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Saturday of the 5th Week in Lent

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 might not perish.”

The theologian Frederick Bruckner, in his book Peculiar Treasures, writes that today’s gospel is basically a math problem. When the Jews started worrying that they might all get into hot water with the Romans because of the way Jesus was carrying on, Caiaphas said that in that case, they should dump him like a hot potato! His argument ran that it is better for one man to get it in the neck for the sake of many, than for many to get it in the neck for the sake of one man.

Why does Father Jerry say in today’s homily that ‘the arithmetic of Jesus on the other hand was atrocious?’ Find the answer in the new video above.

It is curious that in deciding the matter of his own fate, Jesus reached the same conclusion as Caiaphas, and took it in the neck for the sake of many… Caiaphas included!