Sneaky Jesus
Notes
Transcript
John 7:1-52
One Candidate to Rule Them All
One Candidate to Rule Them All
It is election week. The advertising dollars are growing. The smear campaigns are growing. And more than anything the fear of the “other” candidate is growing. In record numbers, people are voting for Hillary because they hate and fear Trump or for Trump because they hate and fear Hillary. Or desperately searching for another candidate because they hate and fear both.
The country is divided. Colorado is divided.
I have heard it said “Don’t look to Hillary or Trump to unite this country… look to Jesus.” Now that is a beautiful statement.
We think of the love of Jesus, the peace of Jesus, the return of Jesus and all things being made in and through him, it is a great unifying thing. And it is the destination of all things…
But in the meantime. More divisive than Hillary vs. Trump is the name of Jesus.
The question “who is Jesus” is, for the last two millennia, the most divisive question of all. Different answers split Jew from Muslim from Christian. Wars have been fought. Families have split. Lives have been separated into before and after in the light of this one question. Who is Jesus.
And however you answer that question, you can agree with this:
Jesus is the most divisive person in history.
We have seen this tension and question already as we have been in the book of John, and now we come to chapter 7.
What is it about Jesus that is so persistently divisive? What about Jesus splits the human soul?
Rising Tensions in Jerusalem
Rising Tensions in Jerusalem
John 7:1-
7 After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him. 2 Now the Jews' Feast of Booths was at hand.
The Feast of Booths. Building tents or huts out of woven branches, either in a field or on the roof if you lived in the city.
3 So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. 4 For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” 5 For not even his brothers believed in him.
That’s kind of big deal, not even Jesus’ brothers believed in his whole story… at least not yet. They knew he could do miracles, but not everything that Jesus was claiming about himself. Jesus’ claims divide his own family.
6 Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. 7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. 8 You go up to the feast. I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come.” 9 After saying this, he remained in Galilee.
10 But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly but in private.
So, this is sneaky Jesus. He isn’t going to go up in public, he didn’t go for the start of the feast… but he slips in from the side. Kind of gentle approach, a sneak attack.
11 The Jews were looking for him at the feast, and saying, “Where is he?” 12 And there was much muttering about him among the people. While some said, “He is a good man,” others said, “No, he is leading the people astray.” 13 Yet for fear of the Jews no one spoke openly of him.
And now we are going to see two cycles. Jesus teaches, the crowds question and are divided on who Jesus is, and the religious authorities reject him. We repeat this cycle twice in the rest of this passage.
14 About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. 15 The Jews therefore marveled, saying, “How is it that this man has learning, when he has never studied?” 16 So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. 17 If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. 18 The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood. 19 Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?” 20 The crowd answered, “You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?”
This is my new favorite way to say “You are crazy!” You have a demon!!! New phrase, you can use it.
21 Jesus answered them, “I did one work, and you all marvel at it. 22 Moses gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. 23 If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man's whole body well? 24 Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”
This is Jesus’ teaching, then, the people are divided…
25 Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, “Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? 26 And here he is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ? 27 But we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.” 28 So Jesus proclaimed, as he taught in the temple, “You know me, and you know where I come from. But I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true, and him you do not know. 29 I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me.” 30 So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. 31 Yet many of the people believed in him. They said, “When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done?”
So the people are divided, some question, some reject, some believe.
But focusing in on the religious authorities, they are foremost in rejecting Jesus:
32 The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to arrest him. 33 Jesus then said, “I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. 34 You will seek me and you will not find me. Where I am you cannot come.” 35 The Jews said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? 36 What does he mean by saying, ‘You will seek me and you will not find me,’ and, ‘Where I am you cannot come’?”
We know… for in 6 months, when again the Diaspora Jews from all around have returned to Jerusalem for Passover, Jesus will go to the cross.
Again we see the cycle… days later, at the end of the feast, the day after it is officially over but the tradition extended to the eight day, it plays out again. Perhaps Jesus laid low for a few days to let the heat die down.
37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
So Jesus has already been looking forward to the cross, now he is looking even past the Resurrection to the giving of the Holy Spirit, ultimately given to his followers at Pentecost. In the Feast of Booths arose a tradition of carrying water from the spring up to the altar and offering it there, along with a wine offering, in memory of the water flowing from the rock in the wilderness. Jesus claims fulfillment of that promise of water to his people, the Spirit as a river of living water within his people.
And again the people are divided:
40 When they heard these words, some of the people said, “This really is the Prophet.” 41 Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “Is the Christ to come from Galilee? 42 Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” 43 So there was a division among the people over him. 44 Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.
The people are divided, but the religious leaders are mostly united against Jesus:
45 The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why did you not bring him?” 46 The officers answered, “No one ever spoke like this man!” 47 The Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived? 48 Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? 49 But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.”
But even among the Pharisees, Jesus caused division.
50 Nicodemus, who had gone to him before, and who was one of them, said to them, 51 “Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?” 52 They replied, “Are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”
Shut up, Nicodemus. It is ironic because at least Jonah and Nahum, both prophets, arose from Galilee… and Jesus is from Bethlehem originally not Galilee, so these guys are revealing arrogance on top of ignorance.
But the facts don’t matter. Nicodemus presents an appropriate response to questions about someone’s claims: let’s investigate. The religious leaders… and I think this is representative of the human spirit… they just want to kill Jesus.
Even when Jesus sneaks in… he is divisive. They didn’t know the background or who this guy was at first… but very quickly, the crowd is divided over their responses to Jesus.
What is it about Jesus that divides?
Two Directions
Two Directions
A few weeks ago, my Mack Pack met the Navarras at Rock Creek Farms to pick pumpkins and hit the corn maze. I think they miss the opportunity to call it a Maize maze… but oh well.
The whole point of the maze is that you are presented with choice after choice. Left or right or straight. And you wander through the maze. Logan had a strategy, send out scouts. One kid go that way, I’ll go this way, report back, shouting through the maze and uncovering dead ends quickly.
This perfectly fit with my plan which was to make sure everyone got lost in the maze at some point. Otherwise what is the point? So we get to a point of division and when Logan went one way, start tearing through the maze in the other direction. Perfect.
There are many, many choices we face in life. Most are small, but some shape the rest of your life. Career decisions, marriage decisions, house decisions, moving, churches… these are major life shaping decisions.
Every moment that one encounters Jesus is a turning point in the maze. Because Jesus, in his very person, in his teaching, in his perfection, in his incarnation of God on earth, in everything that He is and everything that He does confronts the human heart to say two things:
Your works are evil.
Only I can save you.
Now those are both difficult things to hear. That second one is mostly coming in John… but even here in chapter 7 Jesus continues to make it about him, personally. Not his teaching, not his actions, not his miracles, it is him.
But the human heart hates being confronted with the first, and this is in full swing in Jesus ministry. Jesus puts it this way:
7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.
The world hates Jesus. And everything that is “the world” in me hates Jesus… because Jesus identifies all that in me and rightly says “that is evil.”
And that is a point of decision. You either go right, and say “You are right… what can I do to be saved.” Or as his disciples said last week “Where else can we go, you have the words of eternal life.”
Or, the most natural thing in the world is to defend one’s self again attack. And I choose, at the nexus point, to identify myself with my actions. It isn’t just that I do those things it is that I am those things. I am my sin, that is part of me. Then I will hate Jesus, for I have taken the other path, the path of the world.
All that is the world in me hates Jesus. And because there is still the world in me, the influence of the flesh, the effect of sin, the affect of sin, there is still that in me that hates Jesus. And I find Jesus to be not only divisive in the world but divisive in me.
All that is Jesus in me loves the world and seeks to rescue it.
This is the great division of history, it is the great division in our hearts, and we should not be surprised as the name of Jesus, as the message of Jesus, as even the love of Jesus continues to divide our world.
We should not be surprised when churches are divided by the name and person of Jesus, for again, who was it who had the hardest time hearing that their “works were evil?” The religious authorities. For there is a tremendous trap, a very real danger to being the religious “experts”.
The world hates the real Jesus.
Will the world hate the real Jesus in me?
Jesus is divisive. And he continues to be so today. But he never stops loving those who have hated him. In fact, he dies for them. He never rejects the world that rejects him… he is on a rescue mission.
We should not take this message and say that I should live in such a way that sinners hate me. That may happen, but that isn’t our application or our purpose. We should love regardless, sacrifice regardless, allow the Holy Spirit to be in us a river of living water; life and love to those few who will hear the message of Jesus, “your works are evil” and rather than rejecting Jesus, allow him to save them.
Jesus is divisive. For now.
But one day. At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord; to the glory of God the Father.
