It’s below
freezing outside as I write this, so it is with special interest that I notice
John writes in chapter 10 verse 22 that it was winter. We don’t get many
details like that in scripture, so the few that are included sound off like
klaxons in the text, loudly declaring their importance. It was actually the
Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem, a holiday that today we know as Hanukkah. We
read in John that Jesus was walking in the temple, in the colonnade of Solomon,
which was an open, roofed 45-foot walkway with double
columns that were 38 feet tall. This was an important part of the temple
for the Jews since it was one of the few remaining portions of the temple that
was built many years earlier by Solomon.
I
picture Jesus meandering through the columns, bundled up in his winter robes
and snow sandals, perhaps thinking about the history of the building. The
Festival of Dedication was so named in honor of the rededication of the temple
after the Israelites rose up in rebellion against the Greeks. The Greek king
had forbidden the Israelites from practicing their religion and tried to force
them to worship Zeus. After the Greeks dared to offer sacrifices to Zeus in the
temple, God’s people had had enough. They threw off the oppression of the
Greeks and cleansed and rededicated the temple to God in 164 BC. They kicked
off an eight-day feast with a proper sacrifice to God at the rebuilt altar.
Maybe
Jesus thought about how the temple was the dwelling place of God among men
before God came to his people in the form of a man, or about the plan he and
the Father had devised to save and care for all their wandering sheep. Perhaps
he was thinking about how he was nearing the end of his earthly ministry, about
the fact that in just a few short months he would suffer the most grisly,
agonizing, shameful form of death known to the ancient world.
My
kids know that one of the easiest ways to make me lose my mind with anger is
for them to ask me the same question over and over, and make me repeat the
answer I’ve already given. So I can imagine his impatience when the crowd
rushes up to him, all of a bother, interrupting his reverie, and demands, “How
long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly”
(24). This is the point that my eye begins to twitch, right before full-on
meltdown mode. But Jesus simply says, “I told you, and you do not
believe.”
Here
is what is cool about this interaction, especially Jesus’ following remarks
about how his sheep know his voice and follow him, and how he and the Father
are one. This is one of the last public moments of Jesus’ ministry. From this
point forward, he focuses more on intimate relationships with his followers and
friends than with the crowds. Until, of course, he faces the crowd that
crucifies him. As one commentary puts it: “But now, right next to
the temple, at a feast commemorating the rededication of the temple, Jesus
gives his clearest teaching about his own identity. It is this identity that is
the grounds for his replacement of the temple as the place where forgiveness of
sins is available and God is to be met.”
For the rest of eternity, there will be no more need for
sacrifices on the altar for forgiveness of sin, because Jesus becomes that
sacrifice. God will no longer dwell in the temple, but he will dwell within his
people in the person of the Holy Spirit. Jesus, predicting his own death, said
in John 2:19, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will
raise it up.” Jesus became the temple, as well as the sacrifice.
The temple was just a building after all.
If his knowledge of his impending death unnerved him, he didn’t
show it because in verse 31, enraged by what they believe to be blasphemy, the
people pick up stones to kill Jesus. But Jesus is filled with a “sovereign
calmness that comes from being centered in God's will, the will of the Father
who is greater than all.” Jesus tells the crowd that he has been consecrated
(36), similar to the temple whose dedication the people had gathered to
celebrate.
But the people still don’t get it. They have seen Jesus and heard
Jesus; they have watched his miracles in awe and delight and confusion, yet
still they do not believe. Jesus is not killed that cold winter day in
Solomon’s colonnade. No, that dark day is still yet to come for him. But Jesus knows
that these people are sheep in need of a shepherd, and a good shepherd lays
down his life for the sheep, even when they do not believe, even when they hate
him, even when they kill him for it.
As winter creeps sluggishly on around us, reflect on that winter long ago when Jesus walked in the colonnade. Consider that he may have been thinking of you, his beloved, for whom he was going to die. And then remember that in the spring, as the world begins to come back to life, Easter is coming.
Written By: Jess Upshaw Glass