Full Transcript

Did you know the last thing Jesus told his followers was to go into all the world and proclaim the gospel? And more than that, he said, Teach those who receive it all the things I have taught you. We Christians call that the Great Commission. That’s why Share the Word is a Great Commission project. Thank you for joining us for today’s lesson. Now here’s Paul.

Confusion and Chaos, John 7. In March 2001, a little Jewish girl was killed while she sat in her baby stroller in the deadly tit-for-tat fighting in Hebron on the West Bank of Israel. On a wall near where she died, there is now a plaque with a poem in her memory. It’s an elegy to her pinchable cheeks, her sweet smile, her innocent cuteness, and to the urgent need for revenge. It says, We will take revenge. We will scream for revenge in body and spirit as we wait for the coming Messiah.

That’s how many people thought of the Messiah in Jesus’ day too. That’s one reason they were so unprepared for a Messiah who paid scant attention to the Roman occupation. And when he did talk about freedom, he was pointing people to freedom from sin and its consequences as their most pressing need. As John chapter 6 closed, Jesus was standing nearly alone in the synagogue at Capernaum, surrounded by only his twelve closest disciples. His voice was echoing in the now emptied chamber when he asked those few remaining if they would turn away from him too. Remember, only a few days before, on the heel of the miracle on the mountain, there were thousands of Galileans clamoring for him to become their king.

But Jesus had decisively rejected becoming a political savior and urged them to recognize that what they needed far more was a savior from sin, one who could reconcile them to God. And he claimed he had come down out of heaven to do exactly that. Most of them found that more than a little bit hard to believe, even offensive, and then they turned away from him. One of the most common misperceptions about Jesus today, how people commonly think of him wrongly, is by only thinking of Jesus as a mythological figure. Unbelieving critics of the Bible suggest whoever wrote these Gospels are presenting a mythological figure who they were trying to build into a cult hero. But even a cursory reading of John’s Gospel shows how foolish that idea is.

Jesus was very real. A made-up figure could never have affected and changed the world the way he has. The notion that he was made up or even embellished by second or third century writers is completely inconsistent with the text of Scripture. John shows the realities of Jesus’ life, not a made-up superhero drama. The reality was that he was not accepted by most of the people around him. Jesus experienced rejection and huge disappointments.

Surprisingly, we see in chapter 7 that not only did the religious leaders reject him, and not only did the multitudes in Galilee turn away from him when he wouldn’t sign on to their agenda, but even his own brothers did not believe in him. They ridiculed his claims. Did you realize before you read this chapter that Jesus had brothers? As chapter 7 opens, John once again has skipped ahead in the story. Several months have elapsed. Jesus has spent this time moving from one town and village of Israel to the next, but usually in the north, in Galilee.

But now one of the annual religious holidays was drawing near, one of those occasions when religious Jews, if at all possible, went up to Jerusalem to present themselves at the temple. It was called the Feast of Tabernacles. Jesus’ brothers, John says in the opening verses of this chapter, were taunting him about going up to Jerusalem for this convocation, to, if he would, publicly make his case to be Israel’s Messiah. You’re getting nowhere hiding out up here in Galilee, they scoffed at him. But Jesus told them he wasn’t yet ready for this, to put on some display for people. They could do what they wanted, but for him, the timing was not yet right.

We can assume his brothers went on ahead with the caravans of religious pilgrims that traveled from the north down to Jerusalem, but Jesus stayed behind, for now. Let me tell you briefly about the Feast of Tabernacles. It was one of the three major annual religious holidays observed by religious Jews in that time. It lasted a week, and during that week, part of the observance was that people would move out of their homes and live in temporary shelters in their yards. Sounds like fun. Everybody camped out for a week.

If they were in a crowded city neighborhood, like in Jerusalem, for example, some built these mini tabernacles from tree limbs and boughs on the flat roof of their homes. This holiday was actually a commemoration of the period when their forefathers had been coming out of Egypt through the Sinai Desert and lived in makeshift shelters in the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land. Even the Lord himself, who was guiding them, his presence came down and dwelt in a big tent they set up in their camp for worship called the tabernacle. The events and ceremonies at the temple in Jerusalem during this week-long religious festival all harken back to that time of the Exodus centuries before, when Moses led Israel out of bondage and they trekked through the wilderness toward the Promised Land.

John describes the scene in Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles that year graphically, beginning at verse 10. The religious authorities, the Sanhedrin, who already had made Jesus enemy number one, expected that he might show up at this festival and were on the lookout for him. He’d become the most notorious person in Israel at this point and the topic of conversation all over the city. Public opinion was very divided. Some people thought he was an important prophet. Others, possibly the Messiah.

Others, a deceiver and a fraud. Then, as now, just the name Jesus divided people. Jesus did, in fact, decide to go up to this feast, but not with a pilgrim caravan. He delayed his coming and arrived somewhat secretly in Jerusalem midway through the festival. In the middle of that week, John says, he boldly appeared right at the temple and began to openly teach there, commanding the attention of throngs of worshipers. Learned rabbis who listened were amazed at his command of Scripture.

They couldn’t figure out how someone who had never been to a rabbinical school, had no formal training, could know so much about Scripture. The Sanhedrin, learning that Jesus was there, sent some temple police to arrest him. But they seemed unable or unwilling to do so. The policemen became so caught up in the things Jesus was saying, so enthralled as they listened, they just didn’t obey their orders. When they returned, the rulers were furious they did not have Jesus in custody. Yet they didn’t make another attempt to arrest him because they were afraid of a riot occurring.

The people gathered in Jerusalem at that point were very divided. Trying to arrest Jesus during this religious holiday, when many in the crowd actually were taken with him, was a risk they weren’t willing to do. If a riot broke out, the Roman authorities, whose barracks were literally adjacent to the temple, would come down hard on them. And when the smoke cleared, it would be them, the Sanhedrin leaders, who they would hold responsible for breaking the peace. These were the dynamics. It was a very fluid and very highly charged situation.

John doesn’t tell us all the background about the Feast of Tabernacles and how it was celebrated, but let me explain more to you so you can fully appreciate it. This Feast of Tabernacles served as sort of a Jews’ Thanksgiving harvest celebration. It fell in September. As I said, it harkened back to the time of deliverance from Egypt when their forefathers had trekked through the wilderness of Sinai. The book of Exodus says God led them by a pillar of fire at night and a pillar of clouds during the day. He fed them miraculously.

He provided water for them in the desert miraculously. He protected them throughout their travels. During the Exodus and journey toward the Promised Land, the whole of Israel was dependent on God’s provision for their very survival. So now, during this week-long festival of remembrance called the Feast of Tabernacles, there were reenactments throughout the week of different aspects of what God had done for them during the wilderness wanderings. On the final day of that festival, for example, everyone took a leafy bough from their temporary shelters and went up in a procession to the temple for a final ceremony. We know from their own writings that as they came up to worship, they chanted special selections of scripture, especially from the psalm.

One of them was Psalm 18, which reads, Open for us the gates of righteousness so we will enter in and give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord through which the righteous may enter. We will give you thanks, for you have answered us and have become our salvation. The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone. O Lord, save us. O Lord, grant us success.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. For the house of the Lord we bless you. With boughs in hand, we join in the festive procession to your altar. That’s Psalm 118. Can you see the thousands of worshipers carrying these leafy branches, waving them, chanting and singing as they go up to the temple? Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

But they didn’t realize who they were singing about. This is clearly a messianic psalm. It pointed, in fact, to Jesus’ coming. He was their salvation. He was the one who came in the name of the Lord. And he was the stone which the builders would reject.

When the procession of worshipers reached the holy place in the temple, with the chief priests of Israel leading the way, those attending him were carrying large jars of water. They climbed the stairs to the altar, and they poured those big jars of water into a basin as the high priest recited another section from the prophet Isaiah: With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. In that day you will say, Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name, make known his name among the nations for all he has done. Proclaim his name, exalt him. Sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious things. Let this be known to all the world.

Shout aloud, sing for joy, people of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel among you. That’s Isaiah 12. You will draw water from the wells of salvation. Great is the Holy One of Israel among you. He was among them. This was the time they had been singing about at this religious festival for centuries.

The Holy One of Israel had come. The high priest poured all the water from the basin on the altar, and it channeled down a tube, spilling out on the pile of rocks that they had stacked up around it. Can you visualize all this? They were reenacting how God had miraculously provided water for the people in the desert from the rock when they were dying of thirst. God had told Moses, Strike the rock, and when he did, water gushed out, and the parched people drank their fill, filled up their jars and their skins. The original account is back in Exodus 17.

Many there this day, going through this service, did not begin to understand all the symbolism that was going on. It was just a religious ritual to them. But I’m sure John, as he thought about this years and years later, as he mulled over these events for decades, saw the irony. Here they were celebrating God’s provision and presence among them in the past, while at that very moment, God the Son in the form of Jesus was among them in the person. Yet this generation did not recognize or receive him, the one who came not in his own name, but in the name of the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. He was there.

John says it was on this final climactic day of the Feast of Tabernacles that Jesus stood up and in a loud voice called out, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. Recognizing Jesus and hearing those words, John tells us that some of the people said, Surely this man is a prophet, while others said, He’s the Messiah, while others said, How could the Messiah come from Galilee? Doesn’t the Scripture say the Messiah is from David’s descendants, from Bethlehem, from the town where David lived? So the people were divided because of him. Some wanted to seize him, but no one dared lay a hand on him.

I don’t know what your mental conception of Jesus is, but for sure, he was not a pale, bland, serene figure who only talked of love and brotherhood. That’s the character maybe in the Hollywood movies, as we’ve said, but nothing like the real Jesus. The real Jesus, John describes, was bold. His powerful words were incisive. He so threatened the status quo that many of the leaders in Israel just wanted him to go away and, if necessary, kill him to do so. He told his own taunting brothers that the reason the world would not tolerate him was because he put his finger on the world’s biggest problem, the sin that separates people from God.

Most people don’t like to think of themselves as sinners and spiritually lost, then or now. Most are pretty intolerant of that message and anyone who brings it. People are comfortable with an I’m okay, you’re okay kind of Jesus, the serene mythological figure who vaguely stands for virtue and goodness. But that’s not who Jesus was. The real Jesus boldly proclaimed, I have come down out of heaven for the life of the world. Come to me if you are spiritually hungry, because I am the bread of life.

Come to me if you are spiritually thirsty, because only I can quench that. That’s the real Jesus John remembers, and he is showing to us. You know, the real Jesus got frustrated too, more than anything by the hard-heartedness of the religious leaders. They had specific expectations for their Messiah that they had developed, and Jesus just didn’t meet them. For example, one of their ideas was that when the Messiah arrived, he’d come from out of nowhere, just supernaturally appear on the scene. Whereas they knew that Jesus had lived his life in Nazareth.

You can hear his frustration when John says Jesus cried out, You think you know who I am, and you think you know where I have come from, because they really had no idea, and most were not even interested in investigating that question. The real Jesus got frustrated by the shallowness of the multitudes too. Many of the common people were only looking for a Messiah to make their lives better, and since Jesus turned away from their offer to become a political and social champion, many of them just didn’t want to listen any further. You can hear his frustration as he chided them to judge him justly. Stop judging me by appearances, he told them. Make righteous judgments.

It’s very clear that at this point in Jesus’ public ministry, there was confusion and disagreement about who he was. When those temple policemen came back to the rulers and said, After listening to this man, we just couldn’t arrest him. We’ve never heard a man speak like this before. They got ridiculed and scolded in no uncertain terms. No one understands anything about the real Messiah, would fall for this guy’s act, they were told. Our friend Nicodemus spoke up and said, By our law, should you condemn a man without really hearing him out and understand what he is doing?

But even Nicodemus was scoffed at for trying to be reasonable. Chaos and confusion regarding Jesus is the theme of this chapter. But what was the situation at that point, and how is it a whole lot different than what’s going on now? There are so many opinions and views of Jesus today. For example, Islam teaches that Jesus was a real person and an important prophet from God, but say he definitely was not deity. The Baha’i faith and other Eastern religions believe Jesus was one of many manifestations of the divine sent into our world to show mankind a higher way, but not the only way, as he claimed.

To this day, religious Jews teach Jesus was an impostor, some kind of magician, not the fulfillment of their messianic prophecies as he claimed. Some secular historians characterize Jesus in many confusing, even contradictory ways, some as a charismatic preacher who championed social causes, or an apocalyptic prophet trying to prepare people for the end of days, or as a misunderstood pious visionary ahead of his times. But certainly not the Son of God, who out of great love came out of heaven to make an atonement for sin, to make a way for us to be reconciled to our Creator, and that’s what he claimed. Few have taken the time to do what you’re doing, and that is actually hear Jesus out, think through his claims and the signs John and many others witnessed that backed them up, then make, as he called it, a righteous judgment, an informed decision.

Because if Jesus was really who he claimed, we really can’t afford to be wrong about him. That’s why I’m so glad that you’ve decided to join us on this podcast and listen to the testimony of the Apostle John and others who were actually there and knew Jesus personally. If the things they tell us about Jesus are true, if the reasons Jesus came into our planet are true, if there’s any chance they are true, it would be very wise for us to listen carefully and then weigh the evidence carefully and objectively. Please join us next time as we explore one of the favorite chapters of mine in the Gospel of John. Until then, please help us keep sharing the Word. If you’re finding these commentaries interesting and insightful, please help us share the Word about the podcast by telling others about it.

There’s no better way to learn the big ideas in the New Testament than chapter by chapter. Visit us online at sharetheword.org. From all of us at Share the Word, our blessings and prayers go out to all of you.