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My time has not yet come ...

Tuesday, May 27, 2014. The bible is full of conflict. Even though Jesus came to reconcile men with God, this reconciliation also leads to deep fractions. We need to learn about this in more detail …

The world hates me …

Jesus had shown strong signs, and he started to speak about his particular role, about him being the “bread of life”. We have read John 6 about this. Now, people start to ask: who is he. People try to understand - and there are different opinions about what his role could be. In particular the immediate family of Jesus had to find out, what was going on. And the brothers of Jesus challenged him:

1 After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews1 were seeking to kill him. 2 Now the Jews’ Feast of Booths was at hand. 3 So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. 4 For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” 5 For not even his brothers believed in him. 6 Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. 7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. 8 You go up to the feast. I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come.” 9 After saying this, he remained in Galilee. (John 7, 1 ff)

There are several important things here. First: his time has not yet come. It is important that there is a time for everything. There is a time for silence. There is a time for speech. There is a time to live. There is a time to die. Jesus knows this and he is able to wait for the right time! How often do we not know when the time has come, when time is ripe, when things will move forward.

About evil works …

Jesus also says: your time is always there. He describes a contrast between the way time is used by worldly people compared with a spiritual attitude. This is a very important point, and we will need to talk more about it another day! It is linked to patience, to endurance, to suffering and to maturity. It is linked to pain and to freedom, to defeat and vitory. His time will come!

Then Jesus claims that “the world” hates him. It does not hate his brothers, since they belong to the world, they behave like the world behaves. The world hates those who testify that its works are evil. The world hates, that is what it can do well. But there is another spirit, another force, another realm, which is already there. As believer you are in the world, but not from the world.

The modern world has its own version of what “evil” means. That is what Jesus calls “it hates me”. The world calls evil what does not fit into its current scheme. We are taken into a deep conflict here, the conflict between faith and “no-faith”. The conflict between evil and good.

God is good. Jesus is good. And we can enter his goodness, coming to his light. We cannot ignore the conflicts which are described here - and they will come until today, when ever people start to believe and to follow Jesus. It is a spiritual conflict, as active today as ever. But he has gone through all of this. He can guide us today, and be with us in everything. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts