Jesus moved about within Galilee;
he did not wish to travel in Judea,
because the Jews were trying to kill him.
It was not yet the hour for Jesus to die so he rejected the suggestion from his relatives that he go to the feast in order to show his works and be made known more publicly. When he did go, he took a more low key approach than his relatives suggested. He didn't dazzle them with miracles, but chose to teach in the temple.
“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?
He didn't overawe the Judeans into forcing a choice between belief and opposition. His teaching was always an invitation to realize more deeply who he was. The reason his words were so impressive were because they were from the Father. The reason he knew Scriptures so well was because he himself was the word of God. Speaking thus, as one with authority, and not as one of the scribes or Pharisees, Jesus invited his hearers to a deeper commitment than merely being the spectators of miracles would allow. By taking this approach he stayed sufficiently under the radar of the authorities to continue his mission. He was very much at the very edge of their tolerance. This speech of his, blasphemous to the minds of the Judeans, finally did provoke them to make an attempt to stop him. But it was not this that finally turned them against him enough to precipitate his death, for his hour had not yet come. Thus even later, when darkness seemed to reign, it was not really the Romans or the Judeans who were in control. Even his own hour was according to plan, as he laid his life down in freedom (see John 10:18).
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.
In response to his impressive teaching they looked for excuses. They felt the need to justify to themselves that Jesus must not be the Messiah that he was more and more appearing to be. But all they had to go on were appearances, and these deceived them. They believed they knew where Jesus was from and yet they were wrong about that on both the natural and the spiritual level. Their very confusion about his origin made the claims of Jesus all the more likely. Yet his claims would not be evident to those who were closed to the one who sent him and to the revelation he himself longed to work in their hearts. All the witnesses to Jesus, whether John the Baptist, his works, the Father, Moses, or the Scriptures would not necessarily force open the hardened hearts of the crowds.
He professes to have knowledge of God
and styles himself a child of the LORD.
To us he is the censure of our thoughts;
merely to see him is a hardship for us,
Because his life is not like that of others,
and different are his ways.
He judges us debased;
he holds aloof from our paths as from things impure.
The prophecy from the book of Wisdom explained why the crowds would want to reject Jesus, not because of anything really wrong with Jesus or incongruent about his message, but rather because of the way that accepting him would mean accepting his judgment on the world, acknowledging one's own need for mercy. The only way for sin hardened hearts to accept him would take the shape or surrender. And when the suggestion of surrender arose or they felt pushed toward it they would rather instead bush back.
Let us condemn him to a shameful death;
for according to his own words, God will take care of him
May we learn to make the surrender that the crowds were unwilling to make. If Jesus is for a moment the censure to our thoughts it is because he wants to deliver us from the ways in which we err, and to open our eyes from the wickedness that blinds them. He teaches, not to condemn, but to make known the hidden counsels of God, so that we too much share a recompense of holiness and the innocent souls' reward.
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