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A large number of people in the crowd learned that Jesus was present. They had come not only to see Jesus, but also to see Lazarus, the man that Jesus had brought back to life. Then the chief priests decided to kill Lazarus as well. This was because many Jews began to stop following the Jewish leaders and believed in Jesus after seeing Lazarus alive.
JN 12:9-11
The Festival of Passover was approaching, so many people traveled from the countryside up to Jerusalem beforehand to purify themselves. They were hoping to see Jesus. While they were standing in the Temple complex they asked each other “Do you think he’ll come to the Festival or not?” The Pharisees and the chief priests had ordered anyone who knew where Jesus was to tell them, because they wanted to have him arrested.
JN 11:55-57
Because of this, many of the Jewish leaders who had come to console Martha and Mary in their grief began to believe in Jesus. However, some of them went to tell the Pharisees what Jesus had done.
The Pharisees and the chief priests convened the Sanhedrin and said “What should we do since this man is performing miracles? If we let him keep doing this, everybody will believe he’s the Messiah! Then the Romans will destroy our Temple and maybe even our nation.”
Caiaphas, the high priest that year, said “You don’t know anything! You don’t realize that it is to our advantage that one man should be sacrificed instead of the whole nation.”
Caiaphas was not speaking for himself when he said this but in his role as that year’s high priest. He was prophesying that Jesus was to die to save the nation. This sacrifice was not just for the nation but also to draw together all the children of God who were scattered around the world.
From that day on the Jewish authorities began to look for ways to kill Jesus. Because of this, Jesus no longer went openly among them but instead went to stay with his disciples in a town called Ephraim, which was in the countryside near the wilderness.
JN 11:45-54
The man whose sight had been restored was brought to the Pharisees. Jesus had made the mud paste and healed him on the Sabbath. The Pharisees asked the man again how his sight had been restored. The man told them that Jesus had put mud on his eyes, he washed, and then he could see.
Some of the Pharisees exclaimed “He can’t be from God! He breaks the Sabbath!” Others said “But how could a sinful man perform such miracles?” They were divided about this.
They asked the formerly blind man “What do you think about him, since he healed you of your blindness?”
The man replied “He’s a prophet.”
The Jewish authorities didn’t believe that this man had really been cured of his blindness, so they called for the man’s parents. Then they asked them “Is this your son, the one you claim was blind from birth? How is it that he can see now?”
“We assure you that this is our son, and that he has always been blind,” the man’s parents said, “but we don’t know who restored his sight or how it happened. He’s an adult. Ask him.” They said this because they were afraid of the authorities. The leaders had already proclaimed that anyone who said Jesus was the Messiah wouldn’t be allowed to go to the synagogue.
The leaders summoned the man again and asked him to solemnly swear the truth by saying to him “Give glory to God.” Then they said “We know that Jesus is a sinner!”
The man answered “I don’t know if that is true or not, but I do know that I was blind but now I can see!”
“Tell us exactly what he did and how he did it” they demanded.
“I’ve already told you and you didn’t believe me. Why should I tell you again?” he replied. “Do you want to become his disciples?”
They started to make fun of him and said “You’re his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. God definitely spoke to Moses, but this man is a mystery to us.”
“Isn’t that interesting?” he retorted. “He healed my blindness, but you aren’t sure about him. God doesn’t act for sinners – only those who fear God and do his will. In the history of the entire world, there has never ever been anyone who could heal the blindness of a person born that way. This man has to be from God, otherwise he couldn’t do this.”
“You were born full of sin, and you’re trying to teach us?” they shouted. Then they threw him out.
JN 9:13-34
Then Jesus again said “I’m leaving; you’ll search for me, and die in your sinfulness. You won’t be able to follow me where I’m going.”
The Jewish authorities said “He isn’t planning on suicide, is he, when he says ‘You won’t be able to follow me where I’m going.’?”
Jesus told them “You are from the earth, while I am from heaven. You are of this world, while I am not. This is why I said you will die in your sinfulness – because you don’t believe in who I am.”
“Who are you, then?” they asked.
“Exactly what I’ve been saying from the start,” Jesus told them. There are many things I could say and pass judgment about you, but I won’t now. The One who sent me is true. I will tell the world what He has told me.”
They did not realize he was speaking about God. So Jesus said “When you raise up the Son of Man, then you will know who I am, and that I don’t do anything on my own. I say whatever the Father has taught me. The One who sent me is here with me and has never left me because I always do what is pleasing to him.”
JN 8:21-29
Jesus said “I am the light of the world. If you follow me you will never stumble around in the dark because you will have the light of life.”
The Pharisees said “Your testimony isn’t valid because you are testifying about yourself.”
Jesus replied “What I say about myself is true because I know where I came from and where I’m going. You don’t know either of these things about me. You make your judgments based on earthly standards, while I don’t judge at all. If I did, my judgment would be valid because I don’t act on my own, but with my Father who sent me. In your own Law it says that the testimony of two men is valid. I testify about myself, and my Father testifies about me.”
“So where is your father?” they challenged.
“You don’t know either one of us.” Jesus replied. “If you knew me, you’d know my Father as well.” He said all this while standing near the treasury when he was teaching in the Temple complex. Nobody arrested him because it wasn’t yet the time for this to happen to him.
JN 8:12-20
The chief priests and the Pharisees challenged the Temple police when they returned without Jesus, asking “Why didn’t you bring him?”
The police answered “Nobody ever talked like this man!”
The Pharisees countered “Has he fooled you too? Has anybody among us or the Jewish rulers believed in him? But this crowd, which is ignorant of the Law, is cursed!”
Nicodemus, the Pharisee who had previously spoken with Jesus secretly, said “The Law doesn’t condemn a man before it knows what he’s doing, or before he has a chance to testify, does it?”
“Are you also from Galilee?” they questioned. “Check for yourself and learn that no prophet ever comes from Galilee.”
Everyone went home, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
JN 7:45-53 and JN 8:1
The next day the chief priests and Pharisees assembled before Pilate and said “Sir, we remember that while that liar was alive he said ‘I will rise again after three days’. Therefore, we request that you give orders for the tomb to be secured until then. If not, his disciples may steal his body and tell everyone that he has been raised from the dead. If they do that it will make a bad situation worse.”
Pilate told them to use some soldiers as a guard saying “Go make it secure in the best way you know.” Then they left and secured the tomb by putting a seal around the stone and posting guards.
MT 27:62-66
The Pharisees and other Jewish leaders approached Jesus with a test, asking him to show them a sign from heaven.
He sighed deeply and said “You know how to read the signs in the sky. When the sky is red at night, you know there will be good weather the next day, and when the sky is red in the morning you know there will be storms. Yet you don’t know how to read the signs of the times! Why does this wicked generation demand to see a sign? It will see nothing except the sign of Jonah.” He walked away from them, got back on the boat, and went to the other side of the sea.
When they reached the other side, the disciples realized that they had forgotten to get more bread. They had only one loaf with them. Jesus said “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees.” They began to talk among themselves about the fact that they didn’t have any more bread.
Jesus was aware of this and he said “Why are you talking about not having any more bread? Don’t you understand yet? Do you have eyes and ears and yet are blind and deaf? Don’t you remember how five loaves of bread were able to feed 5000 people, or that seven loaves of bread fed 4000 people? Remember the number of large baskets of leftover pieces? Why do you not understand that when I said ‘Beware the yeast of the Pharisees,’ I wasn’t talking about bread?”
Then they understood that he was talking about what the Pharisees taught.
MT 16:1-12, MK 8:11-21
Jesus gathered the crowd around him and asked them to listen carefully to what he was about to say. “It isn’t what you put into your mouth that makes you defiled. Instead it’s what comes out of your mouth that gets you into trouble.”
Then he went into the house and away from the crowd. The disciples asked him if he knew that the Pharisees were offended by his remarks. Jesus answered “Every plant not planted by my Father will be uprooted, so don’t worry about them. They are blind leaders, and they are guiding blind people. Both they and who follow them will fall into a pit.”
Then Peter and the other disciples asked him to explain the parable to them. He said “Do you also not understand? Don’t you yet understand that nothing a man puts into himself can make him unclean? It doesn’t go into his heart. Instead it goes into his stomach and then passes out of him. But what comes out of the mouth comes from the heart and that makes him unclean. Deep within people’s hearts come evil thoughts, inappropriate sexual practices, murders, theft, pride, deceit, lying and blasphemy. All these things cause defilement, but eating without ceremonially washing your hands doesn’t harm you at all.”
MT 15:10-20, MK 7:14-23
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