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One of the things that I fear most in life is being misunderstood. It’s one thing to be disliked, even mocked for something that is true about you. Maybe you’re a 49ers fan. If that’s true, being disliked for something like that probably doesn’t cause you to lose too much sleep at night. But it’s another thing to be misunderstood for something that is untrue about you, or for something that you said that was interpreted very differently than how you intended it.
I remember a time back in my college days where this happened to me. Melissa and I were on a mission trip to France with the goal of sharing the gospel with Muslims who had immigrated from North Africa. About halfway through our trip we hosted a free outdoor event for children in an apartment complex in downtown Lion. Throughout the event I tried to engage the kids with my very broken French. I don’t know if this something that you do when you’re speaking across a language barrier, or if this is just me, but when I reach the limit of my vocabulary in the other language (which usually happens very quickly), I’ll switch to English, but with the accent of the other person’s language. It’s totally ridiculous, and most of the time I’m not even aware that I’m doing it.
But here I am at this kids’ event, trying to break the ice with the kids by asking them about their favorite foods. With the help of a few translators I hear a few of their answers—typical kid stuff like french fries, ice cream, and then one kid says “chicken.” And then I, trying to make a connection with the kids, attempt to say, “I like chicken!” The problem was that I didn’t know the french word for chicken… but I did know how to pronounce the word in english with a French accent. So what I said was, J’aime [which means, ‘I like’] shee-kahn!” It was the strangest thing; after I spoke, everyone went dead silent. The moms slowly began to turn to each other and whisper, giving me the side-eye. I was so confused. Eventually, one of the mothers calmly approached me and ask me to repeat again what I said, and I sheepishly said it again—J’aime ‘shee-kahn’. Well, as it turns out, even though what I had meant to say was ”I like chicken”, what I had actually said was, “I like marijuana!”
As you can imagine, I was totally mortified but blessedly all the mothers were able to laugh it off and the rest of the event was a great time.
I know that each one of you is like me—you hate being misunderstood. And because you’re human, and I’m human, we both misunderstand and are misunderstood all the time.
But I wonder if you’ve ever considered the fact that one of defining features of Jesus’ life was how he was misunderstood. Not just once or twice, and not just by a few people, but all of the time, by almost everyone.
This is a major theme that we’ve seen during our time in the Gospel of John. We saw in John 2 how the Jews misunderstood Jesus’ teaching on his body being the temple that would destroyed and then raised up again three days later. We saw in John 3, how the pharisee Nicodemus misunderstood what Jesus meant by being “born again.”
“How can these things be?” Jesus said. “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?”, Jesus replies. Jesus bears witness of heavenly realities that Nicodemus cannot understand, because he himself had not yet been born again.
In John 4, the woman at the well is able to see and believe, but Jesus’ own disciples are still left in the dark. They offer him bread to eat, but are confused when Jesus explains that his true bread—his true “meal” is to do the will of the Father. Again and again in the gospel of John we see how Jesus is misunderstood and maligned by those we would assume would be most likely to believe, and how he is instead received and believed by those who who seem least likely.
In John 1:10-13 we read,
“He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
As I read through the gospels I’m often left wondering how lonely Jesus must have felt during his life. How exhausting it must have been to be surrounded by followers who were given countless opportunities to clearly see his divinity and yet remained in the dark, blind to who it was that walked before them. And to not only be surrounded by those misunderstood, but by some who misinterpreted his motives and ministry as something malicious and demonic.
What John makes abundantly clear throughout his gospel is the inseparable nature of right understanding and saving faith. If we fail to understand who Jesus really is and what he came to do, we will remain in spiritual darkness, no matter how highly we might esteem Jesus as a good man or a gifted teacher. There is no right believing without right understanding.
This morning, as we enter into a new chapter of the gospel of John, we are going to see three ways that Jesus is misunderstood by three groups of people, and how, instead, we we can understand him, and thus believe in him, rightly.
Verse 24 summarizes the heart of our text this morning. Jesus says,
“Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”
In John 7 we see three groups of people make three errors of judgment concerning Jesus. If you’re a note-taker, this will be our outline for text this morning:
- Jesus’ Brothers Misunderstand Jesus’ Purpose
- The Crowd Misunderstands Jesus’ Motives
- The Religious Leaders Misunderstand Jesus’ Authority
1. Jesus’ Brothers Misunderstand His Purpose (7:1-9)
Look with me again at 7:1,
“After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him.”
The “after this” refers back to all that happened in John 6—and it was a lot. In John 6 we saw Jesus’ divine power on display through the feeding of the five thousand and his walking on water. And we saw Jesus’ divine wisdom on display as he proclaimed himself to the crowds as the “bread of life,” the One whose flesh and blood would be broken and poured out to satisfy the spiritual hunger and thirst of all who would come to him. The words that Jesus spoke to them were “words of spirit and life,” but the Jews and even many of his own disciples took offense at these words and left him. “Drink of his blood and eat of his flesh?” It didn’t matter how many miracles they saw and free meals they received—they were blind to the true nature of who was before them and what he was offering them. And so it is with all of us. Left to our own devices, none of us are able to see and believe rightly. “It is the Spirit who gives life;” Jesus says, “the flesh is no help at all” (6:63).
After the events of John 6, we read that Jesus “went about in Galilee” and would not go back to Judea, the spiritual mecca of the Jews, because they were seeking to kill him. It’s likely that about 5 months or so have passed since the events of John 5 and 6. We know this because John 5 opens up with the account of Jesus’ healing the lame man at the pool on the Sabbath which John records as happening in Jerusalem during the Passover Feast—the annual Spring festival celebrating how God had “passed over” and spared his people from the destruction he brought down on the families of Egypt. It was this miracle and what Jesus said afterwards that riled up the seed of envy and murder in the hearts of the Jews. We read in 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.”
As we fast forward 5 months later to John 7 we enter a scene between Jesus and his brothers in their hometown of Galilee right before the Feast of Booths was set to begin in Jerusalem, a fall harvest festival. My guess is that most of us are familiar with the Passover Feast, but what is the significance of the Feast of Booths?
Some Bible translations call it the “Feast of Tabernacles,” and others call it the “Festival Of Shelters,” but the Feast of Booths can literally be rendered, “The Tent Pitching Festival”. God gave Moses and the Jews instructions for this festival in Leviticus 23:42-43:
“You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All native Israelites shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.”
For the Jews, the Feast of Booths was a time to celebrate their deliverance from slavery of Egypt, but what they failed to see was spiritual slavery that still held them captive—slavery to sin and the Law. The rickety pop-up tents the Jews constructed for the festival to symbolize the tents used by wilderness generation should have pointed to the temporary nature of the Old Covenant and caused the Jews to look forward to the coming Messiah. But even when the Messiah was with them in the flesh—the one would lead them out of their tents and into the eternal, lasting city—they rejected him. Jesus had come to give himself as the better manna that would satisfy all spiritual hunger, and the better water from the rock that would satisfy all spiritual thirst. But as we’ve seen in John so far, and as we’ll continue to see in John 7 this morning, the Jews fail to see that they are still a part of the wilderness generation. They are wandering about in the desert as spiritual nomads; always hungry, always thirsty, yet never satisfied.
But Jesus’ brothers aren’t thinking like that. Instead, they believe this Feast of Booths will be the perfect opportunity for Jesus to “strut his stuff.” Look with me again at 7:3-4:
“So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.”
The thinking goes, “if you really are the Messiah, you should be working to attract as many followers as possible, to build your public platform and persona. Why stay hidden in the backwoods of Galilee when the real action is happening in Jerusalem?” But their advice to their older brother is also laced with suspicion—”Why are you working in secret, Jesus? If you want to be known publicly, you need to act publicly. If you are the real deal, Jesus, you’ll follow our advice.” Verse 5 clues us into their real hearts—”For not even his brothers believed in him.”
One commentator explains how the brothers’ desire to push Jesus into a more public display of his power is strikingly reminiscent to Satan’s temptation at the beginning of Jesus ministry, “the temptation to showmanship in jumping from the pinnacle of the temple” (See R. Brown, "Incidents That Are Units in the Synoptic Gospels but Dispersed in St. John," CBQ 23 (1961): 152-60, and John, 1.308).
Now, before we dig into how Jesus responds to his brothers, I want to pause here to make a quick point of application that Jesus’ brothers so vividly illustrate—proximity to Jesus does not equal faith in Jesus. Are you as surprised as I am that his own brothers didn’t believe in him? You would think that they of all people would be most inclined to belief. They more than anyone had long-term exposure to the life and witness of Jesus. They would have seen his sinlessness and righteousness on display at a level unlike anyone else. And yet, they didn’t believe. This is a sobering warning to all of us. You can grow up with Christian parents, you can attend church every Sunday, and go through the motions of the Christian life—you can have the greatest possible proximity to Jesus, and yet not know him. Children in the room, this is especially a warning to you.
Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”
Let’s look now at how Jesus responds to his brothers (don’t you love it when family gives you unsolicited advice?):
7:6-8 “Jesus said to them, ‘My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. You go up to the feast. I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come.’”
Why did Jesus delay in going to the Festival? Because it was not yet “his time.” This phrase—”his time—” is really important in the book of John. We might think that what Jesus means by “his time” is the time of his crucifixion—an event that would take place 6 months later during another festival. That could be one way to interpret what Jesus is saying here to his brothers, that he won’t go to the Feast of Booths because if he did, it would accelerate the events that would lead to his crucifixion. But that doesn’t work. Why? Because we see in verse 10 that Jesus eventually does go to Jerusalem, albeit in secret. We need to understand the difference between John’s usage of “my time” and another common phrase of Jesus: “my hour.” Whenever Jesus speaks of “his hour,” he is referring to the hour of his crucifixion—the central event that John’s gospel is leading us to. In Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John 17:1, days before his trial and crucifixion, Jesus prays, “Father, the hour has come. glorify your son that the son may glorify you.”
So if Jesus’ “hour” refers to his crucifixion, what does he mean when he tells his brothers, “my time has not yet come?” By this Jesus means that every decision he makes—what he says, what does, and where he goes—is based on God’s timing, not man’s. His brothers had their own thoughts and opinions about how Jesus should organize his ministry calendar, but it was antithetical to God’s purposes and plan.
I think here too we can make an easy application—whose plan and purposes are you following in your life? This might feel especially relevant to you who are younger in this room—you who have a lot of your life still ahead of you—where you’ll go to school, who you’ll marry, what career you’ll pursue, how you’ll raise your family. But I don’t think this is a temptation for young people alone. Which of us in this room hasn’t at some point felt the weight of other’s expectations? There will always be people in your life who are ready to offer you advice—some good, some bad—on what you should do and who you should be. And if you’re not careful, you can spend your whole life attempting to live up to the plans and purposes others have for you.
But, conversely, and crucially, the answer is not to pursue your own plans and purposes (as modern culture and Disney princesses would have you believe)! The key to a fruitful life is not following others’ plans and purposes, but it’s also not following our own plans and purposes. The question that we should each be asking with every decision we make is who will this decision please? God or man?
The real tragedy for Jesus’ brothers, though, is not only that they misunderstood his timing—it’s that they misunderstood his purpose altogether. They failed to discern God’s will for Jesus because they hadn’t been born of God. Jesus tells them, “Your time is always here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.” His brothers are of the world, and so they have nothing to fear from the world. Maybe this is why they are shocked when Jesus doesn’t take their advice to go to Jerusalem right away. The kind of public ministry they are envisioning almost certainly doesn’t include exposing the evil hearts of Jesus’ would-be followers.
Jesus’s purpose was misunderstood by his brothers: he was following God’s timing, not man’s; and the kingdom he was building was not of this world. But do you want to know something really cool? Jesus’ brothers may not have believed then, but there was coming a day soon when they would believe. James, one of Jesus’ brothers, who was converted after seeing the resurrected Christ, would years later write to another group of believers,
James 4:4, 6 “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God… But [God] gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
Jesus’ brothers didn’t know Jesus’ purpose, because they didn’t know him. But one day, they would.
We’ve seen how Jesus’ own family misunderstood his purpose, but now, let’s move to our next audience and our next misunderstanding. Let’s consider how 2) The People Misunderstand Jesus’ Motives.
2. The People Misunderstand Jesus’ Motives (7:10-13)
So, Jesus’ brothers continue on to Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths without Jesus who remained in Galilee for a few more days. When Jesus did eventually arrive in Jerusalem, he did so privately. Look with me at what happens next in verses 11 and following:
“The Jews were looking for him at the feast, and saying, “Where is he?” And there was much muttering about him among the people. While some said, “He is a good man,” others said, “No, he is leading the people astray.” Yet for fear of the Jews no one spoke openly of him.”
Picture this with me—Jesus enters a Jerusalem that is flooded with people from all over—pilgrims who have made the long journey to celebrate the Feast of Booths with their Jewish kinsmen. Everywhere you look, every courtyard, roof, and open space is covered with tents of all shapes and sizes for this seven-day national campout. Trumpets are blowing, the women are singing, and the children are playing joyously in the streets. And this is a fall harvest festival, so there is fruit everywhere—pomegranates, grapes, figs—not to mention the fragrant aroma of meat wafting from the sacrificial offerings in the temple.
But there was something else going on during the festival—murmuring and muttering about who this Jesus figure is. The people would have had some vague knowledge of who he was. They surely would have heard about his healing of the lame man on the Passover some months ago, and maybe some other bits and pieces of his teaching and miracles, but not much. This was the pre-internet age. News traveled by word of mouth through one big game of telephone. They probably didn’t know much about Jesus, but when does a lack of information ever stop people from forming conclusions? Some were saying, “He is a good man,” while others were saying, “No, he is leading the people astray.” Again isn’t it interesting to see how the Jews in Jesus’ day were so similar to the Jews in the wilderness generation—grumbling, complaining, wondering aloud where God was and why he wasn’t doing what they wanted him to do?
The people, just like Jesus’ brothers, misunderstood Jesus’ motives, because they misunderstood who Jesus was.
We can take consolation from how the Jewish crowd spoke of Jesus. If Jesus, the perfect Son of God with the purest of motives can be so misunderstood, we shouldn’t be surprised when we too are misunderstood by the world.
How quick we are to answer and apologize for any possible misconception the world has toward us as Christians! If we are going to be hated by the world, we surmise, it should at least be for something true! But Jesus was content with others not only maligning him, but misrepresenting his motives. There are times when correcting misunderstandings others have toward us is appropriate. In fact, unlike Christ, we are often the ones responsible for creating these misunderstandings. In such cases the best thing we can do for the sake of our Christian witness is to humble ourselves and clarify what we made unclear by our actions or words. Yet, no matter how clear you are, there will still be those, like many in Jesus’ day, who misunderstand you—who will call into question your character, your motives, and your words, and hate you without cause.
The question then becomes, what will you do with that? Personally, I cringe at the thought that someone might hate me for my Christian faith period, but especially when it seems to emanate from a misconstrual of my motives. What I want to do in those instances is to immediately run in and correct the misunderstanding—to make the phone call, shoot off the text, reply to the internet thread—to defend myself from a false accusation. What about you? Perhaps we have fallen into the trap of believing that the litmus test for a faithful Christian witness is how competently we can get the world to appreciate, or at the very least respectfully understand the Bible’s teaching on a particular issue. Maybe the answer to the world’s confusion and animosity toward Christianity is simply more conversations, more clarity, and more apologies?
But brother and sister, if you make it your life’s ambition to pursue the respectability of the world, you will never be a fruitful Christian. In fact, it’s because of this pursuit that many Christians and churches have drifted away from clear Biblical teaching on issues like sin, hell, marriage, and gender. And where does this all ultimately lead? It leads to a false gospel that, in the words of one theologian, contains “A God without wrath [bringing] men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the [ministry] of a Christ without a cross” (H. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of God in America)
One spiritual muscle we need to grow as Christians is the ability to be OK when we are hated and misunderstood without cause. How did Jesus do this? Look with me at Peter’s encouragement in 1 Peter 2:20-23,
“But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.”
The litmus test of Christian faithfulness is not the judgment of the world—what it finds beautiful and worthy at any given moment—but the judgment of God, the one who judges justly. When we entrust ourselves to him, as Jesus did, we no longer need to be defensive or despondent when the reviling, and threats, and suffering come. There is coming a day when the righteous will be vindicated and the unrighteous will be judged. But while we wait for that day, “let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good” (1 Pet 4:19).
In just 13 short verses we have seen how the purpose of Jesus was misunderstood by his brothers, and how the motivations of Jesus were misunderstood by the crowd. But now, in our final point, we will see how Jesus’ authority is misunderstood by the religious leaders.
3. The Religious Leaders Misunderstand Jesus’ Authority (7:14-24)
We see in verse 13 that though the Jewish people were spreading rumors about Jesus among themselves at the festival, they were unwilling to speak “openly” about him for fear of the Jews, specifically the Jewish leaders. There’s a bit of irony here that Jesus’ opponents criticized him for not speaking openly when they themselves were unwilling to do the same. The crowd was afraid of the Jewish leaders, and the Jewish leaders were afraid of the crowd.
But Jesus wasn’t afraid to speak openly. When his time had come, as appointed by the Father, he went up into the temple and began teaching. Look with me at again at verses 14 and following:
“About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. The Jews therefore marveled, saying, “How is it that this man has learning, when he has never studied?” So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. 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. 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.”
The first thing we notice is that the Jewish leaders marveled that Jesus taught like one who has learning, or literally, “knows letters.” He was intimately familiar with the Law and the Prophetic writings though he had completed no formal study. They marveled because they knew where he came from—Galilee—regarded by many in Jerusalem as the “theological trailer park” of Israel.
See how blind these Jewish leaders were that even in their admiration for Jesus’ learning, the focal point of their admiration was not on the content of Jesus’ teaching, but something else altogether! Jesus’ miraculous learning and understanding of the scriptures should have led them to consider whether this truly was the Christ, but instead they were fixated on something else—”by what authority do you presume to speak to us, Jesus of Galilee?”
You see, the Jewish teachers in Jesus’ day had a very specific concept of authority. They loved to quote other Rabbis and appeal to the authority of tradition. And they were obsessed with the theological lineage of their teachers —”Who did that Rabbi study under?” A teacher was considered trustworthy or untrustworthy based on where they studied, who they studied under, and their ability to appeal to previous teachers and tradition. According to one commentator, “The rabbinic method of learning was by recitation of the opinions of the teachers of the law (their authorities). When one was sufficiently knowledgeable of past opinions (precedents), then one might dare to express one's own opinions on issues” (NAC).
But Jesus’ teaching was completely unlike anything the Jews had ever heard. He did not appeal to the authority of previous scribes and tradition, but to God himself. Look with me again at verse 16. Jesus says, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.” Wait a minute—doesn’t this seem like a contradiction? How can Jesus say, “My teaching is not my teaching?” That’s like saying, my dog is not my dog. This statement of Jesus, I believe, helps us make sense of a tension we see all throughout the gospels. The question is this: where does Jesus authority come from? Does he have authority in himself? Or is his authority derived from the Father? The answer is, yes.
Now stick with me for a minute here. This is a great opportunity for us to refresh ourselves on the doctrine of the trinity.
Perhaps we can be helped by the early church father Augustine. He says,
“What does [Jesus] mean [in verse 16] by “my” and “not mine”? If we carefully look at what [John] himself says in the beginning of his Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” this is where the solution of this question hangs. What then is the doctrine of the Father, but the Father’s Word? Therefore, Christ himself is the doctrine of the Father, if he is the Word of the Father. But since the Word cannot be of no one but [must be] of someone, he said both “his doctrine,” namely, himself, and also “not his own” because he is the Word of the Father. For what is so much “yours” as “yourself”? And what is so much not yours as yourself, if what you are is of another?”
In other words, Jesus might say, “What else is ‘my message—’ the message of the gospel—than me, myself? I am the author of life, the living bread, wisdom from God, and Word of the Father. But ‘my message’ is not mine alone, just as much as ‘the Word’ must be the word of someone, and the Son must be the son of someone, namely the Father.”
Jesus, as the second member of Trinity, is co-equal and co-eternal with the Father. Together, with the Holy Spirit, they are of one essence—one God in three Persons. And yet we see in the trinity a distinction of roles. It is the Father who planned the work of redemption and sent the Son into the world to accomplish the plan. Jesus does nothing apart from the will of the Father. All of his miracles, and his teaching, and authority emanates from Father. This is why Jesus says in verse 18,
“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.”
Here, Jesus isn’t only offering a defense of his own ministry, but a sharp rebuke of the ministry of the Jewish leaders. For what else were they doing but seeking their own glory? Their teaching and religious acts were meticulously calculated to garner the praise of man. Do you want to know one key to spotting a false teacher? Look at who gets the glory from their ministry. After you listen to them are you left thinking, “God is good!” or “Man, they are such a gifted speaker! So eloquent, powerful, and motivating”?
Go back with me one verse to verse 17. Let’s see how Jesus gets at the heart of the religious leaders’ unbelief. He says,
“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.”
The reason they misunderstand Jesus’ divine origin is because they do not have the will to do God’s will. This is brought into stark relief in the rest of Jesus’ dialogue in verses 19-23.
The Jewish Leaders, remembering Jesus’ miracle from John 4, accused him of forsaking and breaking the Law of Moses. They so misunderstand the true heart of the Law that they were outraged when Jesus performed the “work” of healing the paralytic on the Sabbath back in John 4. And yet they aren’t even consistent on this point! They are willing to circumcise a man on the Sabbath in order to “keep the law” (7:22). Jesus here is using a common Jewish argument that there are some commandments in the Law that take precedence over the commandment to keep the Sabbath. The Jews understood this and were willing to break the Sabbath in order to perform a circumcision on a newborn boy, but they were outraged when Jesus broke the Sabbath in order to heal a man’s whole body.
They failed to understand that the true commandment at the center of the Ten Commandments was love—love for God, and love for man. And so, in failing to understand the the Law of God, they failed to understand the heart of God. The God of Abraham who promised to redeem and adopt a people for his own possession. The God of Jacob, who set his steadfast, covenantal love on those who were most unworthy. And the God of Moses, who sent his own Son to redeem those who had broken his law. The God who “so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
Jesus did not come simply to be another interpreter of the law, jockeying for status and glory. Jesus came to fulfill the law that none of us could. He came to die the death that our lawbreaking had earned, and he came to rise from the dead, vindicating his power and authority over sin and the grave.
Yet the world that was made through him, did not know him. His own people—his brothers, his kinsmen, the teachers of the law—those who should have seen him most clearly, misunderstood him.
“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”
Brothers and sisters, all of this he bore for our sake. He was despised by men so that we could be esteemed by God. Rejected so that we could be accepted. Misunderstood, so that we could be known and loved.
Look to Jesus. See him for who he truly is. Delight in him. Glory in him. Judge him with right judgment. And as you see him clearly, believe.
