Scripture Daily

Context No. 849 of 4322 · John

Context · Reflection

John 7:28-32: in context

28Jesus therefore cried out in the temple, teaching and saying, “You both know me, and know where I am from. I have not come of myself, but he who sent me is true, whom you don’t know. 29I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.” 30They sought therefore to take him; but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. 31But of the multitude, many believed in him. They said, “When the Christ comes, he won’t do more signs than those which this man has done, will he?” 32The Pharisees heard the multitude murmuring these things concerning him, and the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to arrest him.

It is the middle of the feast, and Jesus, teaching in the temple, calls out in response to a crowd that thinks it has him figured out. So you know me, he says, and you know where I am from. They did know the surface facts, his hometown of Nazareth, his family, his ordinary origins, and those facts were exactly what they were using to dismiss him. We know this man, they were saying, we know where he comes from; he cannot be anyone special. Their familiarity had hardened into a verdict.

And Jesus tells them their confident knowledge is the very thing blinding them. Yes, you know where I am from, he says, but I have not come on my own; the One who sent me is true, and him you do not know. I know him, because I am from him. They knew the map coordinates of his childhood and assumed that meant they knew him, when in fact they did not know the God who stood behind him, and so they did not really know him at all. It is a trap that catches all of us. Once we decide we know someone, that we have them placed and categorized and understood, that settled sense of knowing quietly stops us from ever seeing more. The crowd's problem was not too little information about Jesus. It was too much confidence that the little they had was the whole of him.

The crowd knew where Jesus was from and assumed that meant they knew him, and it blinded them. Whom, or what about God, have I decided I already know so completely that my certainty keeps me from seeing who they actually are?

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