With the Pharisees realizing that if not stopped Jesus' popularity could cause the Romans to crush them and so they now plot to have Jesus die. Dr. Sproul looks into the current persecution of the followers of Jesus and follows that up with a discussion on Pontius Pilate and Caiaphas. When Jesus returns to Bethany, He has dinner with Lazarus, Martha, and Mary, who anoints His feet with oil. Dr. Sproul considers this event and how it showed the love of one person and the greed of another.

We are going to continue with our study of the gospel according to Saint John, and today we will be looking at John 11:45–12:8. I ask the congregation to stand for the reading of the Word:

Then many of the Jews who had come to Mary, and had seen the things Jesus did, believed in Him. But some of them went away to the Pharisees and told them the things Jesus did. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council and said, “What shall we do? For this Man works many signs. If we let Him alone like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation.”

And one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all, nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should perish.” Now this he did not say on his own authority; but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for that nation only, but also that He would gather together in one the children of God who were scattered abroad.

Then, from that day on, they plotted to put Him to death. Therefore Jesus no longer walked openly among the Jews, but went from there into the country near the wilderness, to a city called Ephraim, and there remained with His disciples.

And the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went from the country up to Jerusalem before the Passover, to purify themselves. Then they sought Jesus, and spoke among themselves as they stood in the temple, “What do you think—that He will not come to the feast?” Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a command, that if anyone knew where He was, he should report it, that they might seize Him.

Then, six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was who had been dead, whom He had raised from the dead. There they made Him a supper; and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of those who sat at the table with Him. Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.

But one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, who would betray Him, said, “Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the money box; and he used to take what was put in it.

But Jesus said, “Let her alone; she has kept this for the day of My burial. For the poor you have with you always, but Me you do not have always.”

He who has ears to hear the Word of God, let him hear it. Let us pray.

Father, open now, to our understanding and for our instruction, the words of this text that we have just heard. We ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Pragmatic Caiaphas

When I was in graduate school in the 1960s, one of the books that troubled the theological world was a small book written by a Harvard professor, titled The Secular City. It put Harvey Cox’s name on the map. In The Secular City, Harvey Cox gave a sociological and theological analysis of America’s decline into secularization, and he talked about the shape of American culture.

Cox defined the shape of American culture as being determined by America’s only indigenous philosophical system, called pragmatism. Pragmatism, as a philosophical system, is born from a certain skepticism toward our ability to understand ultimate truth.

The philosophers and pioneers of pragmatism—who, ironically, belonged to the metaphysical club at Harvard—disowned any hope of discovering metaphysical truth. So, they addressed themselves to the question, “How do we live in a world where we can’t discern ultimate truth?” In this system, the good and the true were defined by what works.

Of course, the American version of pragmatism was nothing new. This morning, we looked at some of the things that had taken place in the ancient world during the intertestamental period, such as the advent of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. I mentioned that Socrates was provoked into his campaign in Athens by the philosophy of Sophism, which in that day was a school of pragmatism just as skeptical about attaining ultimate truth. This kind of skeptical philosophy has been around for ages.

I mention all of this by way of introduction. In our text, we have a New Testament encounter with the pragmatism of the first century, and we meet Caiaphas, the king of the first-century pragmatists.

Notice in the narrative that after Jesus performed the miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead, He departed from that area, and the people were divided. Some who were witnesses became disciples of Christ, but others went back to Jerusalem and reported Jesus to the authorities. The Jewish authorities now began to lay their plans for the arrest and elimination of Jesus.

In the discussions at the council, we read the argument that was set forth. The question was this: “What shall we do? For this Man works many signs. If we leave Him alone like this, everyone will believe in Him.” These people could not imagine any worse calamity befalling the Jews than that the whole nation should come to faith in Jesus Christ.

Then we see the secondary reason for their concern: “And the Romans will come.” They thought, “The Romans will come and take away our place, our positions of power, and our positions of influence.” I remind you that the Romans allowed a certain measure of home rule to the nations they conquered. Despite Roman occupation, the Sadducees and the Pharisees enjoyed positions of authority on the council and certain levels of rulership in the city. Certainly, they enjoyed a high level of popular esteem and prestige. Jesus now threatened their situation.

Politics of Expediency

Recently, I was asked to write an essay on the question of the contemporary persecution of the Christian church. We have heard ghastly reports from Sudan and other places around the world where Christians are routinely persecuted. We have been praying for our own missionary to Iran because his life is in danger while on Iranian soil. I was asked the question, “Why don’t we suffer the same level of persecution here in the United States?”

Obviously, there are many explanations. We can speculate for long periods as to why we do not suffer to the degree other Christians do. Part of it is that this country was founded by refugees from religious persecution who tried to do everything in their power to build guaranteed religious freedom into the basis of our culture and laws. The free exercise of religion was included in the very first amendment.

We have seen a subtle shift in the secular world away from toleration of Christianity and toward growing hostility to the Christian faith in general and to Christians in particular. But that is not the whole story. Another part of the story is this: We have become very artful in learning conflict avoidance.

If you look at the pages of the New Testament, you see the passion by which the Apostle Paul went on his missionary journeys and proclaimed the exclusive Saviorhood of Jesus Christ. When Paul unabashedly declared monotheism in the midst of paganism, the response of people in Ephesus and elsewhere was to throw Paul and his compatriots into jail and to beat them. But we have learned to avoid that sort of thing because it is not practical to be too bold in the proclamation of the gospel in our society today.

We have embraced, in many ways, the politics of expediency, and this is what happened in Israel. Those to whom God had entrusted the ministry of the truth of His Word, instead of singing the Lord’s song in a foreign land, began to sing the song of the foreign nations in God’s own land. They compromised again and again so that they might protect their positions of prestige and their esteem, so they made sure no one would upset the Romans.

Donald Rumsfeld said about the city of Washington, “Washington D.C. is a place where your friends stab you in the chest.” It has also been said that in the United States of America, the church has been placed upon a reservation. We are still allowed to exist. We are still allowed to practice our faith. We are still allowed to pray in our churches. But God forbid that we ever move off the reservation and into the public square, that we ever become public with our proclamations of faith.

Recently, Billy Graham’s son Franklin Graham was asked to give an invocation at a national event, and he closed his prayer by saying, “We are praying in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” He was excoriated, as outrage and a deluge of hostility were poured upon him for having the audacity to pray publicly in the name of Jesus Christ. If you ask a Christian to pray, how can you get mad when he prays in the name of Christ? But we are not allowed to do that in polite company today.

When that sort of thing happens, and anger arises from the secular community, who is most likely to injure people like Franklin Graham? It is Christians, because if one person wanders off the reservation and proclaims the gospel in the public square, then everyone who is enjoying the peace of the reservation becomes frightened that they will become targets of the enemy.

That is exactly what happened here in Jerusalem. The Jews were saying, essentially: “If we leave this man alone, we’re going to lose our positions, and the Romans are going to come down on us. Then, our place and our whole nation will be lost. That’s not a very good thing. That’s not a very wise thing, so what are we going to do?” They turn to Caiaphas, the high priest, and ask, “Caiaphas, what should we do?” He says: “You aren’t very smart. The answer to this question is simple. It is expedient, for the good of the nation, that one man dies.”

Expedient Execution

Do you ever wonder why Pontius Pilate’s name crept into the Apostle’s Creed? What was it about Pontius Pilate that made him so important as to be a part of the Christians’ historic confession of faith? Caesar Augustus did not make it; Annas did not make it; Caiaphas did not make it, but Pontius Pilate made it.

Historians say that Pilate was included in the Apostles’ Creed because of the office he held as the procurator in giving judgment against Jesus, in his saying, “Behold the man,” and “I find no fault in this man.” Historically, the idea in the church has been that, in spite of himself, Pontius Pilate was declaring the truth of God in his judgment of Christ. It is not because he intended to be a prophet, but God can speak even through a donkey, as we have seen in the Old Testament. We have seen it through Cyrus’ decree, and we have seen it in other ways, when God brings His Word to pass, even through unwilling spokesmen. I do not think it was in Caiaphas’ mind to speak prophetically. He was a pragmatist. He was not going to ask the question, “What’s the right thing to do”—which is what a godly Jew should be asking, and certainly what a high priest should be asking. Rather, his question was, “What’s the expedient thing to do?”

I was at a church meeting several years ago where a church was in danger of being split, and a presbytery commission was sent to investigate. I was on that commission. The chairman of the committee said, “Let’s interview the pastor, the assistant pastor, the session members, and some people from the congregation.”

We did that, and when we were done, the chairman said: “Let’s look at our notes. There’s real conflict in this church. What we’re going to have to do, first of all, is come up with a solution that will protect the pastor, and one that will also protect the associate pastors, all of the members of the session, and the members of the congregation.”

When he went through that list, he said, “Is there anything else we’re supposed to do?” I raised my hand, and I said, “Yes, our primary task is to administer justice according to truth and according to grace, not just to make a decision by trying to keep everyone happy, because that’s not going to happen anyway.”

That is the spirit of pragmatism and expediency that has been in the heart of human beings from the beginning. In a very real sense, politically and humanly speaking, that is why the only sinless person in the history of the world was executed: It was expedient.

Silence Out of Fear

Do you realize how much like Caiaphas we are? How many times do we make decisions out of fear? We do not want to be non-conformists. We do not want people to think that we are marching to a different drummer. We do not want to provoke the hostility of the world, and so we remain silent.

I received a letter this week from the president of a national coalition for decency, in which he reported that the number one company that distributes pornography on cable is owned by General Motors. Baseball, apple pie, and pornography. He said, “Will the people of America accept that from General Motors?”

The second largest purveyor of pornography in the United States is a subsidiary of AT&T. These companies are icons in our culture, yet they are making unbelievable billions of dollars in profit with this kind of enterprise. Who wants to holler, “Foul”? It is not expedient to holler, “Foul.” It is expedient to keep our mouths shut and remain safe.

Every time the gospel has been proclaimed boldly and accurately in church history, there has been persecution. I have no desire to go looking for it, but the fact that I live so free of it makes me question my own commitment to the things of God. I do not like conflict either; but I hate to stand in the line of people like Caiaphas.

Extravagant Adoration

In the second part of this text, I want to show you the stark contrast between Caiaphas, who was willing to have Jesus executed to keep the peace, and Mary, the sister of Lazarus. While Jesus is having dinner at Lazarus’ home, Mary comes with a precious ointment that was worth about one year’s salary at that time. In a reckless manifestation of extravagant love and worship, she anoints the feet of Jesus with this precious fragrance.

Talk about love. Talk about extravagant love. Judas watches this and complains: “What are you doing? Don’t you realize how much that’s worth? We should keep that money and give it to the poor.” He acts as if he were driven by humanitarian concerns, when in fact the Scriptures tell us what was in the heart of Judas.

Judas wanted that money to stay in the treasury because he had the key to the treasury. He was the keeper of the purse, the treasurer of the twelve disciples. He has been a liar and an embezzler from the beginning, and now he sees his profits leaking away because this emotional woman is extravagantly wasting all this money, pouring out this precious ointment on the feet of Jesus.

There are times for extravagance, and it is always time for an extravagant manifestation of our adoration of Christ. What could you and I possibly do that would be too extravagant in honoring Jesus, praising Him, and giving Him glory? Anyone in this room who has ever been in love has made an extravagant gift for the one they love, and the only justification they had was the love that they felt.

Give the Gift Now

I knew a minister who labored for decades in an inner-city ghetto in Cleveland, Ohio. He worked among the poor and the oppressed, those who were afflicted with addiction to drugs and exposed to all kinds of violence on a daily basis. He had one associate pastor after another. The expected tenure of the ministers who came alongside him to help was two years. No one ever lasted past two years.

I asked him, “Why didn’t they last?” He answered: “They were disillusioned. They came out of seminary, and they came to the ghetto because they wanted to labor for Christ and to be where people were hurting. They worked for two years trying to help the poor and those who were overcome by drugs, but they got depressed. They were defeated, and they left.”

I said, “Why have you been able to stay all this time?” He said: “Because of the words of Jesus. Remember when Jesus said, ‘The poor you will always have with you’?” I answered, “Yes, but every time I’ve heard anyone quote that, it was as an excuse to neglect the poor, not to minister to the poor.”

He said: “When I came here, I had no expectation that I was going to eliminate poverty. I never thought that I’d get rid of the drug trafficking here in Cleveland. I never thought that I would end unemployment among my parishioners. I realized coming into this that for every person who is brought out of this situation, there are more who are brought in, standing in line to take their place. If we get one person off drugs, five more get hooked here in the ghetto. But my mission isn’t to get rid of poverty. My mission isn’t to get rid of all these problems. My mission is to minister to people who are suffering from these things while they are here and while I’m here.”

What a tremendous testimony. I thought, “That’s the way Mary was.” She said, in effect: “I saved this for Your burial, but I’m going to give You this gift now. I can minister to the poor tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and the day after that, but not every day is my opportunity to manifest my affection for Christ.” After all, this was the man who had restored Mary’s brother to life. She was putting this fragrance on the feet of Jesus while He was sitting next to Lazarus at the dining table, when just recently that same Lazarus was rotting in the tomb. Was it too extravagant?

The Value of Your Soul

You know who should have been there at that feast, with ten times the fragrance that Mary brought? Caiaphas. Caiaphas should have been there, saying: “I know who You are, and we’ve seen Your signs, and I don’t care if the Romans come. We recognize You as our Lord, and we’re going to pour out our love to You.”

It was not expedient for Caiaphas to do that, nor was it expedient for Mary to do it. But even today, two thousand years after that extravagant event, if no one else is talking about it, I am. You are hearing about it this morning because this act of love, worship, exaltation, and glorification has been memorialized in the Word of God forever.

Jesus Himself gave the death blow to any philosophy of pragmatism and expediency when He told people that a philosophy of pragmatism is ultimately not practical. He said, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Mark 8:36).

What would you give in exchange for your soul? How much is your soul worth? Your prestige? Your comfort? A year’s wages? Safety? In Jesus’ mind, there is nothing in the world, including the whole world itself, that can be given in exchange for the value of your soul to Him. Let us pray.

Our Father and our God, we rejoice in the testimony of Mary. We repent from the example of Caiaphas, for so often, O Lord, out of fear, out of pride, we take the expedient approach. Father, give us the courage that marked the saints of the first century, who refused to be pragmatists and who were extravagant in their devotion to You. We ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.