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From The Urantia Book: "Then Andrew inquired: "But, Master, if the Holy City and the temple are to be destroyed, and if you are not here to direct us, when should we forsake Jerusalem?" Said Jesus: "You may remain in the city after I have gone, even through these times of travail and bitter persecution, but when you finally see Jerusalem being encompassed by the Roman armies after the revolt of the false prophets, then will you know that her desolation is at hand; then must you flee to the mountains." (176:1.4)
Finally, from the point of view of the high priest and his council, Jesus was clearly wrong. Jesus had indicted the present social order and advocated another, but Caiaphas and his group were not interested in the transformation of society, both because of their place in that society, and the ideology which legitimated the present social order.
Jesus' way of peace may have been acceptable to at least some, but Jesus also spoke of a way of life in which righteousness, purity, honor, and position did not matter--which meant blessing to the poor and woe to the rich, which loosened the ties of loyalty to cultural ways, in which outcasts were accepted--all of this challenging the conventional wisdom of the time. That conventional wisdom, from their point of view, was grounded in holy Scripture and hallowed by tradition. Thus, from their vantage point, Jesus was not only a threat to public order, but profoundly wrong.
To a large extent it was the conventional wisdom of the time--the "dominant consciousness" of the day--that was responsible for the death of Jesus. The high priest and his circle were both the servants and guardians of the dominant consciousness. Shaped by it and, in a sense, subservient to it, they were also concerned to preserve it. With its "laws" of moderation and self-preservation, and its attempt to make reality "safe" by domesticating it in a net of beliefs and rules, the dominant consciousness of conventional wisdom was threatened by the voice of an alternative consciousness. And it was in Jesus that the voice of the Spirit challenged the dominant consciousness. (TUB 175: 1)
The politics of holiness also played a role. It accounted for much of the resistance to Jesus' message and movement. The Pharisees, the embodiment of the politics of holiness in an intensified form, were the most vocal verbal critics during Jesus' ministry. But the politics of holiness were in the culture as a whole, not just in the Pharisees. In this less intensive form, it shaped the lives of ordinary people, even the outcasts, as well as the lives of the accommodationist ruling class.
With its emphasis on survival through greater differentiation between Jew and gentile, righteous and outcast, the politics of holiness found the politics of compassion both unorthodox and threatening.
Finally we must speak not only of the forces operative in Jesus' opponents but also of Jesus own intention. He was not simply a victim, but one who provocatively challenged the ethos of his day. He was killed because he sought, in the name of the power of the Spirit, the transformation of his own culture. He issued a call for a relationship with God that would lead to a new ethos and a new politics. For that goal, he gave his life, even though his death was not his primary intention. (TUB 175:1)
From The Urantia Book: "In every manner consistent with doing my Father's will, I and my apostles have done our utmost to live in peace with our brethren, to conform with the reasonable requirements of the laws of Moses and the traditions of Israel. We have persistently sought peace, but the leaders of Israel will not have it. By rejecting the truth of God and the light of heaven, they are aligning themselves on the side of error and darkness. There cannot be peace between light and darkness, between life and death, between truth and error." (175:1.2)
The conflict between Jesus and his opponents was between two ways of being. One way organized life around the security of self and its world. The essential ingredients of conventional wisdom and a politics of holiness, even if in a transformed and secular form, are still very much with us. That which killed Jesus is thus still very much alive in human history.
The other way of being organizes life around God. Ultimately it was the conflict between life grounded in Spirit and one grounded in culture, and Jesus' own concern to transform his culture in the name of the Spirit, that caused his death. (TUB 175: 3)
From The Urantia Book: "At eight o'clock on this Tuesday evening the fateful meeting of the Sanhedrin was called to order. On many previous occasions had this supreme court of the Jewish nation informally decreed the death of Jesus. Many times had this august ruling body determined to put a stop to his work, but never before had they resolved to place him under arrest and to bring about his death at any and all costs." (175:3.1)
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