John 7: Is there More to this?

What if there is more to it than you know?

Lately, this is a question I keep asking. Most everyone I talk to seems to be absolutely certain that they are correct about what is going on with the coronavirus, the conspiracy theories, politics, and plans for the future. The problem is: all of these absolutely correct people don’t agree with each other even though they have a lot of compelling support for all of their beliefs.

Every article I read or discussion I have always leaves me asking the question, what if there is more to it than just that? What if things are more complicated than any of us individually understand? What if no individual group has all of the answers? What if everyone is at least partly wrong?

What John 7 Teaches About This

Failure to consider that we may be wrong in our beliefs is one of the glaring truths from the story of Jesus. Even if you don’t believe anything about the Bible, you have to be able to see the irony of the Jews looking for a Messiah for hundreds of years. Poring over scripture for centuries, memorizing prophecies, then killing the messiah when he finally came to earth because he didn’t fit their political and religious expectations.

It’s a story that should make us all pause. What if we are blind to all the things we are missing?

Guess what?! You are blind to the things you are missing!!! We all are.

Consider John 7: (read it here)

In this chapter, Jesus returns to the area of Galilee to continue his ministry because the Jews in Judea are looking for a way to kill him because he healed a man on the Sabbath day.

This story takes place during the time of the Festival of Tabernacles, a time when all of the Jews would travel to Jerusalem for an eight-day celebration. Jesus’ brothers come to him and say,  

Partial Belief

“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 (NIV)

It is interesting that John then says in verse 5, “for even his own brothers did not believe in him.”  It kinda seems like they believed in him. They knew he was doing great works, so they were trying to help him gain a following. It’s not like they were arguing with his teaching. To the contrary, they were trying to help him get his teaching out there.

But John says, even they didn’t believe.

Then verse 6 starts out with a very powerful word, THEREFORE.

“Therefore” (because his brothers did not believe in him) “Jesus told them, ‘My time is not yet here…You go to the festival, I am not going up to this festival.’ However, after his brothers had left for the festival, he went also, not publicly, but in secret.” 7:6-11

Think about the implications of this. Jesus’ brothers believed some things about Jesus. But because they did not believe in his purpose and his methods, he hid his plans from them. They didn’t get to be included in what was about to happen.

Challenging the Narratives

A few days later, Jesus went to the temple courts in Jerusalem and began preaching. Then things got really interesting. Preconceived notions, personal narratives, religious traditions, and all kinds of ideas were shaken in people.

Verse 15 tells us, “The Jews there were amazed and asked, ‘how did this man get such learning without having been taught?’” (NIV)

The crowds could not believe the wisdom Jesus taught with, because he had not come through their religious education system. He had not been formally trained by a Rabbi. They had no narrative to even explain how he could have wisdom.

Their culture is hard for Americans to wrap our independent equal rights loving brains around. But for them, it was completely without questioning that you gained wisdom and the right to teach by going through their elite selection process for deciding who could be taught and who would do manual labor and follow.

Jesus was a manual laborer, who spoke with wisdom. This was not supposed to happen. That is why throughout the gospels, people frequently ask Jesus’ “by whose authority are you doing these things?”  They were always trying to figure out how he knew all that he knew without learning it in the way he was supposed to. (This also makes his choice of disciples crazy-awesome and the fact that he taught women even crazy-awesomer!!!)

No one could argue with Jesus. No one could deny the things he was saying. They also couldn’t make his teaching fit with their personal narratives. So, debates raged. People tried to figure out where his teaching fit with what they already believed.

Believing When You Don’t Fully Understand

It is interesting in the previous chapter when people deserted Jesus because his teaching was too hard, Jesus turned to his disciples and said, “You do not want to leave too, do you?” John 6:67.

Peter didn’t answer, “No of course not Jesus. We are with you on all of this.” Instead, he said, “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy one of God.” John 6:68-69

Peter’s response reflects the discouragement he must have been feeling at the moment. The crowds were abandoning Jesus. The people he thought were all in are suddenly posting nasty vicious comments on FB. They thought they were going to be celebrities but the crowds just left. Peter clings to what he’s seen and knows there must be something more.

Peter and many others believed but did not understand. When their personal narratives were challenged, they felt all of the discomfort but stayed.

Others felt the discomfort and defended their narrative.

The Heart of the Issue

Consider that the controversy Jesus was confronting in this chapter started because Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath day. The religious leaders had determined that healing was work (even miraculous healing) and could not be done on the Sabbath day.

In verse 21-23, Jesus confronted their hypocrisy. He pointed out that their rules allowed for a boy to be circumcised on the Sabbath day because the rule of “boys must be circumcised on the eighth day” was more important to them than “don’t do medical procedures on the Sabbath because that’s work.”

They allowed for breaking the Sabbath day rules in order to keep more important rules. Their anger over healing a man on the Sabbath showed the value of a person was not more important to them than their rules.

Jesus ended his indictment of their wrong beliefs with “Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.” John 7:24

The Amazing Call for Us ALL!

Jesus’ example is a high calling for all of us to pause and reconsider how we may be wrong in the judgments we are making.

On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “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.”  By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. John 7:37-39 (NIV)

Jesus revealed to the crowds his true purpose for us all. We know the rest of the story. We know about the resurrection and what Jesus was telling them that day, something none of them could comprehend at the time. Everyone there had heard stories of great prophets being empowered by the Holy Spirit for a moment. It was inconceivable to anyone listening that Jesus would die and be resurrected so normal everyday people could have such an extraordinary, holy, undeserved, epic gift. It defied all of our personal narratives.

Even after experiencing this gift in my own life for decades, I still have a hard time comprehending it. I still tend to trust “mere appearances”. I still think all my theories and fears about what this pandemic is going to do to our economy, our government, my children’s futures, the health of people I care about are completely correct and I want to defend them.

But when I spend time with Jesus, I know that there really is more. I know as his follower the hope I have for the world extends far beyond all the things we are arguing over. It goes back to the narrative Jesus confronted in this story. The question which shakes us all and reveals our hearts.

What is more important, defending your rules (your narrative, agenda, politics, traditions, culture, beliefs, etc.) or mercy?

I admit I’m blind to the spots where I defend my narrative. I don’t like confronting areas where I’m wrong. However, these stories remind me that I don’t want to be so busy defending what I think I know that I miss the very thing I’m looking for. I want to always ask, “is there more?”

As I walk with Jesus, and experience his presence in my life, the answer is always, “Yes, my dear child, there is much, much more!”