The Jews in the Temple Courts

PRAYER OF CONSECRATION Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.  Abba, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Abba, we belong to you.  Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.  John 10:22–39 (NIV) Then came the Festival of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade. The Jews who were there gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” Again, his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?” “We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.” Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’? If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside—what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp. CONSIDER THIS The Festival of Dedication was a joyous event in the Jewish calendar for it commemorated the victory of Judas Maccabaeus against the aggression of the Seleucid Empire with the unstoppable consecration of the temple in Jerusalem in 164 BC. Three years earlier the temple had been desecrated by the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes, who had sacrificed a pig on the altar. The festival, which was referred to by Josephus as the Festival of Lights1 (what we know today as Hanukkah), was celebrated on the twenty-fifth of Kislev (Jewish calendar), which often meant sometime in December. In terms of location, our text indicates that Jesus was walking in Solomon’s Colonnade, which faced the temple in Jerusalem off the court of the Gentiles. The colonnade was made up of impressive pillars about forty feet high, and it was covered over with a roof. Here, rabbis and their students would often gather to discuss matters of Jewish law as well as to escape a wintry wind. A number of Jews gathered around Jesus, which in some circumstances could be perceived as a threatening move, an entrapment, and they questioned him: “If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” Jesus had not yet made a public statement to this effect in Jerusalem, although he had confessed privately to a Samaritan woman (John 4:25–26), to the man born blind (John 9:35–37), and to Nicodemus (John 3:13) precisely along these lines. Jesus replied to those Jews surrounding him that he had, in fact, already told them in the sense that the works or miracles he had done in his Father’s name testified as to who he is. The problem of the Jews in the colonnade, however, was that they did not believe because, as Jesus put it, “you are not my sheep.” Turning his attention away from the Jews, Jesus began to reflect, interestingly enough, on those not present who did, indeed, believe in him and on what powers undergirded and sustained their ongoing belief: “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.” That the sheep listen to the voice of the shepherd is akin to stating that the disciples of Jesus have the narrative of the gospel, the good news of Jesus, ever before them—it’s in their hearts, minds, and actions. It penetrates their very being. In a real sense, it’s a story that has become their own story. It’s therefore a constant companion and ever-present friend. Again, the disciples of Jesus are caught up in this grand narrative throughout life’s journey from youth to middle age and on to old age. How could it be otherwise? How could they live any other way? In short, the words of Jesus as the good shepherd are the standard, the norm, by which all other stories are judged. That’s what perseverance over time looks like. What, then, holds such faithfulness in place? It is both Jesus as well as the Father who together ensure that these sheep, these loyal ones, cannot be snatched out of their hands. The providential love of God is both mighty and great. Beyond this, the strength and vitality of such persevering grace, marvelously enduring over time, can also be seen, from the human side of things, in the obedient faith of the disciple Peter, for example, who exclaimed on one occasion: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). In such lasting faith, then, Jesus is multicolored; everything else is gray. After this brief discourse on the enduring devotion of his sheep, Jesus concluded his observations with a statement that simply infuriated those around him: “I and the Father are one.” The word one here in Greek is in a form which indicates not only that the Father and Jesus are distinct persons, but also that they are one in essential nature.2 In other words, this utterance entailed much more than the simple claim that Jesus was a good person, in harmony with the will of God, a condition that any observant Jew could hope for. Instead, Jesus was claiming so much more, that he was of the very nature, the very essence, of God and, therefore, divine. And that’s exactly how the Jews interpreted his words since they “picked up stones to stone him.” How is it, then, that these religious Jews in the temple area, shortly after a feast, so quickly turned from being an inquisitive group, seeking an answer from Jesus to becoming a mob ready to stone him? Like a school of fish quickly changing direction, the transition of a group into a mob is often sudden, a surprise to some, even though many unnoticed cues are often already in place. In our text, Jesus had clashed with the ethos of this group of Jews, which is always a socially dangerous thing to do. He had run up against what this group held dear in terms of its basic assumptions about God, faith, and the Jewish tradition.3 Indeed, the affirmation of Jesus in terms of his relation to the Father went well beyond what these Jews believed even the Messiah would be: pious and extraordinary, to be sure, yet ever distinct from God. As such, Jesus quickly became an outsider beyond the circle of affection and care. More than that, he was despised because, in the eyes of these Jews, he had committed nothing less than blasphemy. From their vantage point, Jesus had the audacity to claim far more than any person should ever do. Deeply offended, this group of Jews surrounding Jesus shifted quickly from reason to passion, from thinking to raw emotion and feeling. The animated spirit that had emerged among them as well as the powers that they were now wielding were both heady and exhilarating. Now a mob, much like the lynch mobs in the Deep South in America during the nineteenth century, this group wanted quick, decisive, and irreversible action. No time remained for either courts (religious or otherwise) or due process. Stones in one context would have to do, nooses in another. However, the dynamics were very much the same. Realizing that the Jews were about to stone him, Jesus deftly deflated the situation by posing a question that simply stymied them. It was, therefore, one that disrupted the attempt at violence: “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?” The Jews countered that it was not due to any work but because Jesus had claimed to be God that they wanted to stone him. Having moved the Jews back from feeling to thinking, at least for the moment, Jesus then dug deep and posed a difficult question that required significant reflection: “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’? If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside—what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’?” This question is actually an entire argument in itself in the form of “from the lesser to the greater.”4 In other words, if the Jews could acknowledge on the basis of their own Law (see Psalm 82:6) that those to whom the word of God came are rightly called “gods” (whether they be prophets, judges, or some other folk), then how much more is it fitting to refer to the one whom the Father set apart as the Son of God? Once again, Jesus outthought his critics. Sensing, however, that those around him neither embraced his words nor his argument, Jesus directed them to his works as a last resort, the many signs of wonder in his ministry that had testified that “the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” However—words, works, or person—none of it made any difference. The Jews would simply have none of this. They, therefore, tried to seize Jesus, “but he escaped their grasp.” The mob had emerged once more. THE PRAYER Lord, I confess you as the Word of God in whom I have eternal life. May the quality of my life now be measured by this—your eternal kingdom, which you are bringing to earth faithfully, day by day.