John 11:45-12:11, What Are Your Intentions?

John chapter 11, repeating from verse 45 to chapter 12, verse 11, hear the word of the

Lord. Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, that's

Jesus, believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.

So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, What are we to do? For this man performs many signs.

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.

But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, 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.

He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation and not for the nation only, but also to gather into the children of God.

Now, excuse me, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. So from that day on, they made plans to put him to death.

Jesus, therefore, no longer walked openly among the Jews, but went from there to the region near the wilderness to a town called

Ephraim, and there he stayed with the disciples. Now, the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the

Passover to purify themselves. They were looking for Jesus and saying to one another as they stood in the temple,

What do you think, that he will not come to the feast at all? Now the chief priests and the

Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he should let them know so that they might arrest him.

Six days before the Passover, Jesus, therefore, came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom

Jesus had raised from the dead. So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at table.

Mary, therefore, took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair.

The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, he who was about to betray him, said,

Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor? He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief and having charge of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

Jesus said, Leave her alone so that she may keep it for the day of my burial. For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.

When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came not only on account of him, but also to see

Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priest made plans to put Lazarus to death as well, because on account of him, many of the

Jews were going away and believing in Jesus. And the Lord had his blessings to the reading of his holy word.

Well, what are your intentions? You know, this used to be the in the old fashioned days of courtship.

This used to be the question that a father might ask some young man coming to see his daughter.

It really wasn't a question. He wasn't expecting a serious answer. It's really a way to focus the young man's mind, you know, a way of saying you better be serious and honorable because I'm watching you and I have a shotgun.

Today, that question is today, that question is sort of a dreaded question for a guy, not from the father anymore, but now from the girl.

And frankly, a girl that probably in many cases he wants to continue to use for sex, but has no intention of a real relationship, much less marriage.

I saw online some guy openly admitting that asking for help, asking how we can answer that question to satisfy the young woman and still get what he wants, which was, he said clearly, which was sex, but without trying to, without having to tie himself down, not commit himself, because honestly his intentions were nothing but sex.

That is to say his intentions were purely about himself, nothing benevolent, nothing caring, nothing but himself.

What are your intentions? Now people ask that about dating because they're vulnerable or the person they love is vulnerable and what they need or what someone they love needs is at the mercy of someone else's often hidden intentions.

Does their purpose for this relationship really have anything to do with caring or you just trying to use them?

In other areas, you know, we kind of know and we should know that people's intentions are not always what they seem.

Surely we know, if we think about it, that McDonald's or Burger King or Wendy's or whatever doesn't really intend to feed you.

That's not what they're about. They intend to make money. Now feeding you is what they do to make money.

If they can make money another way, they'll do it another way, you know, and it's just naive to think it's otherwise. A government official in the

Chicago area whose responsibility was to oversee landlords and tenants and that kind of thing, angrily complained that the apartment owner didn't care about the people, didn't intend on providing good housing, but only, quote, only in making money.

I thought, you know, I wonder, I wonder if that government official, if she stopped getting paid for her government work, would she really care about the needs of the apartment tenants?

Would she be out there intervening for them if she had to do it for free? Or does she only care about her salary?

But that's the world we live in, you know. Our economy, our politics is rigged in a way to make people look like they care about you, like they intend on genuinely serving you.

How can I help you? Ask the smiling, polite counter staff. And you don't say, could you go change my oil?

Unless maybe you're in an oil change place, I guess then you would say. No, they say that so that you'll like them and you'll give them more business so that they'll get paid, which is most the time, often, what their real intentions are.

What are your intentions coming to church? Do you want to love God? Are you full of gratitude for what he's done for you?

And so you desire to worship him? How do you want to pay him off maybe? I think if you do him a favor, an offering, an attendance, he'll do something good for you back.

Or maybe you do it to satisfy someone else. You know, you make them happy by coming here, so that gives you something back.

Do you really want to learn his word? Or do you only want to hear what you already believe, just confirmed, and no amount of scripture is going to change your mind?

What are your intentions? Everything we do begins with intentions.

If you buy lunch or you go on a walk or you call a friend, it starts with an intention.

Your intentions are the seeds of your actions. But like intentions, but like seeds, as you say, intentions have to come from somewhere.

They come from your goals, your desires, what you think your needs are, sense of your needs, what you think you're missing, what you think you lack, or maybe what you believe is a threat to your happiness and how you can deal with that threat.

Or the way to finally find your happiness. If you think happiness is in money, then you will intend to make money.

That will be your intention. And then you will resolve maybe to start a business, to work hard, or maybe to now study hard so you can get a good job later.

If you think, you know, your happiness, your goal is an athletic achievement, you'll then intend to achieve, to win.

And so then you will resolve to practice, to exert yourself, and then the results will come.

If you think it's in the relationship, you'll intend to do whatever you have to do to get that relationship.

And you maybe resolve, what, I don't know, go on a website, get a makeover, or who knows.

I don't know. Intentions lead to resolutions, which lead to results. And we see that here in John, where the story of this gospel, here this passage we read, is transitioning from really the high point of Jesus's ministry in raising

Lazarus, which is, in John, the last of the signs, what John calls the signs, and tell that really what's the great sign, which is the sign of the cross,

Jesus of the cross himself, that's the sign, as he is lifted up and he says he draws all kinds of people to himself.

No one here knows, none of these other people except Jesus here, knows what Jesus intends.

But we see here that God's intentions are directing everything.

We see that in two major parts, the resolution and the results.

Okay, so there are two immediate results of the raising of Lazarus. First, many of the spectators there, those who came out with Mary to the tomb, and then were eyewitnesses of what

Jesus did, they became believers in Jesus. It's a large crowd. Many of them became believers.

But some, second, went running to the Pharisees, telling them what had happened, you know, said, hey, you know, he raised this man from the dead, but many of those other people there, they become believers in him now.

They went to the Pharisees, and that caused a meeting of the council, called the Sanhedrin, to oppose him.

Now, they got a problem on their hands, and they're going to deal with it. Now, you might think, well, why should there be a problem?

They should, he rose, he raised the dead, he's healed the man born blind, he's done other signs, they should say, hey, he's the Messiah, we're going to believe in you too.

Well, no. When people's intentions are not to believe in Jesus, no amount of miracles, or reasoning, or logic, or good examples will get through to them.

People are often just stuck in what they will believe, and no, there's no way of getting through. And notice that the discussion here,

Jesus has reported, they never even consider what should be obvious to us, that the miracles that Jesus is doing have proven that he really is the

Messiah, haven't they? Sure they have. They don't even, it's not even like up for debate.

You know, anyway, so they won't think about it. Instead, they have a meeting with the intention of figuring out what to do about this

Jesus that they will not accept. What are we to do, they ask.

Besides believe in him, which they have no intention of doing, he performs many signs, they say. And you notice, they don't suggest they're fake.

You know, it's not as though, this, how did he do it with this Lazarus? Did he have a drug that put him to sleep for a while, and he, you know, he rigged the whole thing.

No, they don't suggest that he's fooling the people. He's a charlatan. That his enemies, even his enemies here, can't deny the reality of his miracles.

That itself is what in law is called testimony against interest, which is given more weight.

And so this here, that they can't say this is, he put on some trick, is testimony that these miracles were real.

But they're not really concerned about the truth. You know, they're not. They're concerned about what they think is a threat to their lifestyle.

Notice verse 28, if we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him. That sounds good to us, doesn't it?

Okay, well, what's wrong with that? If they cared about the truth, then here they would, hey, let's debate whether he really is the

Messiah. Crowds in Galilee had concluded he was. Remember that in chapter 6, where they were going to make him king?

And he walked away from that. He's healed a man born blind, just previous to this, and now he's raised the dead.

The person with any intention of finding the truth, of seeking God, would just seriously consider these facts, and then come to believe in him.

But the fact is that most people don't really care about truth. I wish they did. They don't.

There's just some people so stuck in what they believe, you can't get them out of it. They care about what they think will help them get what they want.

A young man will often, you know, a young man will often lie about what the young man on their own line was trying to figure out. How can I lie about my intentions in order to keep getting what

I want? They'll lie because they think they know the truth, and it interferes with what he wants.

Here, they have no intention of finding out who Jesus really is. They intend on protecting themselves, their money, their interests, their status.

They reason, if too many people become believers in Jesus, they say, quote, the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.

Notice that the place, probably, I think, probably mean the temple, is our place.

It's not God's temple. The nation is our nation. It's not God's chosen people.

It's not his holy nation. It's our thing. In other words, all of this, this temple, this religion business, this nation, the

Jews, all this stuff, is what gives us our comfortable lifestyle. It's where our money comes from.

Gives us a power and position. They had a lot to lose if Jesus continues to gather believers around him, and they had no intention of losing it.

But they don't yet have a resolution on how to stop him. So then Caiaphas speaks up, rudely.

Imagine a way to begin your presentation. He was high priest that year, and he begins, you all know nothing.

You know nothing at all, you people. He's a practical man, as Caiaphas is. Even if he's the highest religious leader, he's practical.

He's not the kind to get bogged down in long debates over right and wrong, theological discussions of who the messiah is, really is, endless talk, a kind of hand -wringing, worrying about what to do.

He's a nuts and bolts kind of guy. Just get down to what's real, hard truths, and resolve the problem.

If he were in the church business today, he really wouldn't care about, you know, debating whether altar calls or church discipline is a good idea.

You know, what grows the church? What gets people in the chairs giving offerings?

That's what he'd be concerned with. You know, if giving people a sense that they could, quote, do business with God, if they can get the assurance they want by manipulating them with an emotional invitation, patting them on the back, telling them now they're saved because they came forward, then baptizing them right away, that looks like success, that brings in the crowds, we'll do it.

If disciplining them and removing them from membership because they never came faithfully to church after we baptized them so early, they won't repent of their sin.

If that puts them off, that smacks of being, you know, that's too controlling.

It just deters people. They don't want to be involved in that. If it looks like failure, then you have to trim your membership list when he gets smaller.

That's it, and it's a downer. I'm not going to do that. Are you kidding? What's in it for me?

Caiaphas is a man of action. The rest of the council is a loss of what to do. To him, it's obvious. If Jesus is going to cause us to lose our position, our perks, our livelihood, then let's be real.

Jesus has to go. That's just the way it is. Nothing personal. It's just business. He says in verse 50, nor do you understand that it is better for you.

Notice the way he puts it. You Pharisees, you Sadducees, you council, it's better for you.

He's appealing to their self -interest. What he knows is really their intention to protect.

What's in it for them? Better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.

The council agreed and thus was born. That's how the resolution that Jesus must die came about.

Now, we might like to think the plot to kill Jesus, you know, kind of was concocted by this satanic, this perverse group of immoral people who were determined to stop good from winning over evil, who were just enraged by goodness.

But here we see the resolution to kill Jesus arises out of the same intention that makes a man use a woman, the same selfishness masquerading as service.

Our economy, our politics is just full of the same what's in it for me mentality that makes a shopkeeper say, oh, so nicely, how may

I serve you? When in reality, they're just trying to separate you from your money. The resolution that Jesus must die comes from a committee of selfish men trying to hold on to what's theirs.

But that's not all that's going on here. Those were the human intentions, just really run -of -the -mill self -centeredness.

But behind those intentions were God's intentions. Even Caiaphas's, it's hard to say, very words, his intentional appeal to the council's self -interest, even those were intended by God.

In verse 51, we're told that he didn't say it is better that one man should die for the people.

He didn't say that of his own accord. Oh, it's what he intended to say.

Don't get it wrong. He said it fully of his own free will. He wasn't a puppet being overpowered.

What's happening to me? I'm saying words I don't mean to say. No, he wasn't being overpowered. He wasn't a mouthpiece for a force that he couldn't control.

No, he said what he meant. It meant what he said. But he said it, John says, because being high priest, he prophesied.

He didn't know he was prophesying. He thought he was just talking cold hard reality for those worry warts on the council, these silly weak men who can't figure out what needs to be done.

That's what he thought, but he was prophesying. He said exactly what the Spirit intended him to say.

Through Caiaphas, the unintentional prophet, for a moment, we learned three things about what

God is doing. First, about inspiration. Second, about salvation.

And third, about intention, God's intention. First, the inspiration, particularly the inspiration of Scripture.

Now, people today often say that Scripture can only mean what the people who spoke at that time in that context historically literally meant to say.

There's even a term for historical grammatical method. Isaiah could not have known that he was prophesying about Jesus when he said that the servant of the

Lord will be despised and rejected by man, by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Since he couldn't know that, they say, well, he must have been talking about someone in his own day.

David couldn't have known he was describing the crucifixion when he wrote, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

All my bones are out of joint. They have pierced my hands and feet. You know, that it happens to sound a lot like the crucifixion must be, then, he couldn't, since he couldn't have known, it must be a coincidence.

They, this way they reason. Isaac couldn't have known that he was describing the church when he said that Jacob, the original

Israel, was to become a, quote, company of nations. So it couldn't be. That can't be the meaning, they say.

But here we see that while Caiaphas literally only meant to make a political statement, you know, he meant to say if we don't kill

Jesus, we'll lose our nation to the Romans. The spirit who was inspiring him super intended him to say something much greater.

Peter says that no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men speak as God, speak from God as they're carried along by the

Holy Spirit. Here, Caiaphas prophesies. He's carried along by the spirit to mean much more than he intended.

Second, the spirit intends to show us through Caiaphas about salvation.

How does it happen? We're saved not by our own effort or ethnicity, but by the sacrifice of Christ.

What is called, in theological terms, the vicarious atonement. Vicarious is not a word we use a lot.

Vicarious means the taking of, taking the place of another person. A vicarious person is serving as a substitute.

So the vicarious atonement is that Jesus stood in our place. He took our punishment so that now

God has no punishment left. For us, not for his people. So since he has none left for us, we're reconciled.

There's nothing between us and God because Jesus took it all the offense. He was our substitute. He stood in our place to take the punishment we deserved.

So here through Caiaphas, he is saying that it's better that he die for, and notice that twice in the verses 50 and 51, the word for is used and it's not a because for, it means this word for in Greek literally means on behalf of.

Okay, on behalf of, instead of, or rather than, as the substitute for. Like the

Passover lambs coming near the Passover here. The Passover lambs were slaughtered on the day of preparation before the

Passover on behalf of the person who offered them. The same day, and they happened to be offered here on the same day

Jesus was crucified. In the Passover, the lamb would die to take away the wrath of God so that wrath would pass over the people it was on behalf of, in place of.

So here, Caiaphas is saying it's better that one man die on behalf of the people.

John says he prophesied that Jesus would die on behalf of the nation.

Third, finally, what was God's intention of sending Christ? Now some say

God intended to set up an earthly kingdom if only the Jews would accept Jesus. That was his intention, an earthly kingdom.

He reigned from Jerusalem, but in chapter six, that's exactly what the Jews wanted to do, and Jesus fled from that.

Some say that God's intention was first about the nation, about the literal Israelites, that the

Gentiles were kind of an afterthought after the Jewish thing didn't work out. But here we see that God's intention was that Jesus would die for the nation.

Here, those who believe in Jesus from the literal Jewish nation, and then in verse 52, and not for the nation only.

Not only for the Jewish believers, in other words, in Jesus, but also, notice that but also, in verse 52, it's a strong contrast to the idea that it was just for the literal nation.

But also, something else, to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.

Jesus would die to assemble all the people of God from all nations into one.

And this really continues, and we're in a little disadvantage because we picked up the chapter 11 after like two years breaking

John, but this continues a theme that was just in the previous chapter, in chapter 10. If we had been reading straight through, this would bring it back to our memory.

Aha, I remember just previously, not long before this, chapter 10. In verse 15, where Jesus says,

I am the good shepherd, famous words, what else does he say? He says that he lays down his life for, same word by the way, on behalf of, for the sheep.

Now, who are the sheep? He tells us, not just from the lost sheep of the house of Israel, in other words, not just from this sheepfold,

Jesus says, but in chapter 10, verse 16, I have other sheep, not in this sheepfold, who are not of this fold, not

Israelites, who are not Jewish, not from this nation. He says, I must, notice that, must, it's a, it's a burden, it's a responsibility, it's a, it's something he's absolutely intent on doing,

I must bring them also, so that there, so this is the reason, there will be one flock and one shepherd.

He's the good shepherd. Jesus will gather his lost sheep from Europeans, from Africans, from Asians, and he'll gather them along with the

Jewish sheep, so that there will be one flock. Now, back here in chapter 11, very next chapter, there's really no long break, like we just took.

The same theme, this time is prophesied unintentionally through Caiaphas. Jesus is to give his life for the nation, which is not just the literal

Jews, but all of God's people, who are scattered throughout all other nations, scattered among the

Japanese, the Ethiopians, the Americans, the Mexicans, the Chinese, all kinds. God's children are out there, scattered among them, and Jesus died on their behalf to save them and to gather them into one people.

There is only one people of God. There's not a white church or a black church or a Chinese church. There is, in the words of the

Nicene Creed, the one holy universal apostolic church. There's not an earthly people of God and a heavenly one,

Israel versus the church. That doesn't make any sense, first, because church literally just means the assembly.

That's what the word means. It's the gathering, the assembly of God's people, and if you're not in the gathering, you're not one of God's people.

What sense does it make? Are you gathered with the people but not one? No. Here, Jesus says that he's the good shepherd.

In chapter 10, he's the good shepherd who will gather his people into one flock. Chapter 11, where we're at now, the

Holy Spirit says through Caiaphas that Jesus is dying on behalf of his people who are scattered out there to gather them into one.

Paul, in Ephesians chapter 2, says that we Gentile believers were formerly alienated from Israel, alienated from God's people, but now we have been brought near by the blood of Christ that the wall that divided us from Israel, the true

Israel, has been broken down so that we are, quote, one new man in place of the two.

I don't know how it gets any clearer than that. In Romans chapter 11, he compares the people of God to an olive tree. It's one olive tree.

If you believe in Jesus, even if you're not physically Israelite, you are grafted into that tree. If you don't believe in Jesus, you are cut out.

If Jews later come to believe in Jesus, and we hope they do, they will be grafted back in, but there is only now and always one tree.

So, Peter writes in 1 Peter to what he calls, begins 1 Peter, says, to the elect exiles of the dispersion, in other words, the children of God scattered abroad, you are the chosen race, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession.

One flock, one tree, one nation, one people. That was

God's intention, his resolution from the beginning. Intentions lead to resolutions, which lead to results.

So, we have the human resolution to put Jesus to death and the divine resolution for Jesus to die on behalf of his people, to make of them one.

God's resolution is using the human resolution to achieve the results he wants.

What are the results of the resolution? Well, first, the human resolution results in three things. First, waiting, second, anointing, and third, plotting.

The first result is waiting. Now, Jesus probably learned, although it doesn't say clearly, but he seems to have learned about the resolution, and so he goes back out of Judea again, further north.

As he said before in John, he went to his mother. My time has not yet come.

Here, his time has not quite yet come. Coming soon, he's coming with this

Passover. That's what he's waiting for, waiting for the Passover. As it came near, people came early to Jerusalem to prepare themselves, to purify themselves, and as they're doing that, they were looking for Jesus, talking about where he is, is he going to show up?

They were waiting for him to come. The word was out from the council to tell them, to tell them, the council, that they see him so they could arrest him.

So, Jesus is waiting for the Passover. They're waiting to catch him. Then, the anointing.

Notice chapter 12, verse 2, verse 1, excuse me, the countdown, just six days before the

Passover, that last week, five days before Jesus died on the day of preparation, the clock is ticking down.

Jesus comes back to Jerusalem, to Bethany, just two miles away, where he was, where he had raised

Lazarus. His followers, you know, his friends there, gave him a... Notice, by the way, in verse 1, it says, therefore, you know, previous, the council is out to arrest him, so they might kill him.

In chapter 1, therefore, he came back. He came back because he knew that they had laid a trap for him, that they wanted to kill him.

Anyway, his followers in there, when he came back to Bethany, which is just two miles away from Jerusalem, they gave a dinner for him.

Martha served, as she likes to do, probably puts on a good meal. Lazarus was a guest too, and then comes

Mary. Remember, Mary is the one who chose to listen to Jesus. Mary's the one with whom

Jesus wept, and if you wonder, you got to wonder, what did

Jesus raising her brother do to her? Well, here we see.

She took a flask. They call it pure nard. They say it's extracted from flowers from Nepal, you know, on the other side of India from Israel, and then it's imported all the way to Israel.

Verse 5 says it's worth 300 denarii. Now, a denarii is worth about a day's wage.

It's about your day's pay for a laborer, so 300, if you say, take a day off a week,

Sabbath day to rest, the 300 denarii would be worth about a year's work. So, let's say it's worth about $30 ,000 today in our money.

Now, imagine then, imagine taking a gift of $30 ,000. It's probably something really valuable.

This is something you kind of keep, just take a pinch of just occasionally to use for, you know, maybe on yourself, maybe on something else.

It's supposed to probably last you for years, if not your whole lifetime. Taking that out, $30 ,000 gift, and you just pour it all in one moment, just one effusion of love.

Now, normally guests in that culture get their feet washed with water. She thought that that nearly, that wasn't nearly good enough, so she reached instead for the most expensive liquid she could find, a perfumed ointment.

Just made a wonderful fragrance. It's an extravagant gift, a lavish display.

You could smell this sensational aroma, just the fragrance of it all through the house, just filled the place.

So magnificent, so pleasing, you'd never forget it.

And then she's just so out of herself. She's just really uncaring. She's not putting on a show, I don't think, for the people around her.

She just, she doesn't care. You're not conscious of what, how she might appear, like the sinful woman did at the

Pharisee's house in Luke chapter 7. Just like that, she bends down and uses her hair to wipe

Jesus's feet. Now, what did she intend? Just to express her heart, her love, her worship.

One of the disciples had other intentions, and they sound noble, don't they? People often claim their intentions are good.

They care about the poor. So let's start these programs over which

I will be employed. Imagine what you could do with $30 ,000 for the poor. To waste it all, what a flamboyant expression of love.

Isn't that, isn't that squandering? Isn't that unreasonable? Isn't that poor stewardship?

So he speaks up. Why was this ointment sold for $30 ,000, given to the poor?

That's what we're about, after all, isn't it? Justice for the poor. Sell all that you have, give to the poor. Jesus told another man, why aren't we doing that?

The disciple was Judas, and his intentions were not pure. He was the treasurer of their group, and he would often help himself to their money.

You know, an extra 300 denarii could give him a lot of opportunities to indulge himself. And so Jesus speaks up in her defense, leave her alone, he says.

This anointing, he says, and I'm paraphrasing, this was intended for my burial.

Intended by who? You know, the disciples surely didn't know that Jesus was going to his death, and since that, since they didn't, it's doubtful

Mary did. Her intention wasn't to prepare him for burial. Her intention was to show how much

Jesus was worth to her. She was willing to pour out $30 ,000 worth of extravagance on him because that's how valuable

Jesus was to her. That's her intention. Jesus says it was intended for his burial.

Intended by who? God super intended to use her lavish gift to prepare

Jesus for what's coming in just five days. Once again, God's super intending hand guides people to do or say what is in God's intention for his results.

Jesus says, the poor you always have with you. Sure, maybe that large gift could have been able to help a few people for a while, but what he is being anointed to do will help many for eternity.

You do not always have me, he says. Now he's hinting at his death that they have no ideas coming so soon in five short days.

So the results of the resolution, man's resolution that Jesus must die on behalf of the nation and God's resolution that he will die as the

Passover lamb for all his people of all nations, the results are first that Jesus is waiting for the

Passover to be the Passover lamb and then the anointing from Mary and finally the plotting.

Large crowds came to see Jesus and Lazarus and many of them were believing in Jesus. It says it says they were going away in verse 11.

That is, they were breaking with the religion of the Pharisees. They weren't listening to them anymore away from their leaders to following Jesus.

The people saw Lazarus as proof that Jesus was the Messiah. The leaders could have seen the same thing if they hadn't already surrendered to self -interest, to protecting their place, you know, the temple and their religion that paid their bills, that gave them their nice life.

They were going to protect that at all costs. Remember Caiaphas, the practical man, had scolded them for not seeing what cold hard reality demanded.

We got to face facts, he said. Now they resolve to follow it. They were in the grip of expediency.

The ends justify the means. We got to do what we got to do, they said. Whatever it takes to achieve our goal, we'll do it.

So having already resolved to kill Jesus, now they resolve to kill Lazarus too. They won't consider what his being alive proves.

They can't explain it, but they can do away with it.

So they are swept along to the result that Lazarus must also die.

That's the result of their resolution that arose from their selfish intentions.

Now we might think, I'd never do anything like that. I would never intend to harm someone like that.

I don't intend to anyone harm, but neither did they, not at first. They intended only to protect what's theirs, their place, their nation.

It even sounds noble. They're in public service, they would say. They're thinking about, they would claim, what's best for the people, and their reasoning is entirely practical.

They don't sound hateful, do they? Think about it. They're not fuming with rage. They're not sticking needles in their

Jesus doll or throwing darts at pictures of him. They're not seething with a desire to do him harm any way they can, for any reason they can.

No, their intention is first that they would claim for the nation to keep it safe, and even if, okay, that's a smokescreen.

Their real intention is to keep the money flowing their way, to hold on to their cozy lifestyle, their perks, their position.

Okay, sure, but that's not so bad. I mean, it's kind of normal. That's life, right?

That's the way the world works. Everybody's looking out for number one, right? It's too bad, they may say, that we have to make some hard decisions.

Somebody has to be sacrificed for the public welfare, they might say. So, let's be real, Caiaphas says.

This Jesus must die. Now, Lazarus must die. There's no end to it, really, of who they'd kill, because of where their intentions began.

But human intentions aren't everything. Sure, intentions lead to resolutions, which lead to results.

They thought the result would be that they would be able to keep their place and their nation forever.

But really, it was the opposite. The decision that they make here results in 40 years in their place and their nation being destroyed.

The decision they made resulted in exactly what they were trying to avoid. The Lord had other intentions.

He resolved from the foundation of the world that the Lamb would be slain to take away the sin of His people scattered throughout the world.

The result of that resolution, God's resolution from eternity past, was that in just a few days, from Mary anointing

Jesus here, that He would be lifted up on a cross. He would gather all

His people from all nations around Him with that. The result of the

Lord's intention to save His people, the result of the resolution to lift

Jesus up on the cross, the result is your salvation.

And the result for you now is, like Mary, you can pour out your life as an extravagant gift at Jesus's feet.