When the feast was already half over, Jesus went up into the temple area and began to teach.
The brothers of Jesus thought they had better ideas than him about how he ought to present himself publicly to the world. But there was only one very specific path given to him by the Father by which Jesus would actually accomplish his mission. He would first go to the feast of Tabernacles in secret and only reveal himself after the feast began by teaching in the temple. According to human wisdom the difference might have seemed to be negligible. But what in fact occurred because of his initial apparent absence from the feast? For one thing "there was considerable murmuring about him in the crowds". Might we suggest that by withholding his presence until halfway through the feast Jesus in some way made himself the culmination and the climax of the feast, joining the building excitement about the feast to the crowds' anticipation regarding his own presence? That is only speculation, but what is clear is that the Father's will, even if it seemed to differ little from arriving on the same schedule as everyone else, produced results that were disproportionately efficacious and dynamic.
When the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from.
Jesus had told them to stop judging by appearances, but instead they doubled down on pigeon-holing Jesus based on what they thought they knew about him. They thought that they understood where he was from. But they were even wrong about that in an earthly sense, for he was from Bethlehem rather than Nazareth. But they were even more wrong in a heavenly sense, since he was from the Father who sent him.
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.
They were impressed by the fact that he knew the Scriptures so well without having formally studied. And the way he spoke openly and without any attempt to win praise of others made him appealing as well. Yet the healing he had performed that was intended to be a sign that his ministry was approved by the Father was still serving more as a provocation to those hung up on their own understanding. There was still a widely held sense that Jesus' relationship to the law was different from that of others and most people took that to mean that said relationship was in some way deficient. And yet the real compromise of the law was in the plot to kill Jesus that was taking shape, a plot in which all would eventually be complicit.
Did not Moses give you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?”
The crowd answered, “You are possessed! Who is trying to kill you?”
We witness the crowd teetering between admiration and anger at Jesus. There were some things had did which made him appealing. But in other ways his openness was what the book of Wisdom called "the censure of our thoughts". It became increasingly the case for the crowd that, "merely to see him is a hardship for us". Jesus made no secret that he judged them debased and held aloof from their paths as from things impure. He spoke of the blessed destiny of the just, and gave as the basis of his authority the fact that God was his Father. And so it was all but inevitable that the crowd would fulfill the prophecy found in Wisdom about the response of the masses to the just one.
With revilement and torture let us put him to the test
that we may have proof of his gentleness
and try his patience.
Let us condemn him to a shameful death;
for according to his own words, God will take care of him.
Wickedness blinded the people who colluded to put Jesus to death. It prevented them from recognizing the hidden counsels of God even as those things were revealed by Jesus to those who would become like little children. They were too preoccupied with an earthly reward to count on a recompense of holiness or to discern an innocent souls' reward. But wickedness is still blinding in our own day. And to the degree that we obstinately refuse to repent of our own sin we affect not only our behavior but also our ability to judge rightly. Even Christians can experience some degree of what Paul meant when he said, "For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened" (see Romans 1:21).
A good safeguard against the blindness caused by wickedness is the humility recommended by the psalmist:
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted;
and those who are crushed in spirit he saves.
Many are the troubles of the just man,
but out of them all the LORD delivers him.
If we make ourselves sufficiently vulnerable to God, by cooperating with his own grace to do so, he will deliver us from all of our (often self-imposed) troubles.
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