Arrest him
So we come to the end of this chapter. It starts with Jesus run out of town, the subject of a man hunt to kill him and he ends up the subject of a manhunt to arrest and kill him. Normally this would be the story of a dangerous criminal who escaped custody or avoided it and then committed another crime. Between these two markers Jesus raised a man from the dead. Miracles are dangerous to the status quo. This is not new and it hasn’t changed. Anyone who did what Jesus did would potentially be a very dangerous man. If we go back to our imagined resurrection we wrote about earlier, and consider what the aftermath would be, we can see this clearly. Let’s say there are only 50 people who go with us to the cemetery to see what the man will do at the tomb. They see a coffin dug up. They hear the resurrector cry out. They see the coffin open. They see a dead man sit up, rise to his feet and step out of the coffin and the grave. They believe what they see. What power does the resurrector have over these 50? What influence? If he says “I am God, worship me.” Would they? Would you? That’s not so easy to answer is it? You might say he’s a good man or a powerful man but probably you’d be stuck with “man.” But would you plot to murder the man? Why did nicodemus have to say about all this? He visited the man in the night and got the infamous “for God so loved the world” speech and the “you must be born again” speech. Now he is here in the room when the plotting begins. He’s been rebuked for an attempt to bring his colleagues attention to their law breaking ways with regards to Jesus in John chapter 7. Now he’s gone quiet. Perhaps he’s stuck on the horns if this dilemma. Jesus has left him no room to maneuver. Worship me as God or put me away as a demon or a fool. There is no escape. When we get to the end of John 11, we ourselves must confront this question. This is either a true account not only of a man who raises a man from the dead, but a man who claims to be God who does miraculous signs as evidence of the fact - or - it is a document purposely written by someone to fool us into following a demon or a fool. You have no room for other choices. There is no nuance that will save you from this. Choose. Arrest him or worship him.
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