NOTES for Joh 7:12-13
The wavering between these two opinions is no longer a matter of public discussion. Publicly no one dares to speak about Jesus at all. People talk about anything: about how bad or good everything is in the church, about how and what should be done, about what someone thinks of the most important universal human problems, about who distorted history and how. But not about Jesus. The attempt to find out who He is and what He is like gives rise to fear, exposing our superficiality and inadequacy in the most important question of life.
The fear of answering these questions openly and directly takes us back 2,000 years. Only then people discussed this at least among themselves, secretly perhaps, but they argued. Now this dispute goes on implicitly, in the depth of each person’s soul. Is He good or a deceiver? Who is He? What is He like? Why did He come to me? However frightening it may be to be laughed at, to be thought an oddity or a madman, sooner or later everyone will have to answer these questions honestly.