“I will be with you only a little longer. Then I will return to the one who sent me. You will search for me but not find me. And you cannot go where I am going.” Jesus was speaking plainly to them, but the bias and human filters blocked our understanding…
25 Some of the people who lived in Jerusalem started to ask each other, “Isn’t this the man they are trying to kill? 26 But here he is, speaking in public, and they say nothing to him. Could our leaders possibly believe that he is the Messiah? 27 But how could he be? For we know where this man comes from. When the Messiah comes, he will simply appear; no one will know where he comes from.”
28 While Jesus was teaching in the Temple, he called out, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I come from. But I’m not here on my own. The one who sent me is true, and you don’t know him. 29 But I know him because I come from him, and he sent me to you.” 30 Then the leaders tried to arrest him; but no one laid a hand on him, because his time had not yet come.
31 Many among the crowds at the Temple believed in him. “After all,” they said, “would you expect the Messiah to do more miraculous signs than this man has done?”
32 When the Pharisees heard that the crowds were whispering such things, they and the leading priests sent Temple guards to arrest Jesus. 33 But Jesus told them, “I will be with you only a little longer. Then I will return to the one who sent me. 34 You will search for me but not find me. And you cannot go where I am going.”
35 The Jewish leaders were puzzled by this statement. “Where is he planning to go?” they asked. “Is he thinking of leaving the country and going to the Jews in other lands? Maybe he will even teach the Greeks! 36 What does he mean when he says, ‘You will search for me but not find me,’ and ‘You cannot go where I am going’?”
John 7:25-36 NLT
Some of the people were surprised at how inept the authorities appeared – they were trying to kill Jesus, but here he was giving public speeches. They either don’t know what they’re doing, or… they also believe he is Messiah (vs. 26). Of course, the third option is that Messiah would not let his opponents find him or seize him if they found him. His time had not yet come (vs. 30).
They had a belief that Messiah would simply appear, although when Herod asked his advisors where Messiah was prophesied to be born, the answer was Bethlehem. The more important thing, however, isn’t where Messiah is from on earth. Jesus told them he was sent from heaven, from the Father he knows and whom they do not know.
This was offensive to them. It would be offensive to us. To have some tell us that they come from the Father whom we have worshiped for parts of our lives or our whole lives or for generations since Abraham, this is a poke in the eye.
Not only was he from heaven, he would return there. And they would continue to search for him and not find him. They cannot go where he is going. His listeners thought he was speaking of some place on earth. This is our bias. We think in terms of earth and its ways and means. Jesus is constantly telling the disciples and others he meets to look up. Think spiritually.
But they knew “where this man comes from.” Nazareth. It’s Joseph’s son. No good thing comes from Nazareth. He is a carpenter. Maybe he even has a demon. There must be a human explanation for all this…
Or not.
Amen.
Marc Kinna
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