At-one-ment

John 11:45-50New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

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.”

There's a lot to unpack here.  Caiaphas' words are prophetic beyond his understanding, and come to us with dual meaning.

For Caiaphas better one should die than many should die.  There's fear here of the Romans and what they had the power to do if things with Jesus got out of control.

The world still pretty much works this way.  "Better one man should perish" is how we might remember the translation of this passage.  I've seen lots of movies over the years where this was how things went down.  Think Bruce Willis in Armageddon.

A sacrificial lamb as it were.

Which brings us to the second meaning, the one beyond Caiaphas' understanding.  That Jesus did literally die for the many.

Now there's lots of theories of atonement.  My favorite definition of atonement comes from David Lose, who reminds us that atonement literally means the words that it spells out:  "at-one-ment."  The making of one.  That's what Jesus does on the cross.

Beyond that, you'll get lots of reasons and definitions and explanations of atonement: of how Jesus saves the many on the cross.

I'm not going to get into those here, but I encourage you to think about it and wonder about it.  How did God turn an act of brutal terror into a life-saving force of love?  Sacrificial lambs were big in Biblical times, but not so much these days, and yet God is still using the cross to make us one with both God and each other.  The cross still saves.  And yet it's still, as Paul tells us, "foolish."

It still turns death upside down and on it's head.

Caiaphas could not know that what he and the Temple elite and the Romans meant for death, God would mean for life.  

That at-one-ment was just beginning...

God of one and many, thank you.  I can't possibly comprehend the mystery of my salvation by your cross, but I am so grateful that you are ever reaching out to pull me to you and to pull this world together.  Amen.