The Lord's Harvest Time

Read John 7:2-8:11
 
John 7:2-6, 9-10 But soon it was time for the Jewish Festival of Shelters, 3 and Jesus’ brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, where your followers can see your miracles! 4 You can’t become famous if you hide like this! If you can do such wonderful things, show yourself to the world!” 5 For even his brothers didn’t believe in him. 6 Jesus replied, “Now is not the right time for me to go, but you can go anytime.” … 10 But after his brothers left for the festival, Jesus also went, though secretly, staying out of public view.
 
TWO things happen here to point to Jesus’ deity. First, he rejects his unbelieving brothers’ urgings to “be famous.” He was not a man seeking worldly glory. He is the Son of God responding to his Father’s purpose to glorify the Father. Jesus had become well-known in Galilee. Surely as he walked with the large crowds that went to the Festival of Shelters (also called Tabernacle, Booths or Harvest), some would have urged Jesus to Jerusalem’s throne. His brothers may have sought political fame for Jesus for their own motives. How good to be the brothers of the Messiah King! But such actions outside of the Father’s will would have ended Jesus’ ministry and purpose. The time for Jesus’ “fame” would be later at another Feast called the Passover. Jesus lingered as he waited for the Father’s directives for his next kingdom steps. In one way, you could say Jesus was again resisting the devil’s temptation to desire worldly rule.
   The second evidence of Jesus’ deity is his ministry at the Feast in the Father’s time. This Feast of Shelters was a twofold celebration of God’s presence with his people through the Wilderness Journey. The LORD God provided shelter for his people through grasses, leaves, branches and even some towns for 40 years. This celebration also remembered how God had come to tabernacle – dwell with – his people in the Tabernacle. God’s abundant care and unrelenting power sheltered the Jews from their enemies, physical discomfort, disease and starvation as they walked toward their ultimate shelter, the Promised Land. In addition, this Feast celebrated the harvest time for some crops. God’s tabernacle, shelter and harvest are the reasons for the Feast.
   Jesus, then, is the Feast incarnate. He came to dwell on earth with his people, so his power and presence would lead us to tabernacle with him in heaven. He protects his chosen from the Evil One and reaps a harvest of the righteous.
   It’s good to know, too, that Jesus’ brothers became part of the harvest. James (not the apostle James) became a leader in the early church and wrote the epistle James. Jude is the author of Jude. Let us continue to pray people of the world will come to be under Jesus’ shelter forever. Matthew 9:38 “So pray to the LORD who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.”