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Lenten Weekday
Wisdom 2:1A, 12-22
Psalm 34:17-18, 19-20 21 & 23
John 7:1-2, 10, 25-30
S
UMMARY
First Jesus says he won’t go up to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles
because he knows the Jews are trying to kill him. Then he changes his
mind and goes anyway – but in secret. Then he openly teaches in the
temple area. Then he “cries out” in rebuke and/or frustration and informs
them that he does not come on his own and that he, not them, knows who
has sent him because he (Jesus) is from him. Instead of arresting Jesus no
one could lay a hand on him “because his hour had not yet come.”
R
EFLECTION
Is this puzzling and contradictory? Yes, it is to us because we are human
and most of us expect others to act logically. Wouldn’t it have been
smarter if Jesus had gone with his “brothers” and then he would have had
their help and protection? If he had advance PR he would have
drawn vast crowds there for the Feast like Billy Graham did when
he preached at Madison Square Garden. What a missed opportu-
nity!
But it is futile to speculate about what Jesus could have done be-
cause he had the best navigational system ever: a divine GPS
guiding him to the right places and people to share the good
news of salvation and, finally, to his final hour.
What made Jesus cry out, interrupting his teaching? He overheard
some inhabitants of Jerusalem wondering if he was the one the
authorities wanted to kill; then they reasoned it could not be this
lowly Nazarene because when the kingly Christ comes no one will
know where he is from.
Jesus was upset by this thinking and zip code snobbery. His
words to them almost sound like a riddle: