John 7 Part a by JB

Who are you really?

I had some Jewish friends who every year, would invite me around to share Sukkoth with them. They would build a shelter in their backyard and invite all their friends and neighbours over to feast and praise God. It was great fun, but it was also a time of remembering how God shelters and provides for His people.

During Sukkoth there would always be a recitation of the Mosaic covenant (see Jesus refer to it in verse 19) to remind us of the benefits and responsibilities of being in a relationships with God. At one of these celebrations I recall my Messianic friend, Tsipi, told me that Zachariah talks about how all the nations will one day gather in Jerusalem in booths to worship God. (Zach. 14, 16-19.)

I don't want to read into the text my own ideas, but I wonder if John is alluding to Jesus as the ultimate ‘spiritual booth’ - providing shelter and sustenance- for people of every nation for all time?

One of the things that stands out for me in this passage is how people react to Jesus and His proclamations - much the same as they do today! There IS nothing new under the sun. The brothers of Jesus start it off with their sarcastic comment in verse 4 where they jeer at Jesus, and what they obviously see as His pretensions. At least they didn't throw Him down a well like Joseph's brothers!

It is our ability to treat the familiar with contempt that so often blinds us to the miraculous, to the nearness of God's presence in our life. What daily miracles do we overlook in looking for what we think God would show us?

Others demonstrate all the arguments against Jesus that we get today. The fist is that He is just a “good man” along the lines of Buddha or Gandhi, or (would you believe) Al Gore (I've read of him being a ‘visionary prophet of our times’). And then there are those who see Jesus as a deceiver who distorts reality; the malignant atheists such as Richard Dawkins who castigates Jesus for duping people into believing in an afterlife.

Whether family, friend, or outsider it is hard for us humans to see and to recognize the divine within our reality. And this theme continues throughout the chapter -"we know where he comes from "(v. 27); "where can he go that we cannot find him?" (v.35). There is this constant contrast between Jesus proclaiming Himself as the incarnate life-giving Word, and the people just not getting it. Was it all just too scary to believe that God was in their midst?

But Jesus continues to proclaim Himself, for some are listening and want to drink in the living water, take in the bread of life. And the wonderful thing is that He will always accept those who believe (verse 37, 39), and be there for them.
To finish off, a prayer thought:

“Have we come to the fountain of life? Are we drinking of its fullness? Are we living in His love? This is the life of our spirit; the health of our bodies; the secret of our joy! May we seek this overflowing life, and become channels only with all His wondrous power flowing through us so that He can use us every day and every hour. “(Evan Henry Hopkins 1837-1918).