A Play for . . . Someday

I have a play I want to write. In Bible in homeschool, the youngest and I are reading about the last week of Jesus' life (which is more seasonally appropriate than you would think -- I mean, this is why Jesus came on Christmas in the first place). It's, of course, a very familiar story, so less familiar parts of it are standing out to me.

In particular, the Sanhedrin -- the Pharisees and teachers of the Law who came to see Jesus as a great threat and were looking for a way to get rid of him. Fascinating, really, to examine these people. We think of them as so evil, but I doubt they all were. Nicodemus was one who came to Jesus in the middle of the night asking him questions. Another complimented publicly an answer Jesus gave to a trick question, and Jesus told him he wasn't far from the kingdom of heaven. There were others of the group, I believe, who didn't run with the Pharisaic crowd in their condemnation.

And even those who were genuinely after Jesus . . . some of them were possibly just power-greedy jerks. But others, I think, honestly believed they were doing the right thing, protecting their people, preserving the faith. There's a story where the Chief Priest points out to the others an Old Testament passage about how someone would have to die for the salvation of the Jewish people, remarking that this points to the need to get rid of Jesus. Fascinating, isn't it, how he could be so right and so wrong at the same time?

I think this would be a cool play. The last week of Jesus' life from the point of view of the Sanhedrin. Seeing the discussion and conflicts between them, where their faith is genuine and where it is not, the plotting behind the scenes, the misunderstanding of scripture and of his words . . . the playing out of the sacrifice of the Lamb against the backdrop of the Passover rituals, and how so many of them missed it altogether.

Maybe I would be the only one who would find this interesting. But I bet not.