Daily Gospel Reflection
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March 27, 2021
Many of the Jews who had come to Mary
and seen what Jesus had done began to believe in him.
But some of them went to the Pharisees
and told them what Jesus had done.
So the chief priests and the Pharisees
convened the Sanhedrin and said,
“What are we going to do?
This man is performing many signs.
If we leave him alone, all will believe in him,
and the Romans will come
and take away both our land and our nation.”
But one of them, Caiaphas,
who was high priest that year, said to them,
“You know nothing,
nor do you consider that it is better for you
that one man should die instead of the people,
so that the whole nation may not perish.”
He did not say this on his own,
but since he was high priest for that year,
he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation,
and not only for the nation,
but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God.
So from that day on they planned to kill him.
So Jesus no longer walked about in public among the Jews,
but he left for the region near the desert,
to a town called Ephraim,
and there he remained with his disciples.
Now the Passover of the Jews was near,
and many went up from the country to Jerusalem
before Passover to purify themselves.
They looked for Jesus and said to one another
as they were in the temple area, “What do you think?
That he will not come to the feast?”
“So from that day on they planned to kill him.” This line in today’s gospel chilled me as I read it. We all know that there was an intentional, organized plan to put Jesus to death, but this reading shows us just how premeditated and calculated the effort was.
Surprisingly, that was not the most impactful line from today’s reading for me. The high priest Caiaphas says, “it is better for you that one man should die instead of the people.” He is talking about Jesus’ death so that the Romans will not take land and power from Israel. I had to read that exchange a few times to really understand what Caiaphas is referring to and what his intentions are. But as I read it over and over I realized that Caiaphas, in his plan to hand over Jesus for execution, unintentionally articulates the higher purpose of Jesus’ sacrifice.
“it is better for you that one man should die instead of the people.”
What Caiaphas fails to see is that Jesus does not die to save the Jewish people from the power of Rome; Jesus dies to save all people from the power of death.
At the end of this gospel, many people wondered if Jesus would show up for the Passover feast when he is in so much personal danger. The next chapter of the Gospel of John (12:12) gives us the answer to that question, an answer we will hear tomorrow for Palm Sunday Mass. He enters Jerusalem to great acclaim. The “hosannas” of the crowd resound as they lay palm branches before him. Jesus knows that he is approaching his own death and yet he comes anyway. Now we know why, in the words of Caiaphas, “one man should die.” For our sake.
Prayer
Father, your beloved Son Jesus was anointed in the Spirit and brought your healing love to our world. We pray that Christ, the light of the world, will sustain us always in faith, hope, and love. Amen.
Saint of the Day
St. Rupert was the first bishop of Salzburg, who, in some legends, is credited with giving the city its name.
Rupert was born in the late seventh century, to a part of the French imperial family. Little is known about his early life, but, like many sons of noblemen, entered the clergy. Rupert was elected bishop of Worms, a German city that was an important seat of power in the Carolingian dynasty.
At first, Rupert's flock welcomed his presence as a caring and faithful bishop. All too soon, however, the relationship between Rupert and the people of Worms soured. Conveniently, a Bavarian Duke, Theodo, asked for Rupert to come south to his palace at Regensburg to come spread Christianity to the diverse tribes he ruled over in Bavaria.
Rupert is often credited with baptizing Theodo, and officially welcoming him into the Church, as the seventeenth-century painting featured today depicts. And with Theodo's blessing, he began his missionary work among the Bavarian tribes.
Rupert found that Bavaria was still, in many ways, truly a wilderness with lots of outbreaks of violence. Thus, Rupert traveled to an old ruined Roman city and renamed it "Salzburg." Rupert founded and rebuilt several different monasteries in the area and lay the foundations of the Salzburg Cathedral. Where, a little over a thousand years later, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was baptized.
Rupert died in 710, and there's some dispute whether he had returned back to Worms at the time of his death or whether he died in Salzburg. His successor, Bishop Vergilius of Salzburg, interred his remains in the newly-finished Salzburg Cathedral in 774.
Rupert is known as the "Apostle to the Bavarians" and is a patron saint of Salzburg, Austria, and salt miners.
St. Rupert, first Bishop of Salzburg—pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image of St. Rupert of Salzburg is in the public domain. Last accessed February 6, 2025 on Wikimedia Commons.
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