Reader’s Guide: “The Word for Today” Tuesday, February 18, 2014 Read John 7:10-24 Jesus had refused his brother’s suggestion that he go to the Festival in Jerusalem. Now he goes, on his terms and not theirs. John tells us that already Jesus has created quite a stir. People are wondering where he is. His appearance has led to a division – some complain about him that he is deceiving the crowds while others think he is a good man. It is significant that John tells us that no one was willing to speak openly, though, because they were afraid of the Jews. This is the first time that we have encountered the idea of “fear of the Jews.” It will become a prominent feature in the gospel. What does it mean? I suppose we could say the obvious – that in Jesus’ time the Jews were violently opposed to him and would harm anyone who demonstrated any allegiance to Jesus. There is some measure of truth in that. However, as we listen more carefully to the other gospels and especially to the book of Acts we discover that the relationship between Christians and Jews was likely not quite as cut and dried. Luke will tell us in Acts of many Christians who were devoted to the Temple and to all appearances looked like other Jews. The relationship was not one of violence – at least not at the beginning. When we consider this other evidence we may more likely come to the conclusion that this business of the “fear of the Jews” spoke more about the time when the gospel of John was coming into its final form than about the time of Jesus. We will need to examine that possibility later as we read more of John’s gospel. Like the other festivals, the Feast of Booths lasted eight days. John tells us that in the middle of the festival Jesus makes a public appearance teaching in the Temple. John tells us that the people are astonished at Jesus’ teaching. Mark had said something like that early in his gospel too when the people remark that Jesus teaches with authority and not like the scribes (Mark 1:22). The question here is also about authority. By what authority does Jesus teach? Jesus claims that he only teaches what the one who sent him has told him. Jesus is from above. They think he is from below like every other teacher. But the issue is not so much the teaching of Jesus but his actions. The last time Jesus was in Jerusalem we heard a story about Jesus healing the man at the pool of Bethzatha. The real issue is that Jesus had healed the man and that he had done it on the Sabbath. So Jesus gets at the real issue by pointing out to people that male children are circumcised on the Sabbath if the eighth day after their birth happens to come on a Sabbath. Jesus says that Moses gave the law about Sabbath rest and that law is broken every time a circumcision happens on the Sabbath. The Law is not so simple. The text also implies that Moses gave the people circumcision which supersedes the Sabbath law which is not true because circumcision came through Abraham. The editor makes the correction just as he made a correction earlier about Jesus baptizing. All of this is more evidence that in John’s gospel we are dealing with a final form that has the hand of an editor present. Jesus’ defends his healing of the man on the Sabbath on the basis of the supersession of circumcision over the Sabbath law. It is significant that in John’s gospel Jesus does not say that he is Lord of the Sabbath like he does in Mark’s gospel and the other synoptic gospels. In effect the outcome is the same but in John Jesus lives within the law. Before we leave this section one more thing should be noticed. It was back in chapter 5 where John tells the story of the man healed at the pool of Bethzatha. A whole chapter has intervened but here in chapter 7 we are linked back to chapter 5. This has led many interpreters of John’s gospel to speculate that in an earlier version of the gospel chapter 7 followed immediately after chapter 5. A credible case can be made for this observation. In fact, as the story begins in chapter 5 we are told that Jesus has come to Jerusalem for a festival. That festival is not named. Could it be that this unnamed festival is the very same Festival of Booths that is referred to in chapter 7? If that is the case then the healing of the man at the pool of Bethzatha would have taken place much closer in time to the dispute that irrupts in chapter 7 about it. While we can’t be certain, it likely means that chapters 5, 7, and 8 should be read together. That, of course would lead to another question – Why did John place the Galilean ministry about the feeding of the 5000 and the walking on the water along with its interpretation here in the middle of the episode at the pool of Bethzatha? Attempting to answer that question is really difficult. One possibility is that John was aware of a second Passover happening in the ministry of Jesus – in fact that there were three Passovers in all. The first Passover was when Jesus was in Jerusalem at the time of the cleansing of the Temple in chapter 2. The second Passover happened prior to Jesus’ return to Jerusalem at the time of the Feast of Booths as reported in chapter 7. There will be a third Passover at the time when Jesus is crucified. Since John has connected the second Passover with the feeding of the 5000 and the multiplication of bread he would need to tell that story before Jesus’ attendance at the Feast of Booths in chapter 7. One thing that we need to notice is that once Jesus comes to Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths in the fall of the year, he does not leave the area again until he is crucified just prior to the Passover in the spring of the next year. Thus the only place to insert the story about the feeding of the 5000 is between chapters 5 and 7 even though that seems to make the sequence a bit rough since it is not likely that remembering the sign of the healing of the man at the pool of Bethzatha would be fresh in the memory of people so many months later. All of this suggests to us that we need to be careful when we are attempting to equate the storyline of John’s gospel with the actual sequence of events. The same, of course, is true with Mark and the other gospels. Storylines are the creation of the authors.