20 Mar 26 | Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles
The crowd's confidence that they know Jesus' origins is the very thing preventing them from recognizing who he actually is.
The Gospel: John 7:1-2, 10, 25-30
Jesus moved about within Galilee;
he did not wish to travel in Judea,
because the Jews were trying to kill him.
But the Jewish feast of Tabernacles was near.
But when his brothers had gone up to the feast,
he himself also went up, not openly but as it were in secret.
Some of the inhabitants of Jerusalem said,
"Is he not the one they are trying to kill?
And look, he is speaking openly and they say nothing to him.
Could the authorities have realized that he is the Christ?
But we know where he is from.
When the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from."
So Jesus cried out in the temple area as he was teaching and said,
"You know me and also know where I am from.
Yet I did not come on my own,
but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true.
I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me."
So they tried to arrest him,
but no one laid a hand upon him,
because his hour had not yet come.
Today’s Focus
Jesus moves carefully, reveals himself deliberately, and cannot be touched until the appointed moment arrives. The crowd debates, divides, and confidently misidentifies him , not because the evidence is lacking but because they are looking at the wrong origin. They know where he grew up. They do not know where he is from. That distinction is everything. The passage is an invitation to move past surface familiarity with Jesus into the kind of knowing that comes from encountering who he actually is and who sent him.
In the Margins
This passage has Jesus on the verge of possible arrest. Jesus moving within Galilee rather than Judea is not timidity. It is deliberate management of timing. His going in secret is not deception. It is the same pattern of deliberate concealment and revelation that runs throughout John’s Gospel. Jesus does not reveal himself on human terms or human timetables. He reveals himself when and how the Father directs. Everything Jesus does or avoids is oriented around that hour arriving at its proper time. Things had significantly escalated by this point in His life and there were people actively working to capture or kill Him.
The Feast of Tabernacles was one of the three great pilgrimage feasts of the Jewish calendar, along with Passover and Pentecost. It commemorated Israel’s forty years of wilderness wandering, during which God dwelt with the people in temporary shelters. Observant Jews built and lived in temporary booths for seven days as a memorial of that period. “His brothers“ going up to the feast without him and urging him to go publicly reflects a dynamic John has already established. Those closest to Jesus in a natural sense do not understand him. Their advice to go public is rooted in a misunderstanding of what his mission requires. They think in terms of political visibility. Jesus thinks in terms of divine timing.
The crowd’s debate shines light on the well-documented tradition of messianic hiddenness. The crowd says “when the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from,” which was a real strand of messianic expectation. The crowd’s confidence that they know where Jesus is from is them assuming they know Him, not understanding how He came to be or by whom He was sent. This is the precise obstacle to their recognition of him. They are applying a correct theological criterion (messianic hiddenness) to incorrect information (they think they know his full origin). What they do not know is where he is ultimately from.
Even the crowd is here divided. Some think he is the Christ. Some cite the messianic hiddenness tradition against him, though ironically incorrectly. Some are curious why the authorities have not arrested him. This is evidence that the testimony about Jesus is sufficient for belief, the problem is not lack of evidence but what each person does with it.
Jesus is said to have “cried out, ekraxen (ἔκραξεν), in the Temple area. This is not quiet or even a normal tone explanation. It would have been an elevation from how He had been teaching. The verb describes a loud, public proclamation. It is used elsewhere in John for significant declarations (1:15, 12:44). He is making a public claim in the Temple during the most attended feast of the Jewish year. In this, He acknowledges their surface level of information, but immediately pivots that He didn’t come on His own, but the one who sent Him. The crowd’s ignorance of the Father is their fundamental problem. Their messianic categories, their legal knowledge, their Temple attendance, none of it has brought them to know the one who sent Jesus.
The crowd in this passage thought they knew Jesus. They had categories for him, expectations about him, and confident opinions about where he was from. None of it brought them closer to recognizing him. The same temptation exists today. It is possible to know about Jesus, to speak his name, and still miss who he actually is and where he actually comes from. What this passage calls us to is not more information but deeper knowing, the kind that comes from honestly asking whether what we believe about Jesus is shaped by his actual teachings or by the version of him we have constructed. He was protected in this moment not by circumstance but because his hour had not yet come. Everything was unfolding according to the Father’s will, not the crowd’s agenda. That same confidence is available to us. When we surrender to God’s timing and God’s terms rather than our own, we find ourselves on the right side of the question the crowd could not answer.
Reflection Question
Is your understanding of Jesus shaped by his actual teachings, or by the version of him you have built from your own expectations?
A Small Invitation
If this reflection helped you, consider sharing it with someone who may benefit from hearing this message.