Confronting the evil cynicism of authoritarian rulers

The Sanhedrin plot to kill Jesus

A reflection at Morning Worship with the Community of Brendan the Navigator on Tuesday 8th March 2025

A brief reflection on that reading from John 11:45-57.

The context of the reading is this: Jesus has just brought his friend Lazarus back from the dead. Standing in front of his rock-cut tomb, ‘(Jesus) cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth.’ Because of this, many people believed in Jesus, that he had the power to raise the dead. His following was growing. But others reported what Jesus was doing to the authorities.

We have just heard, in John’s words, how the leaders of the Jewish client state in Jerusalem responded to Jesus’s growing reputation and influence among the people. They called a council of the elders, the Sanhedrin, to decide what to do about Jesus. They feared they might lose their own power, that the Romans might be provoked to destroy the Temple and their Jewish state. The high priest Caiaphas takes charge. He declares, ‘“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” … So from that day on they planned to put him to death.’

The Sanhedrin’s evil cynicism is breathtaking. They resolve to kill Jesus, an innocent man, not so much for the good of the nation, but because they fear he threatens their own power and privileges. The irony is that the Temple and the Jewish client state will indeed be destroyed by the Romans after a Jewish revolt a little over a generation later.

We see the same evil cynicism at work today, as authoritarian rulers seek to increase their power, and feather their own nests. We see it in Russia, where Putin’s regime marks  opponents for assassination, and hunts them down. We see it in the United States of America, where Trump vows retribution, and seeks vengeance on all who oppose him. And lest we think such things cannot happen in Ireland, remember the cynical murders of innocents carried out by paramilitary groups in the name of their cause.

News of the Sanhedrin’s plans spread and reached Jesus. We are told that he ‘no longer walked openly among the Jews’, but he sought refuge near the wilderness with his disciples. Jesus surely knows that the time is coming soon when he must go up to Jerusalem to confront the Sanhedrin. As Passover approaches everyone is wondering whether Jesus would show his face in Jerusalem, because the Sanhedrin ‘had given orders that anyone who knew where Jesus was should let them know, so that they might arrest him’.

We know how it will end. Jesus’s friend and disciple Judas will betray him for 30 pieces of silver. Under arrest, Jesus will stand before that same Sanhedrin in a sham trial with a predetermined outcome. He will be condemned to death and die on a cross, guarded by Roman soldiers. But on the third day, Jesus will rise from the dead, defeating the evil cynicism of his time, and of all times. By imitating him, and with his help, we can and will defeat the evil cynicism we see today. We must take up our cross and follow him.

Finding life by losing it

Address given at Templederry & St Mary's Nenagh on Sunday 3rd September 2023, the 13th after Trinity

‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling-block for me!’

What a shock it must have been for Peter to hear Jesus address him in these cutting words, as recorded by Matthew (16:21-28) in the reading we have just heard.

Peter had been the first to say, ‘You are the Messiah’, when Jesus had asked ‘Who do you say that I am?’ But now, ‘Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem … and be killed’. Peter is shocked by Jesus’ words. Like most Jews of his day, he expected the promised Messiah to come as a great conqueror to destroy the gentiles – including the hated Romans - and to rule over a revived Kingdom of Israel. The Messiah would vanquish his foes, not be killed by them! So Peter remonstrates with Jesus: ‘Look here, Jesus, that can’t be right!’ he says - or words to that effect. Then Jesus turns on Peter and likens him to Satan.

Why was Jesus so hard on Peter, his great friend and disciple? Jesus knew that God’s way was not the way of violent earthly conquest, but the way of self-sacrificing love. He needed to teach Peter and the other disciples to change their thinking. I feel sure Jesus didn’t want to die a painful death, but he must have realised this was the inevitable outcome of what God called him to do. He was determined to face it bravely. But Peter tries to argue him out of it, in an echo of Satan’s tempting in the wilderness.

Isn’t this often the way it is? When we’ve made up our minds what is the right thing to do, even at a cost to ourselves, our friends and loved ones may try to talk us out of it. The tempter can be the very person dearest to us! Yet we must not allow even the pleading voice of love to stop us from doing God’s will. This surely is what Jesus felt that day – no wonder he responded as he did.

Jesus immediately seized the moment to show the disciples his way, the way of the cross, how to find life by losing it. It is worth reflecting on his words, which go to the very heart of our Christian faith.

 ‘If any want to become my followers’, says Jesus, ‘let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’

Jesus’s honesty is startling, isn’t it? No one can ever say Jesus lures his disciples to follow him on false pretences! He does not offer them – he does not offer us - an easy life or a comfortable way to God. Like other great leaders, he calls us as Churchill did to ‘blood, toil, tears and sweat’. But again like a real leader, he does not call us to do anything more than he was prepared to do himself.

First Jesus calls us to ‘deny ourselves’, to say no to our own selfish instincts. We must do God’s will, not our own will, to the best of our ability, in all things.

But more than simply practicing self-denial, Jesus tells us we must be prepared to take real risks – even to risk our very lives – if that is what God, through our conscience, tells us is right.

‘For those who want to save their life will lose it’, says Jesus, ‘and those who lose their life for my sake, will find it.’

Jesus focuses our attention with this great paradox: to save life is to lose it, and vice-versa.

The very essence of life is in risking it and spending it, not in saving it and hoarding it. If we live selfishly, always thinking first of our own security, profit and comfort, not of others, then we are losing life all the time. But if we spend life for others, if we follow Jesus’s way of loving self-sacrifice, we are winning life all the time.

The truth is that the only way we can find a life that matters is by losing it in the love of God and the love of our neighbours. That is the way of Jesus, that is the way of God, and that is the way of happiness too.

‘For what will it profit them’, says Jesus, ‘if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

I’m sure you, like me, can think of people who are outwardly hugely successful, but who in another sense are living a life that is not worth living. In business, they may have sacrificed honour for profit. In politics, they may have sacrificed principle for popularity. In their personal lives, they may have sacrificed their deepest relationships for their own ambitions or desires. Whatever the reason, such people are usually not comfortable inside their own skin. They often regret their bad choices.

It is a matter of values really - Jesus is asking us where our values lie. As he says elsewhere, you should store up your treasures in heaven, not on earth, ‘for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also’. Our values should be God’s values, as Jesus reveals them to us, not the false values of worldly success.

‘For the Son of Man’, says Jesus, ‘is to come with his angels in the glory of the Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done.’

Jesus knows that many people do not like what he says and how he behaves. He stands up for the poor, the despised, the rejected, and he befriends sinners. And the scribes and the Pharisees – the pious and the respectable - attack him for it. With these words Jesus warns his disciples that they will be judged for their actions.

It is a simple truth: we cannot expect to share with Jesus the joy of shaping the world into the place God means it to be, if we are not prepared to act on Jesus’s message of loving self-sacrifice.

So, to sum up, when I reflect on these words recorded by Matthew, I hear Jesus’s voice calling me. Calling me down through the ages:

• to be ready to take risks to do God’s will, rather than my own;
• to find true life and happiness by losing my life in the service of God and others;
• to live my life by God’s values, not the false values of worldly success.
• to follow joyfully Jesus’s way of loving self-sacrifice.

Let us pray for the grace to respond to Jesus’s voice:

O God,
whose Son has shown the way of the cross

to be the way of life:

transform and renew our minds

that we may not be conformed to this world

but may offer ourselves wholly to you

as a living sacrifice

through Jesus Christ our Saviour;

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever. Amen

 

Finding life by losing it.

Address given at St Mary's, Nenagh on Sunday 30th August 2020, the 12th after Trinity.

‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling-block for me!’

What a shock it must have been for Peter to hear Jesus address him in these cutting words, as recorded by Matthew (16:21-28) in the reading we have just heard.

Peter had been the first to say, ‘You are the Messiah’, when Jesus had asked ‘Who do you say that I am?’ But now, ‘Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem … and be killed’. Peter is shocked by Jesus’s words. Like most Jews of his day, he expected the promised Messiah to come as a great conqueror to destroy the gentiles – including the hated Romans - and to rule over a revived Kingdom of Israel. The Messiah would vanquish his foes, not be killed by them! So Peter remonstrates with Jesus: ‘Look here, Jesus, that can’t be right!’ he says - or words to that effect. Then Jesus turns on Peter and calls him Satan.

Why was Jesus so hard on Peter, his great friend and disciple? Jesus knew that God’s way was not the way of violent earthly conquest, but the way of self-sacrificing love. He needed to teach Peter and the other disciples to change their thinking. I feel sure Jesus didn’t want to die a painful death, but he must have realised this was the inevitable outcome of what God called him to do. He was determined to face it bravely. But Peter tries to argue him out of it, in an echo of Satan tempting him in the wilderness.

Isn’t this often the way it is? When we’ve made up our minds what is the right thing to do, even at a cost to ourselves, our friends and loved ones may try to talk us out of it. The tempter can be the very person dearest to us! Yet we must not allow even the pleading voice of love to stop us from doing God’s will. This surely is what Jesus felt that day – no wonder he responded as he did.

Jesus immediately seized the moment to show the disciples his way, the way of the cross, how to find life by losing it. It is worth reflecting on his words, which go to the very heart of our Christian faith.

 ‘If any want to become my followers’, says Jesus, ‘let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’

Jesus’s honesty is startling isn’t it? No one can ever say Jesus lures his disciples to follow him on false pretences! He does not offer them – or us - an easy life or a comfortable way to God. Like other great leaders, he calls us as Churchill did to ‘blood, toil, tears and sweat’. But again like a real leader, he does not call us to do anything more than he was prepared to do himself.

First Jesus calls us to ‘deny ourselves’, to say no to our own selfish instincts. We must do God’s will, not our own will, to the best of our ability, in all things.

But more than simply practicing self-denial, Jesus tells us we must be prepared to take real risks – even to risk our very lives – if that is what God, through our conscience and the prompting of the Spirit, tells us is right.

‘For those who want to save their life will lose it’, says Jesus, ‘and those who lose their life for my sake, will find it.’

Jesus focuses our attention with this great paradox: to save life is to lose it, and vice-versa.

The very essence of life is in risking it and spending it, not in saving it and hoarding it. If we live selfishly, always thinking first of our own security, profit and comfort, not of others, then we are losing life all the time. But if we spend life for others, if we follow Jesus’s way of loving self-sacrifice, we are winning life all the time.

The truth is that the only way we can find a life that matters is by losing it in the love of God and the love of our neighbours. That is the way of Jesus, that is the way of God, and that is the way of happiness too.

‘For what will it profit them’, says Jesus, ‘if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

I’m sure you, like me, can think of people who are outwardly hugely successful, but who in another sense are living a life that is not worth living. In business, they may have sacrificed honour for profit. In politics, they may have sacrificed principle for popularity. In their personal lives, they may have sacrificed their deepest relationships for their own ambitions or desires. Whatever the reason, such people are usually not comfortable inside their own skin, and often live to regret their bad choices. We have been watching a few squirm on the media over recent days.

It is a matter of values really - Jesus is asking us where our values lie. As he says elsewhere, you should store up your treasures in heaven, not on earth, ‘for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also’. Our values should be God’s values, as Jesus reveals them to us, not the false values of worldly success.

‘For the Son of Man’, says Jesus, ‘is to come with his angels in the glory of the Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done.’

Jesus knows that many people do not like what he says nor how he behaves. He stands up for the poor, the despised and the rejected, and he befriends sinners. And the scribes and the Pharisees – the pious and the respectable - attack him for it. But Jesus also knows that he is doing God’s will.

With these words Jesus warns his disciples that in the end they will be judged before him for what they have done, both the good and the bad.

It is a simple truth: we cannot expect to share with Jesus the joy of shaping the world into the place God means it to be, if we are not prepared to act on his message of loving self-sacrifice.

So to sum up, when I reflect on these words recorded by Matthew, I hear Jesus’s voice calling me down through the ages:

·         calling me to be ready to take risks to do God’s will, rather than my own;

·         calling me to find true life and happiness by losing my life in the service of God and others;

·         calling me to live my life by God’s values, not the false values of worldly success.

·         calling me to follow joyfully, Jesus’s way of loving self-sacrifice.

Let us pray for the grace to respond to Jesus’s call:

O God,

whose Son has shown the way of the cross

to be the way of life:

transform and renew our minds

that we may not be conformed to this world

but may offer ourselves wholly to you

as a living sacrifice

through Jesus Christ our Saviour;

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever. Amen