This is the expositional portion that completes my previous entry: Hear the Scriptures Again, for the First Time: Introduction. There, I urged readers to engage a careful reading of the Gospel of John 7:1-8:30 in preparation for this blog entry, expository comments on the passage. I am sorry about the length of this entry. I intended to break it into two segments, but it resists such segmenting.
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What follows is a rehearsal concerning aspects of what I taught on January 10, 2021, in Mosaic Class at Bethlehem Baptist Church North (Minneapolis, MN), where I am teaching through the Gospel of John. What I feature here are the dynamics of Jesus’ engagement with the crowds and with the Jewish ruling and religious authorities in Jerusalem during the Festival of Tabernacles. This is an adaptation of notes from the commentary on John’s Gospel which I am writing.
Jesus Delays Travel to Jerusalem for the Feast
It is not fright that keeps Jesus from joining his brothers as they head to Jerusalem. He is governed by a much greater motive; what moves him is doing his Father’s will, particularly the timing of completing his divine mission. Jesus does not join the caravan from Nazareth to go to the Festival of Tabernacles in Jerusalem as his family does as his brothers find delight in ridiculing him, “Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world” (John 7:3-4). They place before their unique brother an appeal to vainglory which Jesus resists. Because he knows that the Jewish authorities—the Sanhedrin and religious leaders—in Jerusalem are looking for him to attend the Festival, and they are looking for an opportunity to seize him as he enters the city, Jesus turns down his brothers’ sarcastic imploring. “My time is not yet here; for you, any time will do. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil. You go to the festival. I am not going up to this festival, because my time has not yet fully come” (John 7:6-8). Here, to his unbelieving brothers, Jesus speaks of his mission in a slightly more veiled expression than when he responded to his mother when she presented her not so subtle appeal at the wedding in Cana, “They have no more wine.” Then Jesus responds, “My hour has not yet come.” To his brothers, he offers essentially the same response but phrased in keeping with the embedded rebuke—“My time is not yet here”—that points to an awaited time of his glory, but not the glory toward which they urge him. Time counts down until Jesus announces, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (John 12:23), which launches his Passion—his persecution, his crucifixion, and his resurrection.
Jesus Arrives in Jerusalem & Teaches Publicly
The situation in Jerusalem during the Festival of Tabernacles, to which Jesus’ family is headed, is tense. It is just as Jesus realizes because he has tweaked the sensibilities of the authorities at least twice while in Jerusalem, first, when he made quite a scene in the Temple concerning merchants and moneychangers and second when he healed the lame man by the Pool of Bethesda on a Sabbath day. While Jesus lingers in Galilee before trekking up to Jerusalem with his disciples, the Temple courtyards are overrun with pilgrims who make their way into the city for the week-long Festival. Because the word on the street is that the Jewish officials are looking to arrest Jesus, individuals throughout the crowds who anticipate seeing him, keep their voices hushed as they cautiously inquire of one another concerning the popular miracle-worker. Contrary opinions regarding him can be heard among the crowds. Some, who look to Jesus as a populist teacher, say, “He is a good man. Look at all the wonderful miracles he performs.” Others, who are dubious of the prevalent desire for a populist Messiah, counter, “No, he deceives the people.” Others join the whispering, “If he is the Messiah, why does he linger? Why does he not seize leadership and free us from the Romans?” However, no one dares to speak loudly or publicly for fear of the officials. To speak openly concerning Jesus is perilous. The warnings are more than rumors. Word is out that arrests are imminent. The threat of being seized is palpable and ominous.
So, not because of trepidation but because he knows the time for his passion is not yet, Jesus remains in his home region with his disciples until midway through the Festival. When he arrives in Jerusalem, he does not cower in the shadows where the authorities’ henchmen might more readily seize him. Jesus is shrewd. Instead, he hides in plain sight from the Pharisees who desire his arrest. How? In broad daylight he openly teaches the large crows in the most prominent place within the city, the temple courtyard where travelers gather, pilgrims who have on previous journeys to the city have witnessed Jesus’ miracles and have heard him teach. Though the crowds may not realize it, they stand as an impediment that intimidates the Jewish authorities who want to seize Jesus, but not in plain sight and without the cover of darkness.
As Jesus knows that the large crowd gathering to hear him speak is a diverse throng of people ranging from miracle-mongering enthusiasts to sympathizers of Jerusalem’s bitter establishment who jealously clasp their seats of power lest the interloping populist preacher from Nazareth incite Roman violence against them, which the authorities always deem a threat because they have no proper grasp of Jesus’ character. So, as Jesus courageously teaches the throngs in the very seat of power, the Temple courtyards, the people mutter their amazement, “How did this fellow acquire such learning when it is obvious that he did not attend the accredited elite schools?” Jesus knows their astonishment and responds, “What I teach is not of myself but comes from the one who sent me. Discover for yourself that my teaching comes from God. Do God’s will. I do not speak on my own account as others do to seek my own glory, but I seek the glory of the One who sent me. I speak the truth because there is no falsehood in me.” If his brothers are present, they grimace. His words sting their memories for taunting him to go to Jerusalem to seek his glory: “No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.”
Jesus Knows His Mixed Audience
Jesus reads his audience. He recognizes the Pharisees who want to arrest him. So, he confronts them directly along with all who sympathize with their objective. “Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?” Some from the crowd retort, “You are demon-possessed.” They mock, “Who is trying to kill you?” Jesus reminds them of how umbrageous the authorities were when he healed the lame man by the Pool of Bethesda. “I accomplished that one miracle on a Sabbath Day, and to this day you are all offended. Nevertheless, you circumcise a male child on the Sabbath if that happens to be the eighth day after the baby is born. You do this to honor Moses who gave you circumcision (though it actually came from Abraham). So, if a male child can be circumcised on the Sabbath to avoid breaking the law of Moses, why are you angry with me for healing a man’s whole body on the Sabbath? Stop judging based on mere appearances. Instead, judge justly based in truth.”
This prompts some to interrupt Jesus again as they point directly at him and wonder out loud, “Is not this the man the authorities are looking for to kill him? Look at this! Here the wanted man is, speaking publicly, and the authorities are not stopping him. They are not even saying a word to him. What is this? Have the authorities determined that he is the Messiah? That is strange because we know where this man is from. He is from Nazareth. But when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from.” Belief in folklore theology rather than in the Scriptures is nothing new. It was popular long ago, in Jesus’ day.
Right there, publicly in the Temple courts, Jesus loudly counters the folklore believers by affirming, “Indeed, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own authority, but he who sent me is truthful. You do not know him, but I know him because I am from him and he sent me.”
Jesus’ Avoidance of Arrest Calls for Careful Reflection
This greatly offends the religious authorities and their sympathizers, so they attempt to grasp Jesus to seize him. This is where John the Evangelist offers an extraordinary explanation of how Jesus escapes and avoids being arrested. John simply states, “But no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come.” What a remarkably packed statement! Pause. Ponder. Do not pass over this subtle but theologically overflowing provocation of wonder. The Evangelist’s written explanation of why no one was able to seize Jesus begs for explanation itself. Be alert. Hear the Evangelist’s incitement that should pique your wonder and activate your holy imagination. At least two facets call for reflective attention.
First, consider the wording of the Evangelist’s explanation for Jesus’ avoidance of being arrested—“his hour had not yet come.” Whoever is attentive readily recalls Jesus’ response to his taunting brothers: “My time is not yet here; for you, any time will do. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil. You go to the festival. I am not going up to this festival, because my time is not yet fulfilled.” Except here, though the narrator purposely recalls Jesus’ response to his brothers, his choice of wording reaches all the way back to Jesus’ response to his mother’s request at the wedding, for here John writes, “But no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come.” John repeats verbatim this explanation for Jesus’ avoidance of arrest—“because his hour had not yet come”—later in his narrative concerning additional efforts to seize him during the Festival of Tabernacles (John 8:20).
Second, John’s explanation for Jesus’ eluding arrest beckons us to linger and to reflect upon the theologically rich and full texture of the statement—“But no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come.” The first portion of this statement repeats later in the account (7:44). Of course, the Evangelist does not imply that Jesus escaped being seized by becoming a spirit, by mystical or magically means, or by some form of tele-transportation. Such a notion is quite antithetical to Christ’s mission which necessitates that he carry out his entire mission in the flesh, in his human body. This, in truth, is a core feature of the Gospel of John. Once the Son of God “became flesh and tabernacled among us” he is enfleshed forevermore. During his days among his fellow Jews, Jesus did not transpose himself from one form to another. From conception forward, and forevermore, he is human. Thus, he eludes those who tried to seize him but not by suddenly vaporizing. Also, because the miracles Jesus performs throughout John’s Gospel are witnessed events that are discernible and verifiable, there is no hint that he performed some temporary miracle by blinding his would-be assailants. We must be wary lest we incorrectly assume that Jesus superfluously performs miracles including to preserve his life, something Scripture’s testimony refutes, especially made evident during the devil’s series of temptations to avoid his suffering by suspending the Creator’s designed regulations upon being human in this world (Hebrews 2:14-18; Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13). We also must be cautious lest we improperly minimize the effect that Jesus’ dignity, his unique bearing, has upon his attackers. Concerning the latter, John provides at least one account when those who came to arrest him in the Garden, on the night that he was betrayed, fell backward and to the ground when they encountered deity. Here is the account.
Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them,
“Who is it you want?”
“Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied.
“I AM,” Jesus said. (And Judas the traitor was standing there with them.) When Jesus said, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground (John 18:4-6).
Jesus Eludes Being Stoned to Death
Later, during the same day of the Festival of Tabernacles, narrated in John 8, Jesus identifies the true descendants of Abraham as not an ethnic people but ones who do the works Abraham did, the works God requires. This provokes hostility that escalates when Jesus claims to be God: “Very truly I tell you, before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58). Now, so enraged, the Jews pick up stones to hurl at him to kill him right there in their sacred Temple area. But once again, John tells us that Jesus “slipped away from the Temple courtyard. And after he eluded their killer stones, John says, “Jesus hid himself.” Such an act, which Jesus does again later (John 12:36), is surely a dramatization of divine judgment upon Israel (John 12:30ff). The Light of the World hides as he foreshadows the sun’s later hiding for three hours during peak sunlight hours on the day Jesus dies. But for our purposes, that Jesus “slips away from the Temple grounds” is instructive. John requires us to ponder conventional means, not magical ones, by which Jesus eludes arrest until the appointed hour.
So, John’s explanation of Jesus’ avoidance of arrest requires us to engage our holy imaginations to conceive of the situation in genuinely human terms. We must resist imagining that Jesus exploited super-powers to avert his impending death which his Father’s will requires to complete his redemptive mission (cf. Matthew 26:53). We need to observe the setting, the plot’s tension, the characters involved, including the mixed crowd and his own disciples, the depth of human emotion, the level of intimidation, the blend of resolve and fear among Jesus’ assailants, even the presence of fright. Spatially, the setting is the Temple courts, the center of Jerusalem’s activities. Temporally, the setting is the Festival of Tabernacles when enthused pilgrims fill the Temple square with many who look for that miracle worker, Jesus. Religiously and politically, Jesus’ earlier visits to Jerusalem have already offended the authorities’ sensibilities and as with other messianic figures who preceded Jesus, the ruling class perceive him to be a threat to their powers delegated from Rome. So, they are looking for an opportunity to arrest Jesus, but they must seize him stealthily to avoid inflaming the crowds.
So, how should we understand John’s explanation of why those who try to seize Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles fail in their mission? We must recognize that the mixed throng of people crowding around Jesus to hear him teach in the Temple courts is largely favorable toward him. Some even regard him as the Messiah, a truthful but a wholly inadequate ascription, especially given their flawed conception of the promised Messiah. The ruling class Pharisees and Sadducees along with their cohorts are rather ambivalent while even contemptuous concerning the numerous motley crowds that make pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the many festivals. They are pleased that the crowd’s coins fill the Temple’s treasuries and increase their own wealth and the city’s economy by purchases from the merchants and money changers at the Temple, which that outsider from Nazareth disrupted three years earlier during the Feast of Pentecost. But for all the wealth they bring to Jerusalem, the crowds tend to stir unease among Jerusalem’s religious-political authorities who are always wary lest some messianic character triggers the crowds and incite a mob to riot, which in turn prompts the Roman soldiers to inflict wrath on them for failing to administer their duties to maintain order at the Temple, the hub of Jerusalem. Truly, those in authority are nervous because their control of the crowd in the Temple courts during the Festival of Tabernacles is tenuous at best. They are oblivious that Jesus, the one they hunt, alone masters the whole situation, both the crowd and his assailants as well as when he will be arrested and be rushed to be put to death. Surely, whenever he visits Jerusalem and the Temple, the Word who inhabits human flesh observes the available escape routes. Jesus situates himself in a public place filled with people, a place that restrains respectable Jews, especially members of the prim and proper ruling class who would prefer to seize him in an out-of-the-way place under the cover of darkness. For other would-be assailants who might ignore social respectability, despite their eventual fickleness, his disciples provide a semblance of a barrier. Jesus also employs the crowds who invariably gather around him to provide a buffer between himself and the Jewish authorities who loathe him but fear the crowds who are fond of him. If the authorities attempt to seize Jesus in any public place, the crowd is likely to turn on them with vengeance. They dare not risk having the Roman soldiers intervene. So, even though they seethe with contempt for Jesus, who invariably speaks with authority unlike the Scribes and the Pharisees, they dare do nothing more than convey their message with scowls at him lest they incite a riot that will provoke the Romans to eliminate the arrangements now in place with the Jews, provisions that award subjugated power to the ruling class Jews (cf. John 11:47-50).
The Pharisees are irritated. While among the crowds they hear whisperings, “When the Messiah comes, will he perform more signs than this man?” Word of this messianic fever makes its way to the Chief Priests and the leading Pharisees who send Temple Guards to arrest Jesus, whose presence in the crowd does not intimidate Jesus as he speaks riddles that both reveal and conceal, eliciting belief and prompting unbelief: “I am with you for only a short time, and then I am going to the one who sent me. You will look for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come.”
Jesus Speaks Enigmatically
Jesus’ enigmatic speech puzzles his hearers who nudge those standing near them to inquire, “Where does this man intend to go that we cannot find him? Will he go where our people live scattered among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks? What did he mean when he said, ‘You will look for me, but you will not find me,’ and ‘Where I am, you cannot come’?”
At that moment, on the final and greatest day of the Festival of Tabernacles, when the water drawing ceremony and the lighting ceremonies are held, Jesus stands up to announce with a loud voice so all in the Temple courts could hear: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” John explains that Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit, the Spirit promised to everyone who believes in Jesus, that Spirit his disciples would receive later, on the Day of Pentecost, after Jesus would be glorified (John 7:37-39). As to his identity, Jesus reduces the options from which his hearers can choose. Is he an audacious fool with a messianic complex? Is he a risible lunatic? Or is he the one sent from God?
The crowd expresses divergent notions concerning Jesus’ identity. Some among the crowd blurt out, “Surely this man is the Prophet.” Others claim, “He is the Messiah.” And others wonder out loud, “How can the Messiah come from Galilee? Does not Scripture say that the Messiah will come from David’s descendants and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?” So again, some among the crowd are eager to seize him, but no one lays a hand on him.
Jesus and Nicodemus, Once More
The Temple Guards return empty-handed to the Chief Priests and the Pharisees, who sent them to arrest Jesus. Those who dispatched them are furious. They launch into interrogating their subjects: “Why didn’t you bring Jesus in?” The Temple Guards are unwilling to admit openly the crowd’s intimidating impact upon them. They do, however, declare another truth, how like many in the crowd, words Jesus speak struck them: “No one ever spoke the way this man does.” Infuriated, the Pharisees interrogate, “You mean he has deceived you also? Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them.”
Imagine the tension in the hall where these officials are meeting. Do not allow yourself to read the passage hastily. Linger and reflect on the icy silence of the moment that follows the Pharisees’ severe reprimand of the Temple Guards for their receptive hearing of Jesus. Who would be foolish enough to utter a word? Such is the setting. Before the Pharisees’ rage dissipates one Pharisee named Nicodemus, an influential man who is a member of the Sanhedrin and who had secretly conferred with Jesus at night, musters the courage to interject a measure of reasonableness. After all, as a Pharisee who is devoted to the Law of Moses, Nicodemus thinks it is logical and necessary to pose a legal question. So, marshaling command of his own timidity, he inquires, “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?”
Now Nicodemus’ severely prejudiced members of the Sanhedrin turn to glare upon him. They have already rendered judgment. What is one of their own thinking? Justice needs to be accomplished. They cannot be bothered with any time delay that a trial would call for. So, they hurl their interrogative fury at him: “Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.” Little do they realize that Nicodemus is the only reasonable voice present.
Do not be distracted by the misplaced episode concerning the woman caught in adultery that disrupts the flow of John’s narrative. Our contemporary Bibles correctly state that the earliest manuscripts show that the passage was not original to the Gospel of John. (Daniel B. Wallace explains: video or text.) According to John’s original text, it is still the last and great day of the Feast of Tabernacles when Jesus utters what sounds like an even more audacious announcement of self-identity than he expresses earlier in the day when he presents himself as the fulfillment of the imagery of water drawn from the Pool of Siloam. Now, when Jesus speaks again to the crowd, he confidently announces, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” Again, do not glibly pass over this declaration. What audacity! Do you hear it? Jesus is proclaiming that he overshadows the sun, which all earth-dwellers know is the sun. Again, concerning his identity, Jesus leaves no uncertainty. He constrains everyone who hears either to believe him or to reject him. There is no neutrality.
As for the connection between Jesus’ announcement and the account concerning Nicodemus’ boldness during the meeting of the Sanhedrin, do not presume that it is merely serendipitous. The Evangelist’s shrewd correlation of these two episodes may seem dubious unless one views the connection within the larger context of the Gospel because the Festival of Tabernacles as the framework continues through chapter 9 and into chapter 10 (9:1-10:21). The conjunction of these two episodes signals two connections between Jesus’ announcement and the Sanhedrin’s scheming and censure of Nicodemus. First, Nicodemus a man who is coming to the light as hinted at by his courage to advocate for justice in keeping with their Law. He is leaving the dark night of sin that he inhabited when he sought out Jesus. This emergence into the light is made more visible later when Nicodemus joins one of his peers on the Sanhedrin, Joseph of Arimathea, to receive Jesus’ crucified body for burial (John 19:38-42). Second, the correlation of the two passages signifies Jesus’ verdict upon the Pharisees and the members of the Sanhedrin who scheme to arrest him to kill him. Jesus’ declaration impeaches the remainder of the Sanhedrin, foreshadows his verdict upon them after he gives the light of vision to a man born blind. “For judgment, I have come into this world so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” To this proclamation, with accusatory smugness, some Pharisees retort, “What? Are we blind too?” Yes, that is the point as Jesus responds, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains” (John 9:39-41). What does Jesus mean? He means this: If you were blind in the sense that I speak of blindness as a condition of lostness in which one cries out for illumination, then you would not be guilty of the sin of rejecting revelation. But now that you claim that you can see, you are satisfied with the light of the Law of Moses as you interpret it from the collection of your traditions. Consequently, you reject the True Light which shines upon you now. Therefore, your guilt remains.
Conclusion
I trust, now, that you have heeded my appeal for you to hear this portion of the Gospel of John again for the first time and that the aspects of the text register deeply with a refreshment of your insight to recognize the real Jesus portrayed before our eyes by one of his eyewitnesses, John the Apostle. We must steer clear of adjusting the Gospel’s portrayal to our own cultural placement, which has always been the penchant of religious Liberalism. However, we also need to acknowledge that the proclivities and patterns of sinful humans remain constant. Thus, I trust that when you better understand the dynamics of interaction between Jesus and the crowds who throng around Jesus, on the one hand, and on the other hand, Jesus and the Jewish ruling class authorities who pursue him with diabolical and jealous scheming. Such dynamics are not hazy, obscure, or ancient but realistic, accessible, and contemporary.
Jesus is no effete, effeminate, epicene, ephemeral male who shrinks from conflict, cries “victim” when subjected to persecution, or slinks away from their pursuit with timidity. Docile, tame, manageable, passive, manipulative he is not. Jesus is courageous. He is watchful. He stands firm, trusting his Father. He conducts himself like a man (cf. 1 Corinthians 16:13). He knows his mission. He is determined to accomplish his divinely appointed purpose. He knows the hour of his Passion. No one rushes him to his death. No one averts him from his purpose. No one detains him. No one masters Jesus. No one lays a hand on him because his hour has not yet come. This is the Jesus of the Four Gospels. Do you recognize him? Do you entrust yourself to this Jesus, or do you prefer the Jesus of your own devising?