The order given by the chief priests and Pharisees would make anyone who knew the whereabouts of Jesus without reporting Him, an accessory and liable to punishment, thus making arrest much more likely. Note that they wanted to arrest Him where He was lodging, so that they would not have to do so in public, particularly in the Temple, thus arousing the ire of those who were His followers.

Caiaphas and the other members of the Sanhedrin were so self-centered and absorbed in their own progress that they were blind to the true things of God. Here was the Messiah of God for Whom they had waited all their lives and He was proving himself to them by His miracles and by His words and yet they could not see Him for Who he was. They of all people should have been able to see, and yet they could not for two reasons. First, they had been walking in darkness for so long that they had lost their spiritual eyes, much as those fish who have lived their entire lives in a cave. The warning to us is to walk in the light as He is in the light. In other words, do what He says and seek Him with all of our hearts.

The second reason they couldn’t see Jesus as Messiah was that they didn’t want to. At the battle of Copenhagen, Admiral Parker, the commander of the British fleet, feared that Admiral Lord Nelson was suffering heavy losses and hoisted the signal to withdraw, but Nelson disregarded the order, putting his telescope to his blind eye and saying, “I see no ships.” Someone once said that “There are none so blind as those who will not see.” Oftentimes we choose not to see because we are afraid that if we do, we will have to change what we are doing or how we are doing it.

Every time Jesus speaks and every time He intercedes in our lives we are given two choices — but only two: we can either accept Him and what He says or we can reject Him and what He says. There is no other choice. Don’t be like Caiaphas. See Jesus for who He is and don’t try to make Him into something He’s not. Listen to what He tells you, even if it’s not what you want to hear or what you expect Him to say. Let Jesus be your Lord in all things. Amen.