Hide and Seek
Who is Jesus? part 77 – John 7:33-36
Terry Pratchett was fueled by a delightful dose of indignation—like a cranky old wizard with a wand full of wit! He noticed the absurdity in society and decided to poke fun at it through his books, especially in his Discworld series, where the laughter is as plentiful as the footnotes. Take Sam Vimes, for instance: he’s the poster child for channeling anger into superhero deeds, tackling wrongs with the enthusiasm of a cat in a room full of laser pointers. Who knew that anger at injustice could lead to such good?
John’s Gospel is different. It shows someone motivated by love. The first part of this book, chapters 1 to 5, centre around verses 3:16-17,
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
God’s motivation is not anger, but love.
33 Jesus then said, “I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. 34 You will seek me and you will not find me. Where I am you cannot come.” 35 The Jews said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? 36 What does he mean by saying, ‘You will seek me and you will not find me’, and, ‘Where I am you cannot come’?”
John 7:33-36
Forget any ideas of the children’s game of hide and seek, even though that game can be carried out well into adulthood if we stop pretending to be sophisticated. There are times to be serious of course, but it does not need to be all the time, the after-work hours behaviour of some of even the most professional of adults shows this. An after work pint of beer or two has helped me to relax into many evenings. The mark of an adult in my eyes is not to stop being childish, but to know when it is appropriate to be childish. We all need to be a bit silly.
I pray before I write. Whilst meditating on this passage I imagined Jesus in the Temple standing on a raised area under columns with a stone wall behind him talking to angry looking Jewish priests in the background the guards sent to arrest him are looking elsewhere, not realising that the man speaking is the one they are after. Is it a picture from God or my imagination? Probably the latter.
Jesus’ need to hide is a matter of life or death. This is no game, the Jews (that is the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem) want to get rid of Jesus, which is why he didn’t travel down with his brothers but sneaked down to Jerusalem alone. Yet he then surprised everyone by standing up in the Temple courts and teaching. The Jews reacted by sending out the Temple guards to arrest Jesus. The immediate meaning is Jesus is going into hiding from those who want to kill him.
For those not in the know about AI, I have cut myself off from AI support. It tries to make things positive, but when any of my posts mention the death of Jesus Christ it refuses to correct me telling me I have breached their conditions. I could be compliant, and write a version of John’s Gospel which skirts the issue, which I am doing as far as is possible because I am concentrating on only one of the many themes in the Gospel According to John, that of who Jesus is.
But how can I write about who Jesus is as told by John without writing about Jesus’ redemptive death? Are the robots trying to take the power away from the Gospel with this, “Our service provider OpenAI could not process your prompt due to a moderation system. Please try to rephrase it changing potentially problematic words and try again?”
Joking aside, I’m not angry at AI, it’s just an algorithm trying as best as a computer program can to sort out terrorism and other death threats. That the Gospel of Jesus Christ can be seen as on a par with terrorist threats shows that it is still as countercultural as ever. It can be seen as a threat now, just like Jesus was thought of as a threat.
The authorities are trying to get to Jesus. They think that killing him is the best way to get rid of the threat to their power. I imagine what they were really scared of was Rome. Being under the boot of the Roman army was not an easy place to be. Jerusalem and the area had been given a Roman name, Judea, and was overseen by Pontius Pilate. If the Jews could not keep the peace they’d experience the anger of Rome.
When Jesus spoke here it was more than just saying he was hiding from the Temple guards, he talked about going back to his Father. He said the same thing to his disciples at the last meeting before his disciples. They didn’t understand him either. What chance did the people have of understanding now?
The time that Jesus will go back to his Father could be after the crucifixion or he could be talking about after his ascension, but that is in the future, for now he will disappear, someone will house him probably, but it is clear from how Jesus is speaking that he is in control. No one is going to arrest him at this time, nor when he speaks openly again in a few days or when he speaks up at Hanukkah in the winter. But these will have to wait. for another time,
< Previous | The Gospel of John | Next >
Making an ass of myself 