Jesus Wows the Crowd

In my last posting, Jesus went to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles quietly; somewhat in secret. This was after he had had an argument with his brothers who wanted him to go up publicly and make a big splash. It wasn’t until the feast was half over that Jesus did make a big splash. The half way point meant that the crowds would be at their largest; late arrivals had finally made it and those who would be leaving early probably hadn’t left yet. He went to the temple to teach. John 7:15-24 gives us the story:

The Jews there were amazed and asked, “How did this man get such learning without having been taught?”
Jesus answered, “My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me. Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory, but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him. Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?”
 “You are demon-possessed,” the crowd answered. “Who is trying to kill you?”
Jesus said to them, “I did one miracle, and you are all amazed. Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a boy on the Sabbath. Now if a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing a man’s whole body on the Sabbath? Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.”(John 7:15-24 -- NIV)

Evidently the teaching of Jesus really wowed the entire crowd – but it left the religious establishment with some unanswered questions. These big wigs were amazed because they thought that Jesus was some kind of country bumpkin; he hadn’t been taught by a known rabbi! He had no education and no credentials. Of course that lead them to the conclusion that Jesus had no right to be there teaching in the first place.

Jesus insisted that he did have credentials and that he had a right to be teaching there. He insisted that he wasn’t giving some teaching that he thought up; it wasn’t his teaching but it was the teaching of the one who had sent him; God. In other words he was saying that he did have a Rabbi as his teacher and that Rabbi was his Father; God himself.  Then Jesus said something quite interesting.  A person who obeys God will recognize that his (Jesus’) teaching was the truth and they would believe Jesus.  Since this was the religious establishment who prided themselves in the fact (they believed) that they were following God, Jesus’ comment was a slap in the face; he was confronting them with the fact that they weren’t obeying God. Jesus went on to say that since he was seeking to honor the Father, he was a man of truth, teaching truth. He ended by saying since this is the situation, “Why are you trying to kill me?”

Now we hear from the crowd. They couldn’t understand why Jesus would say such a thing. They began to shout, “You are demon possessed. No one is trying to kill you!” Even though the crowd wasn’t trying to blaspheme, since Jesus was ministering and teaching under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, the crowd was saying that he must be ministering under the power of the demonic; after all he was making crazy accusations. Of course, what the crowd didn’t know was the Establishment did want to kill Jesus.

Then Jesus went on the offensive, meeting the “Jews” where they felt most secure. He stated that they were upset because he did one miracle (he had actually done more than one); referring to the healing of the lame man at the pool of Bethesda. They were upset because Jesus did this healing on the Sabbath. Jesus goes on to a “rabbinic” discussion of circumcision to challenge their understanding. He said that they sought to obey Moses as to circumcision (even though circumcision predates Moses – it goes back to Abraham.) The Law of Moses requires circumcision to be performed when the child is 8 days old. In order to follow this requirement, the rite would be performed even if it was the Sabbath; thus they “broke” the Law in order to “follow” the Law. Since circumcision was known as a healing of the male member, Jesus then asks why it is ok to heal one member of the body, but not ok to heal the whole body. Then he tells them that they really don’t understand the Sabbath (or the Law) at all. They need to make their judgments from God’s point of view.

I think that we can learn several things from this interchange:

1. We need to learn to Trust and Obey – as we trust him and obey him, we will understand and truly believe
2. We must avoid falling into legalism and learn to follow the spirit of the Law much as we see in the Sermon on the Mount.
3. We must avoid being judgmental – we can only judge what God tells us to judge and we must do that as much as possible from God’s perspective
4. We must never judge someone’s heart – that is for God alone.