After the hard lessons of
chapter 6, the teachings of chapters 7 & 8 are not so obvious at
first glance; so much-so that to the casual reader, it might seem to
be just a jumbled collection of short stories; but who of us today
would admit to being only a casual observer of the life and times of
Christ? So we're going to look at these chapters in exactly the same
way we do the rest of scripture...through the magnifying glass of
faith!
Jesus spends some time
over the course of these next two chapters helping His audience (that
includes us, too) understand exactly Who He is, and as Jn. 20.31
states, that is the goal of our study of this gospel, after all; we
need to learn about Who it is we believe-in. Now we have to remember
that, beginning with this chapter, we come to a turning-point in
Jesus' life; He had finished His work in Galilee on a bad note, and
as He prepares to return to Jerusalem and the area therabouts, His
thoughts had already begun to focus on the cross, and upon His
resurrection and His eventual return to His Father. So these two
chapters help to bring about the transition as Jesus shifts into high
gear, taking on the Pharisees themselves, and the universal power of
Rome, not to mention Satan, the author of our troubles!
Let's look first of all,
at...
1. Jesus, and the
Feast of Tabernacles...7.1-13
These first 13 vss. of ch.
7 give us an account of the discussion about Jesus' eventual,
necessary return to Jerusalem. But as vs. 1 says..."After these
things, Jesus walked in Galilee"; it was useless for Him to work
any more mirales "in Jewry". His teaching had been
despised and there was dissatisfaction among His closest followers
there at home, while on the other hand, there were the Jewish
religious leaders in Judea who were seking to kill Him, and we can
follow their progress all throughout the Gospel record. In Jn.
11.53-54 we're told that..."from that day forward they took
counsel together to put Him to death", and so He continued in
Galilee before finally turning His face toward Jerusalem, until, that
is, the time of the Feast of Tabernacles arrived.
Now Leviticus 23 teaches
us that there were a total of seven feasts on the Jewish calander (we
would call them holidays); only three of them however, were
identified in Deuteronomy 16.16 as having special significance,
requiring the males of the family to travel to the capital city to
celebrate. The first was Passover, celebrated in the Spring of the
year; then there was Pentecost (fifty days following that); and
finally, the Feast of Tabernacles, which was a harvest celebration
held in the Fall of the year, all being referred-to as "fixed
feasts", concerning the date upon which they are celebrated.
We're told in the Old
Testament book of Leviticus that the Feast of Tabernacles was to be
"a holy convocation" lasting eight days, when Israel was to
make an offering of the "first fruits" of the harvest, to
the Lord; it was to be kind of a fun time for the family, because
they were commanded to build tabernacles, or "brush tents"
as we might call them, and stay in them for seven days as a memorial
to Israel's wilderness journey from Egypt (see Lev. 23). But first,
the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and that, for Jesus and His half
brothers, had become a bone of contention.
The discussion that takes
place here is with Jesus' own, unbelieving family. How they came on
the scene we do not know, although it was pretty clear from the tone
of their talk that they felt Jesus had an obligation to finish what
He had started, especially after losing so much of His so-called
"support base" there in Galilee...so, of course, their
position was that He should take advantage of the upcoming feast and
go up to Jerusalem to rally up more support. On the face of it,
there was a lot of logic in their argument, but remember, Jesus
wasn't subject to human logic! He had an agenda given to Him by His
Father, and His responsibility was to Him, not to His
followers, or even to His own half brothers, because as we read in
vs. 6..."His time had not yet come". For John, Jesus' hour
would be marked by suffering and by death and by resurrection. So
when you think of it, His own flesh and blood were tempting Him away
from the eternal purpose of God, probably for no better reason than
the hope of some personal gain, when their brother would eventually
be crowned King of Judea!
These were men of the
world; they had adopted its ways and spoke its language and even used
the same worldly logic. In other words, they were ignorant of the
mind of God...His own half brothers! And the sad thing is, we can
still identify with them, 2000+ years later! "Show thyself to
the world" (and take the place in it that is rightfully yours,
while you still have the chance)! But Jesus chose to stay focussed
on the will of the Father. You know, that is the very problem with a
lot of believers today...they don't stay focussed on the primary
objective. When we can stay focussed, then we can recognize
temptation to sin when we are faced with it, and we can see Satan and
his agenda at work in the world as well as in our own lives. It's no
wonder that Paul has to remind us in 2 Corinthinians 5.17 that..."if
any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed
away; behold all things are become new". We must remember Whose
we are, and that we need to stay focussed on the things of Christ.
Just think...as holy and
as perfect as Jesus is, even those who were brought up with Him
"...believed not in Him!" (vs. 5) Is this world in need of
the saving grace of God or not?! And yet, this is only one more Old
Testament prophecy fulfilled..."I Am become a stranger to my
brethren, and an alien to my mother's children" (Psalm 69.8).
But then..."His time had not yet come" (vs. 8), and you
know, really, His time still hasn't come. Certanly, He was to
be raised-up before the crowds at Jerusalem on the day of His
crucifiction, and to be resurrected from His grave three days after,
but just think, the time of His glory is yet to come! As we can see
from Revelation 1.7..."Behold, He cometh with clouds, and every
eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him, and all kindreds
of the earth shall wail because of Him". What an effect He will
have, when His time finally does come!
Also in vs. 6 Jesus
says..."your time is always ready"; what do you think He
meant by that? Well, we need to relate back to what we read in vss.
3,4 and ahead to vss. 7,8...we are always ready to put ourselves on
display before the world and to share the glory that it offers and
the rewards that it offers. As Jesus implies, the reason the world
does not hate the church, even though it hates Him, is because
we do not hate the world! We are so often of
the world, and in the world, and have stopped short of casting
our lot with Jesus, thereby truly identifying with Him. But of
course, the world does hate Jesus because He told the
truth in testifying that..."its works are evil". The
holiness of His life condemned the carnality of their's, and so it
still is today, with the lives of "stand-out Christians";
the world still hates those who truly love the Lord, and they stand
convicted in their sin.
So Jesus tells His bros to
go on ahead; it's almost as though He doesn't want to be associated
with His own family. Did you ever feel that way? When the conduct
of your loved one was an offence to you? Well believe me,
Jesus felt just that strongly about His own half brothers, because we
read in vs. 10 that, shortly after they had gone, Jesus went to
Jerusalem on His own. Those brothers certainly enjoyed their
festivals, but they had no heart for Jesus!
Now here is another
question. Why did Jesus go up to Jerusalem, knowing from what we
have read, that the leaders of the Jews were laying for Him? Well
the answer is very simple...He took His "religion"
seriously; and He was obedient to the Old Testament law. As we have
seen, the Feast of Tabernacles was one of the three most important
holidays on the Jewish calendar, so He had no choice but to
go. You perhaps have heard it said that so-and-so is a "good
Christian"; well Jesus was a "good Jew". He knew that
He was obliged to obey Father God, regardless of the consequences,
and it's no different for us today.
Well, as expected, we read
in vss. 11-13 that the Jews knew that Jesus would have to come to the
Feast to celebrate such an important event, so they began to ask
around; and here we go again with the murmuring! And we wonder,
today, at the differences of doctrines and theologies about Jesus;
well guess what...nothing has changed! People have always had
differences of opinions about Who and Why the Lord is. It's a
well-known fact that, wherever the Truth (with a capital T) is
taught, opposition isn't far away. Now we know that the
problem is not with God's truth...it's with human nature. It's hard
to believe that God's Truth can inspire such pointless and pitiful
argument on the one hand, while inspiring such beautiful and eternal
fruit, on the other. Where people's hearts are caught up in
arguments about the things of the Lord, or even the differences
between what is right and what is wrong, there is no Truth to be
found...only judgement.
Finally, another of the
sad statements of the Word of God, there in vs. 13. What an awful
thing to have such a fear of what man may say or do or think; we had
better think of what our Lord thinks! If you allow your witness to
be silenced, then you have no witness at all.
In the next few verses we
will consider our second point in this lesson, where we will see an
example of boldness from the Lord Himself, when we read of..."Jesus,
on the law".
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