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Reading:          Jn.7:1-24

Text:                Jn.7:19, 23 "Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?... If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man’s whole body well?

If you were to ask me what is the best known verse of the Bible in 21st-century Britain I would be very tempted to suggest Matthew 7:1. I wonder if you know what it says. Here it is:

"Judge not, that you be not judged."

Interestingly enough that verse will normally be cited to condemn another person who is seen to be exercising a judgement that is not appreciated! And indeed to cite the verse in such a way involves doing just what Jesus said not to do!!

When we read this carefully we find that Jesus' injunction means that we are not to be harshly critical of others especially when we are guilty ourselves. What Jesus is outlawing is not judgement per se but the judgemental or critical attitude that is all too ready to condemn especially when not being in possession of the facts.

Again and again the Bible does in fact encourage us to discern between right and wrong. We are to make judgements concerning good and evil – indeed we are to approve the good and condemn the evil. If we really want to understand what Jesus meant when he said "Judge not" then we must be prepared to listen to his other declarations concerning the whole matter of judging. The passage that we have read earlier in the service contains just such a declaration:

v. 24 "Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgement."

In context Jesus was speaking about how his hearers were making assessments about him. He didn't try to suggest that they were wrong in wanting to assess him, rather it was the way they were going about it that was wrong.

How are you assessing Jesus? You too are called to judge him with right judgement and not by appearance.

And how easily we all find it to slip into superficial assessments, how sloppy we can all be in our thinking, how readily we can simply "go with the flow".

In this section which we have read earlier, Jesus was being confronted by an ever-growing hostility. In the course of the discussions recorded there, Jesus was to ask two or perhaps three questions which were all designed to reveal the perversity hidden in the heart of his hearers.

Those questions are found in verse 19 and in verse 23. Listen again to those verses:

v.19 "Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?"

v.23 "If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man’s whole body well?"

It is time for another of the Jewish feasts and Jesus' brothers are off to Jerusalem. They tell Jesus that he should go to – after all, they maintain, anybody who wants to be somebody has to go public at some stage!

His brothers, as John tells us, were not at all convinced by Jesus. They were aware of what he had been doing up in Galilee and probably considered that his influence was waning as many, though not all, of his followers were giving up on him. Their advice to him, while perhaps being understandable, was unspiritual as Jesus pointed out so clearly in his reply to them.

v.6 "Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here."

The agenda that Jesus was following was not that of worldly wisdom. He was careful in everything that he did to do his father's will and it was crucial that he did so! On the other hand, whatever his brothers did was utterly insignificant as far as the divine plan of salvation was concerned: they could go to Jerusalem now or later and nothing would be changed but it was oh so different for Jesus. He would not be rushed. He would wait for his father's green light and only when that showed would he go up to Jerusalem. A few days later that light would turn green and Jesus would go up to Jerusalem.

However, when Jesus did go up to Jerusalem, it was not in the way that his brothers had suggested. They had urged him to go up in a very public manner making public displays so that all his disciples might see him and be impressed by him. Jesus went up privately and did not make himself known until the week of the feast was half over.

The crowds were in fact expecting him to be there and were wondering whether he had come or not. There was much debate about him, whether he was good or bad. But such debate could not take place openly because the Jewish authorities were already adopting a hostile attitude towards him and the people were afraid of speaking too openly about him.

Then came the time for Jesus to act. Halfway through the festival week he went into the temple courts and began to teach. Once again the manner of his teaching surprised people because he talked with an understanding that was not at all usual for someone who had not been educated in one of the recognised schools of Jewish learning. The Jewish scholar who had been so taught would continually cite the names of other famous teachers to justify what he said. Jesus, on the other hand, did not do this and it appears that this gave offence. It seemed to his hearers that he was speaking on his own authority – what insufferable arrogance!

Jesus countered this accusation by asserting that he did not teach upon his own authority but that he taught on God's authority!

How could such an affirmation be tested? How could the people know whether Jesus was speaking the truth or not?

The answer that Jesus gave to this question was simple and yet challenging. We read it in v.17:

"If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority."

In speaking in this way, Jesus introduced a moral dimensional into the equation. By doing so he made it plain that we are not to sit in judgement on his words and on God's truth as though we can somehow impartially and uncommittedly come to our conclusions. It is not ours to judge God and his truth rather it is ours to submit humbly to God. It is only as we do so humbly submit ourselves to God that we will understand the truth claims of Jesus Christ and yet as we do so we will understand those claims to be true.

Jesus went further in v.18 to show that he was in no way seeking to further his own authority in the place of God's authority because he was not seeking his own glory but the glory of God:

"The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory, but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood."

Having defended himself against criticism, stated or implied, Jesus does not remain on the defensive. Instead he moves on to challenge his hearers. They have been acting as though they possess the moral high ground but Jesus wants them to see that this is far from being the case. And so Jesus pointed out to them some real inconsistencies in their own behaviour.

The Jewish nation, leaders and peoples alike, were justifiably proud of being in possession of the law of Moses. This law, given through Moses, was indeed God's law – and, as Paul wrote to Timothy:

1Tim 1:8 "we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully,"

But mere possession of the law is not what counts – what counts is obedience to that law. The Jews were making a big thing of the law of Moses but as Jesus had earlier said in John 5: 45 "there is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope." In Matthew's Gospel Jesus also spoke about the scribes and Pharisees, the religious leaders of the people, maintaining that they preached but did not practice what they preached. In writing to the church at Rome Paul to which speaking very similar ways. He suggested that they taught others without teaching themselves.

And now here Jesus declares to his hearers (having specifically in mind the religious leaders) that none of them keeps the law! And he goes on to explain just what he means:

v.19 "Why do you seek to kill me?"

John has already made it clear that this indeed was the attitude of the religious leaders even if they had not yet perhaps made this publicly known.

John 5: 18 "This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God."

John 7:1 "After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him."

While the immediate reaction to Jesus question, "why do you seek to kill me?", is a virulent denial the subsequent words, that John records in 7:25,suggests most clearly that their denial is over exaggerated.

John 7:25 "Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, “Is not this the man whom they seek to kill?"

The Jewish leaders were in possession of the law of Moses, but that law did not authorise the murder of an innocent man and they had no charge that they could legitimately bring against the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet putting Him to death was exactly what the leaders of the Jewish people were seeking to do!

If Jesus has been addressing more specifically the leaders of the people up till now, as soon as the people hear Jesus declare that they are seeking to kill him the crowd intervenes. Let's take a little time consider their intervention.

This is what they said:

v.20 "The crowd answered, "You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?""

They have just been listening to the world's greatest teacher teaching in the confines of the temple. There Jesus has been speaking about the nature and authority of his teaching affirming that it comes from God. He has also been declaring most openly that he works for the glory of God. But now the crowd knows better! How quick they are to condemn him! They do not merely contest what he has to say concerning the hostility of the religious leaders but they accuse him of being demon-possessed! If ever there were a case of an overhasty judgement according to appearances surely this must be it!

The crowd refuses to engage properly with what Jesus has to say, they refuse to think about the hostility directed towards him by the religious leaders – all that they quickly brushed to one side – the problem, as far as they were concerned, lay not with their leaders but with Jesus himself. This persecution complex that he has, it must be because he is possessed by a demon!

I wonder whether we are ever guilty of a similar sort of reaction. Oh no, I don't mean that we accuse Jesus of being demon-possessed but are we guilty of hastily jumping to the wrong conclusions? Are we guilty of putting Jesus words to one side simply because we believe they simply can't be true? How important it is for us to learn to think clearly and properly, indeed to judge with right judgement!

Many people are prepared to give Jesus a hearing until he says something which they considered to be beyond the pale. He is a wonderful teacher until that is he teaches something which they do not want to accept. I wonder whether we are in danger of being just like them: we will listen to what Jesus has to say just as long as what he says agrees with our preconceived ideas but when he calls those ideas into question we prefer our wisdom to his.

The crowd had declared the Jesus was deluded and that nobody was really trying to kill him. So Jesus reminds them of just what the situation was. The last time he had been down in Jerusalem he had healed a paralysed man on the Sabbath day and then he had told this man to take up his bed and go home. For this one act he was accused of breaking the Sabbath. His detractors also took great umbrage at the way in which Jesus had spoken of his relationship to his father – they saw him claiming to be equal with God which in their eyes was utterly unacceptable. For this they wanted to put Jesus to death.

Instead of focusing upon the good that Jesus had done for a paralysed man in restoring him to complete health Jesus enemies could only focus upon the perceived disrespect for the law of the Sabbath.

And yet… even though the rite of circumcision, as a mark of the covenant that God had established between himself and his people, concerned just one small part of the male anatomy these same men were quite prepared to perform circumcision on the Sabbath and they did not consider this to be contrary to the law of Moses.

However, when Jesus made a man's whole body well i.e. when he did far more good to paralysed man Sabbath far from being applauded for his gracious generosity, Jesus was himself considered to be a lawbreaker. More than that, his enemies and his detractors became angry with him for what he had done. Their anger had become so great that they were actively seeking ways of killing him, behaviour which was proscribed by the very law of Moses that they claimed to be upholding.

Do you remember what Jesus said when he taught in the sermon on the Mount about anger? He did not dwell upon mere externals but went to the very heart of the matter considering attitude and motive:

Mt 5:22  "But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire."

It was not that Jesus was a lawbreaker, that he was setting aside the law when he wanted to do something good, rather he was entirely consistent with the whole purpose of the law and acted in total harmony with its profound requirements. It was the narrowness of mind and bigotry of spirit that prevented his enemies from realising this.

Throughout the pages of the New Testament, it is the uniform testimony that Jesus was without sin. Sin is lawlessness so to be without sin meant that Jesus did not live his life apart from the law but in perfect harmony with it, he fulfilled it perfectly: in all that he did, and in all that he said, and in all his heart attitudes and thoughts. When we consider the miracles that he performed on the Sabbath day we are not to think of him as setting aside the Law or ignoring it – that he never did. It was he who had a clear and profound understanding as to what the law really did require and what the law really did proscribe.

How are we judging Jesus Christ? What are the criteria that determine how we think about him?

Do we get annoyed with him over some of the claims that he made? We may not go as far as accusing him of being demon-possessed, but deep down do we think that he was just a little bit too far in some of the things that he said? Does that lead us too to question him?

Are we too lazy to think seriously and deeply about spiritual matters, being content to rest with a very superficial acquaintance with spiritual matters? The crowd was not completely ignorant. And yet the crowd was completely wrong as it failed in its appreciation of the truth. What is your reaction like when someone points out your own inconsistencies? Are you grateful because this enables you to make progress in your spiritual life and in your spiritual understanding? Or do you experience a certain degree of frustration, if not anger?

Sometimes it is possible for us to try to hide and excuse ourselves by suggesting that it is all so complicated, so difficult to understand, that it is beyond me, when really the problem lies somewhere else entirely. We struggle in our comprehension not because of a lack of intelligence but because we lack the prior moral commitment that Jesus says is so absolutely necessary. Is the real reason why we understand so little and struggle to make more sense of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ simply because we are not prepared to do God's will?

Oh how we need to learn to judge with right judgement and not by appearances!

Ps19:14 "May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer."

Amen