JOHN 7:19c-24 SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT

19Why are you trying to kill me?”

20 “You are demon-possessed,” the crowd answered. “Who is trying to kill you?”

21 Jesus said to them, “I did one miracle, and you are all astonished. 22 Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a child on the Sabbath. 23 Now if a child can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing the whole man on the Sabbath? 24 Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment.”

Jesus’ statement that they are trying to kill him seems to us to enter the conversation like a meteor from the sky. So, at first reading we find the response of the crowd to be reasonable. But once we hear Jesus’ response we can begin to see the truth. If what Jesus has done and the explanations he has given are not in line with God’s will, then he is open to the charge of being a false teacher. While we might be tolerant and pluralistic, Judaism of the first century was not. Indeed, throughout the history of the people of Israel the sentence for a false teacher was death. St. John makes it quite clear that this was exactly what the religious authorities were planning for Jesus.

We are open to the same charge today. Although we are Christians, most of us are not in danger of being executed as false teachers by the world, but rather we must be careful not to find ourselves on the side of the Jewish religious authorities. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews gives us this warning.

6:4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, 6 if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.

The idea of “falling away” here has the implication of a total rejection of Christ, and perhaps carries the interpretation that such a one never really had faith. However, it is also the practical warning that to reject Jesus as he has been revealed in Scripture on any level is to reject him as the Truth. In other words, by doing so we are declaring him a false teacher and killing him in the public square. We need to remember who we are called to be. We have not been tasked as the arbiters of truth, but as those who proclaim and demonstrate the truth that is Jesus Christ to the world.

Lord Jesus, as I live my life today may I be careful to adhere to the revelation of your nature that you have given me through the Bible. Protect me from the temptation to make you more “palatable” to the world and my understanding. Guide me to see the truth and to bind myself to that truth. Fill me with your Spirit so that I might know you better and follow you more nearly. Amen.