Friday in the Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 24, 2023

John 7, 1-2; 10, 25-30

Jesus moved about within Galilee; he did not wish to travel in Judea, because the Jews were trying to kill him. But the Jewish feast of Tabernacles was near. But when his brothers had gone up to the feast, he himself also went up, not openly but as it were in secret. Some of the inhabitants of Jerusalem said, “Is he not the one they are trying to kill? And look, he is speaking openly and they say nothing to him. Could the authorities have realized that he is the Christ? But we know where he is from. When the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from.” So Jesus cried out in the temple area as he was teaching and said, “You know me and also know where I am from. Yet I did not come on my own, but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.” So they tried to arrest him, but no one laid a hand upon him, because his hour had not yet come.

The Lectionary arrives at this Gospel Reading by chopping up the first section of the seventh chapter of St. John’s Gospel.  Verses 1-30 ought to be read together in order to better understand the context for the Reading.  

On his previous visit to Jerusalem the Jewish leaders there had become enraged at what they perceived as the Lord’s breach of the Sabbath, and then of his claim to be equal to the Father.  Although in danger of his life, he returns to Jerusalem now in fulfillment of the Law to celebrate the harvest thanksgiving known as the Feast of Booths, or the Feast of Tabernacles.  This feast, commanded in the Book of Leviticus, takes place in the Fall.  Some months, then, would have passed since his last pilgrimage to the Holy City.  

“When his brothers had gone up to the feast, etc.”  Relatives of the Lord’s, not brothers in the Western European sense.  These had rudely challenged him to go up to Jerusalem for the feast to preach his doctrine.  We might wonder what contact the Lord would have had with these “brothers” since they lived in Nazareth and he had moved to Capernaum.  Perhaps some of these people had come to Capernaum to buy fish or other goods and stopped by the house in which Jesus was staying.  “As it were in secret.”  The Lord kept to himself on the way and did not engage in any teaching or instruction of the Apostles as he went, as he was otherwise accustomed to do.

“Is he not the one they are trying to kill? And look, he is speaking openly and they say nothing to him. Could the authorities have realized that he is the Christ?”  The inhabitants of Jerusalem recognize him, as John tells us in the omitted verses, because he returned to teaching in the Temple area.  At least a few remembered him from the last time he had come, and that the Jewish leaders had, apparently openly, planned to kill him.  The people’s reasoning about whether the authorities had recognized him as the Messiah tells us that the authorities were expected to recognize him and proclaim him when he came.  The rulers are torn on the question of killing him because they  feared the people (cf. Luke 22, 2), and so they hesitated to act.

“But we know where he is from. When the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from.”  They think that they know that Jesus was born in Nazareth.  They hear that he is called “Jesus of Nazareth” and then leap to a conclusion rather than simply ask him for the truth.  The idea that no one will know where the Messiah is from strikes us as odd because the scribes knew from Micah 5, 2 that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.  But it is certainly possible for many Jews not to know this or to have forgotten it.  Again, this could have been cleared up by asking the scribes, but they do not.  “You know me and also know where I am from.”  The Lord states this as a subject to be challenged.  He does not inform of them his true place of birth according to his humanity but goes to the deeper issue of his Incarnation, his coming down from heaven:  “I did not come on my own, but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.”  The Lord Jesus does not speak of where he was born, inasmuch as he is man, but of his being sent from heaven.  To be sent is very different from being born.  To be sent implies a relationship with the sender and also a mission entrusted by tue sender.  There is a purpose at work in being sent.  Not so in being born.  The Lord does not answer their unasked question but tells them what they need to know about his origins, and that he was entrusted with a mission by the one who sent him to the earth.

“So they tried to arrest him, but no one laid a hand upon him, because his hour had not yet come.”  “They” here means the Jewish rulers.  They sent the word out to seize him but no one dares.  No one has spoken like this man.  No one has performed such signs.  This contrasts in a way with the obedience of the Son to his Father: the Father sent him and he went.  He became incarnate.  But the Jewish leaders send their hirelings to seize Jesus and they do not.  Perhaps simply looking at him and hearing him made their limbs too weak to function.  Perhaps they were afraid.

In this Gospel Reading we learn more about the character of Jesus: his courage, his prudence, his persistence in his mission despite opposition and threats.  He is driven by a ferocious love of the human race and of each of us.  He will knock on our doors, pound on them, ring the doorbell incessantly all to get us to listen to the words of life only he can give to us, not because it does him any good to do so, but because it will do us eternal good.