Jesus’ very presence of course means that God is among us. But it means something else too, as he points out to the teachers of religious law: with the law and prophets culminating him him, it is a much bigger deal to reject him than it was to reject Zechariah or Elijah. The nation of Israel had trained themselves well to ignore those predecessors. But all is not lost, and many Israelites followed him. There were even a few religious leaders, like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, who understood and played a critical role in the story of Jesus.