Week 2 Wednesday — That First Easter... I Was There
Day 10: The Religious Leaders
Day 10: The Religious Leaders
Matthew 21:23-27; John 11:47-48; John 3:1-2, 16-17
Introduction
They had dedicated their lives to God.
Or so they believed.
The chief priests and Pharisees were not casual observers of their faith. They were its guardians. They had memorized Torah. They had studied the prophets for decades. They kept the feasts, maintained the temple, upheld the traditions that had preserved Israel’s identity through centuries of exile and occupation. If you had asked any of them why they did what they did, they would have told you without hesitation: For God. For Israel. For the faith of our fathers.
And they would have believed every word of it.
But then Jesus came — healing on the Sabbath, forgiving sins, raising the dead, drawing crowds that dwarfed their own — and something revealing happened. The question they should have asked was: Is this the Messiah? The question they actually asked was: What does this mean for us?
When Lazarus walked out of that tomb, the chief priests and Pharisees didn’t call a prayer meeting. They called a strategy session. “If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him.” The miracle that should have brought them to their knees instead sent them to their Situation Room.
That’s the moment you know what someone actually values. Not the words they use about God — but what they protect when someone or something shows up and threatens to rearrange everything.
But not every religious leader made that calculation. One of them came to Jesus in the dark — with questions, with hunger, with something that hadn’t yet been strangled by position and pride. And what he received changed everything.
Scripture
²³ Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you this authority?”
²⁴ Jesus replied, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. ²⁵ John’s baptism — where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?” They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ ²⁶ But if we say, ‘Of human origin’ — we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet.” ²⁷ So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.” Then he said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”
— Matthew 21:23-27 (NIV)
⁴⁷ Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. “What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many signs. ⁴⁸ 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.”
— John 11:47-48 (NIV)
¹ Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. ² He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
¹⁶ “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
— John 3:1-2, 16-17 (NIV)
Reflection
What They Were Really Protecting
Notice what the religious leaders don’t say after Lazarus walks out of the tomb.
They don’t say: “Could this be the Messiah?” They don’t say: “We need to investigate this miracle.” They say: “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.”
In one sentence, they reveal everything. The temple. The nation. Their position within it. That’s what’s actually at stake for them. A man had just been raised from the dead — and their first thought was about themselves and what they stood to lose.
When Jesus questioned their authority in the temple courts, the same calculation ran underneath their non-answer. Every option was weighed not against the question of truth, but against the question of cost. What answer keeps us safest? What response protects what we have?
They had been in religion so long that they could no longer tell the difference between serving God and serving themselves.
That’s not a sudden fall. That’s a slow drift — one small compromise at a time, one decision to protect the institution over the pursuit of truth, until the day a man walks out of a tomb and your first instinct is to call a meeting with the lawyers.
We Are Like Them
This one is close to home. Because the religious leaders aren’t the obvious villains of the Easter story — they’re the faithful ones. The committed ones. The people who showed up every week and knew their Bibles and took their responsibilities seriously.
And somewhere along the way, the faith became the identity. The standing became the thing worth protecting.
We do the same thing — quietly, gradually, without ever deciding to. We hold theological positions not because we’ve wrestled them to the ground but because changing them would cost us relationships. We stay silent when God is asking us to speak because speaking up would threaten how people see us. We evaluate what Jesus is doing not by whether it’s true but by whether it fits our tribe’s expectations. We ask “By what authority?” when what we really mean is “Why should I have to change?”
Religion becomes dangerous not when we abandon it — but when we hide inside it.
But here’s where the story turns. Not every religious leader made that calculation. One of them — Nicodemus, a Pharisee, a member of the very Sanhedrin that plotted against Jesus — came to Him in the night. Quietly. Privately. With everything to lose and no guarantee of what he’d find. He didn’t come with a strategy or an accusation. He came with a hunger that his religious credentials had never satisfied.
And Jesus didn’t interrogate him. Didn’t expose him. Didn’t say “Where were you when the others were plotting against me?” He gave him the Gospel. The whole thing, distilled into a single breath: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.” Not to condemn. To save. An invitation.
The same Jesus the religious leaders were calculating against was offering grace to all who would come in the dark and ask an honest question.
That invitation is still open.
Grace Note
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” — John 3:17 (NIV)
Jesus said these words to a Pharisee — a man who had spent his life building a religious identity that kept God at a manageable distance. He didn’t come to tear that down and leave rubble. He came to fulfill it. He came to save. The authority the religious leaders feared turned out to be the most grace-filled authority in the universe — not the power to crush what’s proud, but the power to transform it. Whatever you’ve been protecting, whatever identity you’ve built, whatever question you’ve been afraid to ask — He didn’t come to condemn you for it. He came to save you from it.
Prayer Prompt
Jesus,
I confess that I have sometimes used faith to maintain who I am rather than surrender to who You’re calling me to become. I’ve held positions, protected my standing, and asked “By what authority?” when what I really meant was “Why do I have to change?” Forgive me for the slow drift — the accumulation of small compromises that made self-protection feel like faithfulness.
I want to be like Nicodemus — willing to come to You in the dark, with honest questions, even when it costs me something to be seen seeking You. I don’t want to be in that council meeting calculating what Your miracles mean for my assets.
Thank You that You didn’t come to condemn. That the same grace You offered a Pharisee in the middle of the night is available to me right now — no credentials required, no image to maintain, nothing to protect. Just You and me and an honest question.
I’m asking it now. What do You want me to surrender? I’m listening. Amen.
Response
1. Find Your Council Meeting: Where are you calculating what Jesus costs you rather than simply following Him? A position you’re protecting, a silence you’re maintaining, a tribal expectation you’re afraid to disappoint? Name it specifically — not to condemn yourself, but to see it clearly. The religious leaders’ problem wasn’t that they held positions. It was that their positions held them.
2. Come in the Dark: Nicodemus came to Jesus privately, honestly, with questions he couldn’t ask in public. Take 10 minutes today to do the same — just you and Jesus, no audience, no image to manage. Bring the question you haven’t been able to ask out loud. The hunger your religious activity hasn’t satisfied. The doubt you’ve been keeping behind your credentials. He met Nicodemus there. He’ll meet you there too.
3. Receive, Don’t Just Reflect: Most of our response actions this week have asked you to look inward. This one asks you to look up. Read John 3:16-17 slowly — not as a memory verse you’ve known since childhood, but as words spoken directly to you, right now, by the Jesus who didn’t come to condemn you. Let it land. Then find one person today who needs to hear that same grace — someone who might be hiding behind their own credentials or shame — and speak it to them.
To read all the posts in this devotional series, visit: That First Easter... I Was There
© Steve Peschke / This Is The Way