing after other Gods and seeking to be like the nations around them. Afterward we see a rise in devotion to God’s word and worshipping Yahweh alone, which of course we would say is a good thing. But with that came a sense of pride that everyone who wasn’t a Jew wasn’t worth anything. Rather than having their arms open to the nations, they viewed all outsides with suspicion. Their nation was their pride. Their nation was better than all the other nations. So to lose their nation for these men would be to lose their pride.

So this is ultimately their problem. Jesus keeps doing signs that say he’s the Messiah. The logical thing for them to do would be to believe. But that would cost them. They would have to give up the very things that constitute their deepest identities: they are powerful men in the midst of a proud people. If they were to acknowledge Jesus as Messiah, he would be demanding their allegiance, and that would cost them what they hold most dear.

What identities are you holding onto this morning? What are you afraid of losing if you were to cling to Jesus? Is there some part of your life that you are holding onto that is preventing you from bowing the knee before the Lord of Life?

Caiaphas, the High Priest, is less than impressed by the nervous worryings of his comrades. And so he offers a practical suggestion.

2: Seeking a Way Around Jesus Doesn’t Work, v49-50

In verses 49-50, the high priest stands up to speak. He says to the group, You know nothing at all. Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish. In saying these words, Caiaphas speaks more truth than he knows. But before we look at the underlying truth, we ought to first think about Caiaphas’ original intention. This man, the high priest, is the person responsible to head into the holy of holies each year to offer sacrifices on behalf of the entire people. You might think, or at least hope, that a man in such a place would be the paragon of virtue and holiness himself. But instead what we find is Caiaphas laying out the case for murder. 

We don’t know what other proposals are swirling around the room at this moment, but the tone of his statement seems to be, “fools! If we just kill him and have done we will solve this who problem. Kill Jesus, and our place and our nation are safe.” Again, consider the hardness of heart this bears witness to. These men know the Scriptures, backwards and forwards. This group is likely the same one addressed by Jesus back in John 5:39, where he tells them that the Old Testament bears witness to him. If they were to evaluate his actions and his words together, they would see that he is clearly telling the truth. They should have seen the crippled man made well and thought of Isaiah 35 which says, then shall the lame man leap like the deer. Perhaps the same passage should have come to mind when the blind man was healed, because Isaiah 35 also says, then the eyes of the blind shall be opened. Jesus was telling the truth. But the religious elite despised him, they rejected him, and they sought to put him to death. Isaiah 53:3 says, He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 

One question before we turn to see God’s hand of Providence in this all: does their plan work? Do they, by seeking to silence Jesus, hold onto their place and their nation? Does clinging to their transient earthly identity hold up for the long haul? Well, we could answer that in two ways.

First, in an intensely personal sense, it doesn’t work for any of them, because they all die. And no position of earthly power, no family, relationship, job, or nation follows you to the grave. Your body goes into the ground for a future reckoning with God, and your soul deals with the consequences immediately. 

But in a broader, less personal sense, the plan doesn’t work for this group of men, either. Following the death and resurrection of Christ the church is born, and it grows explosively. Then in 70 AD the Roman general Titus comes in and decimates Jerusalem, and scatters the people. Not one stone is left standing in the temple (fulfilling Jesus’ prophecy in Matthew 24:2). No more place, the temple is gone. No more nation, the people are scattered. Their power is destroyed, their pride is vanquished. 

3: God Provides a New Identity in Jesus, v51-53

Verse 51 gives us an important fact. Caiaphas is not speaking of his own accord. He prophesies, if you will, accidentally. What is a prophecy? It is a declaration of God’s word. Often the prophets in the Bible are forthtelling the Word of God; declaring his desires, his requirements, his past actions, etc. But the aspect with which most of us associate prophecy is foretelling, explaining what God intends to do in the future. And that is the sort of prophecy we have here.

So, while our good friend the high priest thinks he is suggesting that it would be expedient to murder Jesus, what is in fact happening is that God is speaking through him the plan of salvation. Jesus did, in fact, come for this reason: to die. In Philippians 2 we read that Jesus emptied himself (v7) by taking on human form, and humbled himself (v8) by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Likewise, in Mark 10, Jesus declares that the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. John 10:14-15, I am the good shepherd...and I lay down my life for the sheep. It might seem, if you are unfamiliar with the biblical narrative, that Jesus’ death was an unintended tragedy. But that is not the message of Scripture. The point of Jesus’ coming was his death. 

Why did Jesus come to die? What did his death accomplish? Verse 51 says that he would die for the nation. The word for implies that he did this as a substitute. Even though the Jews had the sacrificial system in place, Hebrews 10:4 reminds us, It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. A better sacrifice was needed to pay for sin, in order that Jewish men and women could be made right with God. That sacrifice was the Son of God himself. He died as a substitute. 

And that sacrificial death was offered first of all for the Jewish people, as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:16, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first… Jesus came to die for his people. But does his offer and accomplishment of salvation stop there?

Paul continues his phrase in Romans 1, to the Jew first and also to the Greek (or, we might say, to us!). Verse 52 back in our passage says, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. The leaders in the council are determined to hold their nation together. Jesus is concerned with purchasing a people for God from every tribe, people, and nation. 

Galatians 3:13-14, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us--for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”--so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham may come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. 

Acts 1:8, But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and all Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

Revelation 5:9, Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. 

Christ came to bring the promise of Abraham to the Gentiles by absorbing the law’s curse for us, he sent his disciples with the message to the end of the earth, and before the throne of the exalted Lamb Who Was Slain they declare him to be worthy of praise because he ransomed, he accomplished the salvation of, people from every tribe, language, people, and nation. Jesus came to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad, to bring them into his family. Perhaps it is summarized most clearly in John 1:11-13, He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to those who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. 

Do you see the Providence of God in all of this? Caiaphas makes an argument for murder, which verse 53 says the council begins to lay the plans for. Yet it is through that very death that God intends to save his people not only in Jerusalem, but that are scattered abroad. This is the paradoxical wisdom of God. The leaders want salvation via clinging to their own earthly power. Jesus accomplishes salvation by emptying himself of his heavenly position, being murdered, and bearing the curse for us. It all seems upside down. 

To repeat the question I asked to begin: where do you find your identity? What are you clinging to? Will it last the test of time? Will it keep on counting even when you die?

In the end every human identity will crumble. But Jesus came to give us a new, foundational identity: child of God. Jesus came to die so that you could be saved from your sin and given a place in God’s family. Those other markers of identity can be fine things. We should be thankful for families, jobs, nations, hobbies and the like. But not one of those things addresses your deepest problem: your alienation from God on account of sin. Jesus does address that deepest problem. And if we find our deepest identity in him, it puts the rest of our life in proper perspective.

Conclusion: v54-57

As we head toward an end, let’s read the last few verses of John 11. John 11:54-57

In these verses, we see a transition take place. The plan to have Jesus killed is in place, and so he lays low until the time of Passover. We see the anticipation build as the early comers to the feast debate whether he’ll actually show up or not. We know that in the following chapter he will come, in fact he’ll make a triumphal entry. But his public ministry of healing has closed, and the focus of John’s gospel will shift very shortly to the words Jesus spoke to his disciples in the upper room. The leaders of the nation have had opportunity after opportunity to hear, to see, and to respond to Jesus. And they’ve squandered these opportunities. Following Jesus would cost them too much. 

I wonder where you are this morning. Are you resistant to acknowledging Jesus’ Lordship over everything in your life? Are there things you are afraid to let go of, which you think you will be best served to ignore Jesus on and walk your own way? I think we see in this passage that to do so is a losing proposition. 

Turn to Jesus, find forgiveness in him, find comfort in him, and rest your identity in him. 2 Corinthians 5:21: For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

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