John 12:19

‘The Pharisees then said to one another, “You observe that you cannot do anything. See, the world has gone after him'.

The Pharisees watched all these events with cynical eyes. They, who should have been at the forefront of His welcome, were too hidebound to recognise the truth before their eyes. Instead of responding to Him they grumbled at His success.

They recognised that even their influence could not persuade the people generally that Jesus was not a prophet. The crowds went after Jesus regardless of what they said. ‘The world' is a slight exaggeration, even though the crowd would include people from many parts of the world who had come to the Passover, but it was a further typical unconscious prophecy.

There are none quite so bigoted as the deeply religious, something we must all beware of lest we also be found wanting when God begins to work. It is one thing to have deeply cherished convictions, it is another to allow those to prevent the truth breaking through. How different it might have been if He had supported them and their teachings. Then they would have cheered for Him. But He could not because they had become false with the result that He had had to strip away cherished beliefs, which were in point of fact wrong, and that was something that they could not abide.