“Desperate times call for desperate measures” goes the aphorism. When a person finds himself backed against a wall, with no way of escape, he might do things he would otherwise never consider doing. We must keep this in mind as we consider the involvement of Caiaphas and his father-in-law Annas in the crucifixion of Jesus. 

We Christians have had a tendency of portraying these two men as evil or weak or vengeful, people who target Jesus because they were jealous of his increasing popularity. And as a result, even non-Christians who know something about Caiaphas think of him as someone keenly concerned about his popularity ratings. 

In the words of the song ‘This Jesus Must Die’ from the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar by  Andrew Lloyd Webber: ‘How can we stop him? His glamour increases by leaps every minute, he’s top of the polls.”

But if we stick to what scripture tells us about Caiaphas we will find a different picture. First, we must understand that Caiaphas was not a common Jew who happened to be in an influential position. He was the High Priest, which at every point since Aaron became the first High Priest was not just a religious position. It was a thoroughly political position. 

This does not mean that the High Priest indulged in what we nowadays disparagingly call ‘politics’ – or perhaps even ‘dirty politics’. If the position was a political position, he would automatically be involved in politics! 

This simply means that, unlike the decisions made by a commoner, the decisions made by Caiaphas affected the lives of all the Jews in Ancient Palestine.

Moreover, under Roman occupation, the High Priest, as the head of the ruling body, known as the Sanhedrin, was responsible for keeping the volatile Jews under check.

In the passage we read we see this concern at the forefront of the arguments made by the group headed by Caiaphas. They say, “Here is this man performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.”

They agree that Jesus is performing signs, meaning that he is doing something genuine, things that point beyond themselves. If this continues, they argue, too many will get convinced about what Jesus was saying. They do not object to this in principle. What they have a problem with is what would happen if Jesus gained too large a following.

Their final argument is ‘the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.’ Entrusted with the welfare of the Jewish people and the symbols of Jewish religious life, primarily the temple, the group headed by Caiaphas display exactly those concerns. They are not against Jesus as a matter of principle, but because of what his increasing popularity might imply for the Jewish nation.

Once we understand this we can understand also why Caiaphas allowed Jesus to be tried illegally. There are many aspects of illegality in Jesus’ trial but we need not go there. It is just that Caiaphas found himself backed against a wall. These were desperate times for him. And so he accepted desperate measures.

So what was it that Caiaphas feared Jesus might do? Look where John places the passage we just read. It is right after Jesus raises Lazarus. And in chapter 12 we read that the chief priest, Caiaphas presumably one of them, wanted to get rid of Lazarus so that there would be no evidence that someone had been raised from the dead.

Something about the raising of Lazarus had pushed Caiaphas against the wall, forcing him to resort to desperate measures. 

Caiaphas believed that Jesus could do something that would bring the Romans into Jerusalem in force and make them drive the Jews out.

It is no coincidence that Jesus was crucified during the Passover festival. The Passover was the prime time for Jewish rebellions. And in an attempt to dissuade the Jews from rebelling, the Romans scheduled a lot of crucifixions during the festival. This was their way of showing the Jews who was in charge. Obviously, at least from the Roman perspective, the Romans were in charge because they wielded the power of death over the Jews.

But what if….

But what if Jesus decided to repeat what he had done with Lazarus? Remember, this is the third recorded occasion on which Jesus raised someone from the dead – Jairus’ daughter and the Nain widow’s son being the other two. This meant that raising people from the dead was no fluke as far as Jesus was concerned. He could do it on a whim.

But what if his whim led him to raise people who had received the death sentence at the hands of the Romans? Remember, he had among his disciples Simon the Zealot and Judas, a member of the Sicarii, both violent revolutionary groups. Perhaps Jesus was sympathetic to their causes. Many Zealots and Sicarii had been crucified by the Romans. 

What if Jesus went around raising all of them? The Romans would not have taken that lying down. They would have crushed the Jewish nation, destroying their temple and dispersing the Jews throughout the empire. And if they did that, Caiaphas would have failed at his task of protecting the Jewish people.

And so Caiaphas says, “You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” Caiaphas wants to protect and safeguard the Jewish people.

And the irony is that in order to stop a potential epidemic of raising people from the dead he decides to put to death the one responsible for raising people.

In other words, from Caiaphas’ perspective, Jesus’ death removed the threat of destruction to the Jewish nation. This actually does come to pass.

But God had a deeper purpose and even in death Jesus proved to be the author of life as experienced by millions of people down the centuries, including us today.