Leaving Galilee for Dangerous Judea
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Notes for the passage....
[Pictures of areas Jesus ministered in the Galilee]
1. The Challenge by the brothers of Jesus, vs. 1-5.
1. The Challenge by the brothers of Jesus, vs. 1-5.
It is a period of time between the events recorded in John 6 and those of John 7.
John 6 takes place near the beginning of the year around Passover. Now it is the fall, six months later. Jesus has continued to go around Galilee teaching and healing. The synoptic gospels focus much of their attention on Jesus and His Galilean ministry, a period of about a year.
He is unwilling to walk in Judea. Why? because the Jewish religious authorities in Judea were actively engaged in finding Him so they could kill Him.
Clear reference: John 5:18
For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.
The Feast of Booths is the celebration of the ingathering of the harvest, specifically of grapes and olives.
‘On exactly the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the crops of the land, you shall celebrate the feast of the Lord for seven days, with a rest on the first day and a rest on the eighth day.
‘Now on the first day you shall take for yourselves the foliage of beautiful trees, palm branches and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days.
‘You shall thus celebrate it as a feast to the Lord for seven days in the year. It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations; you shall celebrate it in the seventh month.
‘You shall live in booths for seven days; all the native-born in Israel shall live in booths,
so that your generations may know that I had the sons of Israel live in booths when I brought them out from the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.’ ”
“You shall celebrate the Feast of Booths seven days after you have gathered in from your threshing floor and your wine vat;
and you shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter and your male and female servants and the Levite and the stranger and the orphan and the widow who are in your towns.
“Seven days you shall celebrate a feast to the Lord your God in the place which the Lord chooses, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful.
This most popular of the three principle feasts took place from 15-21 Tishri, the lunar month comparable to our September-October, with the 8th day on 22 Tishri. This feast was known for both its water-drawing rite and a lamp-lighting rite, both of which Jesus will allude to later in the gospel.
There would be a great crowd there to attend the feast, so Jesus’ brothers are egging Him on to go and make His appearance in Jerusalem. There are possibly three motivations in their thinking to have Jesus do this:
with the large-scale defection of many of His disciples, they encourage Jesus to “go satisfy them before Your cause is lost!”
“What better place is there for a religious leader to parade His wares?”
“If You are that interested in religious prominence, sooner or later You must prove to be the Master of Jerusalem.”
Verse 4 gives their reasoning: “ If You want to advance as a public figure, you ought to show yourself to the world” — a ‘world’ which cannot receive Him without ceasing to be the ‘world’!
It will be in Jerusalem where Jesus reveals Himself most dramatically—in the cross by which Jesus draws all men to Himself and becomes the Savior of the world.
The brothers of Jesus had seen what He did, but they did not entrust themselves entirely to Him. At this point, they were unsaved.
2. The Correct perspective on the Father’s timing, vs. 6-9.
2. The Correct perspective on the Father’s timing, vs. 6-9.
The brothers of Jesus projected onto Him what they would have done if they were in His sandals. They did not recognize or appreciate the uniqueness that was Jesus alone.
So Jesus tells them, “It is not time for me to go to the festival yet. But you can go whenever you want to.” The brothers did not know God’s agenda. They do not listen to Jesus, fail to recognize God’s words and can not perceive who Jesus truly is. Therefore Jesus will not travel with His brothers.
Jesus is focused on God’s appointed timing, not man’s. Verse 7 tells us that Jesus’ brothers belong to the ‘world,’ and the world loves its own.
“If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.
Jesus says the world hates Him. Why? Not only does He not belong to it, but He testifies that what it does is evil.
“This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.
“For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.
The brothers were not under the time constraints Jesus was under, subject to the direction of the Father. When the brothers go is insignificant in light of God’s purposes . But Jesus will not take one step toward the Feast in Jerusalem just because His brothers say He should, but will do so only when the Father gives His permission. Jesus is still harvesting in Galilee, but ready to obey the Father’s directives.
3. The Crowd’s quiet conferring re: Jesus, vs. 10-13.
3. The Crowd’s quiet conferring re: Jesus, vs. 10-13.
It was after His brothers had left for the feast that Jesus, with his closest disciples, left for the feast at last, leaving Galilee for the last time, not returning until after His resurrection.
He went to the feast in Jerusalem with great discretion, attracting no attention and with firm resolve to follow His Father’s schedule. He went this way because Jesus recognized the mortal danger presented by the religious leaders and of the real possibility of assassination in Judea.
The Jewish leaders were seeking Jesus, believing that the feast would draw Him out of Galilee (which was Herod Antipas’ jurisdiction) into their hands, where they felt they could get at Him. They were seeking Jesus with hostile intent. The word translated “He” could be translated as “that man,” possibly reflecting scorn, exasperation, or both toward Jesus.
However, the Messiah comes to sacrifice His life, yet He will not leave the timing, or circumstances, of His death in the hands of His enemies. He would dictate the terms of His execution to accomplish His mission.
The crowds, consisting of Jews from Judea, pious Jews from the Galilee, and the Diaspora, had heard of Jesu, arousing great curiosity and division among those who were at the feast.
Some testified of His goodness; that “He is a good man.” This may have possibly been because of the good results of His miracles, but their categories prevent them from concluding anything very profound about Him.
Others were cynical, suggesting that He is a charlatan. This view is the origin of a dominant viewpoint in some Jewish circles following the resurrection.
Their speaking quietly, not openly, about Jesus makes it apparent that the Jewish religious leaders are at the point where they do not Jesus discussed publicly! It is their displeasure with Jesus that is boiling over to affect even His followers:
His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed Him to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.
“These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling.
“They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God.
The religious leaders believe that the crowds, by speaking of Jesus, will make Him a more important figure than they want Him to be.
But there is no one among the religious leaders or the crowd with their opinions who affirmed His true identity as the Christ and the Son of God.
Although knowing that the Jewish leaders wanted to kill Him, Jesus refused to shrink from the task given by the Father, But He never was foolhardy, but waited on the Father’s schedule. Doing what the Father wants put Jesus at risk, just as obeying the Lord puts us in circumstances that can bring danger as well. During those times we must balance three primary issues: trust in God, danger from enemies, and the dedication to God’s mission for us.
We do this by first assessing the danger (verses 1, 7). Always aware of the danger, Jesus walked wisely.
Second, devise a strategy to nullify the danger (verse 10). Jesus hid His whereabouts, Later, He shows up in front of the crowds teaching, where the leaders dare not seize Him for fear of losing the crowds approval.
Third, risk safety only when God’s mission puts danger in your path (verse 7). His brothers chided Him to proclaim Himself the Christ. But the Lord’s mission was to be the Christ, not simply proclaim Himself the Christ. He embodied divine truth, proclaiming it to God’s covenant people. That’s what he had been doing for the last three years. Now it was time to confront the religious leaders directly.