Being a Christian Today

More Words and Deeds of Jesus 1 The festival of Tabernacles was a harvest feast, and John 7-8 takes place at the beginning, middle and end of the feast (Harrington, 2011). Throughout the festival, workers camped in the fields. In the beginning of John 7, Jesus is aware that the Jews want to kill him, so he avoids them. However, he does not stay away completely.

In the middle of the festival, he enters into a discussion with the Jews because some of them want to know how He came to have such divine knowledge. In John 7:14-24, Christ explains to them that He knows because His knowledge comes from His father in heaven. He intimates that He has been sent to harvest souls for God the Father. In this sense, His time is like that of the festival of Tabernacles, which is also a harvest festival.

Christ’s mission is synonymous with the festival: each has come to reap what has been sown and will gather together for the great feast—only Christ’s is not on earth but in Heaven with God. Just as the harvest festival separates the fruit from the earth, Christ too sets about causing separation and division (John 7:37-52). Jesus “makes a public statement that creates division within the crowd and evokes greater hostility among the chief priests and the Pharisees,” according to Harrington, 2011, p. 42).

This is Jesus’s way of personifying the harvest: he will take the good fruit of harvest with Him—but first He must separate the good from the bad. 2 The various groups of people who misunderstood Jesus were the Pharisees, the Gentiles and even His own disciples. When He was misunderstood, He responded in different ways. Sometimes, He affirmed His own divinity (John 7:25-26). Other times, He used the power of the parable to explain His meaning.

On numerous occasions, he declares that He is God (John 8:24-30) and that all must repent or die in their sins and be cut off from God. He identifies Himself as the truth that will free them (John 8:31-36). He tells the Jews that they are not of God, otherwise they would believe in Him (John 8:47-50). To the Gentiles and Jews He sends other messages—i.e., numerous miracles that tell of His divinity.

The impact of His direct statements, His indirect statements (parables) and His miracles was that it essentially divided the community into those who followed Him and those who wanted Him gone. The Gospel depicts this division quite well as a result. 3 It is possible to cut through all the contention and conflict to find a message to preach to people on living a Christian spirituality in daily life by simply meditating on the love that is at the heart of Christ’s message.

Jesus did not come to turn people into murderers and to make people feel hatred. He wept over His city and felt compassion for sinners. It was those who were hard of heart, who did not want to amend their ways but rather wanted Him to leave them—it was those who made Him suffer the most. But He accepted that suffering. He did not run from it. He.