NOTES for Joh 7:33-34

His listeners do not understand what Christ says about His departure, but they understand perfectly well Whom He calls His Father, and that is why they want to seize Him. Many people who apparently do not understand the explicit meaning of what they have heard understand it correctly deep within. But once we understand, we must draw conclusions; and once we accept those conclusions, we will have to act in a new way and change our habitual manner of life. We do not want to do this, and then the desire arises “not to understand,” to convince ourselves that the teaching we have heard is unattainable, irrelevant, impractical, and altogether absurd.

More than once one hears a person who rejects or refuses to accept something say, “I don't understand it!”—and utter the words with a defiance that calls to mind psychoanalysts' observations about unconscious slips of the tongue. No: they reject it precisely because they understand it, on the basis of a deliberate choice directed the other way.

This is one of the strangest dialogues in the Gospel. It looks as if the Jews simply do not understand what Jesus is talking about, while He Himself does not answer their words but says things that appear irrelevant. Yet if we consider the remarks of the people and of Jesus separately, their logical coherence is immediately revealed. They are simply conducting the conversation (if it is a conversation at all) in different directions. The Lord speaks about His mission - to bring people the word about the Father (for He Himself is the Father's Word), while the crowd's remarks show its complete lack of understanding.

Sometimes it feels as if this situation repeats again and again: Christ speaks to us through the Gospel, and we answer Him about something entirely different. To some extent this is natural, because we belong to different worlds (He is "from above," we are "from below"); He speaks of what we have not seen, but He has seen. This is not a lecture; it is testimony. And it is grasped only through the love and faithfulness of disciples who, not yet fully understanding and not yet believing perfectly, feel that Jesus speaks the words of eternal life and do not want to leave Him.

Today's reading helps us see more clearly the influence that religiosity has on a person's soul and consciousness. The account begins with mention of the feast of Sukkot ("the Feast of Booths"), to which Jesus' brothers are going to go in Jerusalem (vv. 2-3). Sukkot was one of the four main feasts of the Jewish religious year, and as usual a great gathering of pilgrims was expected in Jerusalem. It is no surprise that Jesus' brothers, who did not believe in His messiahship, wanted Him during the feast to proclaim Himself publicly as the Messiah and to give the proofs that those around Him had already demanded of Him more than once (vv. 3-5). Evidently, they expected to see the Messiah as the majority of believing Jews of the Gospel period imagined Him - as a Messiah-king, proclaiming an independent Jewish state and driving out the Romans. It is no surprise that Jesus refuses such a demonstration (vv. 6-8); He does come to Jerusalem, but secretly, trying not to draw attention to Himself (vv. 9-10).

Meanwhile, in the city, very different rumors about Him are circulating: some consider Him a man of God, others a deceiver (vv. 11-12). But everyone looks anxiously over his shoulder at those whom the evangelist calls "the Jews," meaning, as we can see, the spiritual leaders of the Synagogue and of the Pharisaic movement (v. 13). At that time Jesus again speaks to the people gathered in the temple court about the main thing - about His mission (vv. 14-18). And also about the true meaning of the Sabbath, whose meaning had long been lost behind numerous ritual prescriptions (vv. 19-24). Then some of those present recognize in the Speaker the One who had already been accused of breaking the Sabbath law, a violation punishable by death. And perhaps He is right? After all, no one appears to be intending to apply any sanctions to Him. But He cannot be the Messiah, for the Messiah must appear in some completely different way (vv. 25-27).

Here before us, as if on the palm of a hand, are all the questions that religion produces in the consciousness of a person who finds himself face to face with Christ and with the Kingdom that He brought into the world. No one has ever done such miracles as He has, and, perhaps, no one ever will (v. 31), but... why did He come not as religious tradition says of Him? And why do the religious leaders not receive Him? Where is the truth - in the religion that rejects Him, or in that evident reality of the Kingdom which bears such bright witness to Him? Each person answered this question for himself, and on this answer depended the acceptance or rejection of the Savior and of the Kingdom He brought into the world.