While getting information gathered for preparations to write about the Pentecost readings, I discovered (via the Reverse Lectionary tool of the Episcopal Lectionary) that the ONLY reading in the three-year lectionary cycle (years A, B, and C) that comes from John’s seventh chapter is on Pentecost Sunday. On top of that, it is only three verses out of fifty-three (John 7:37-39); and, on top of that it is an optional reading, fighting it out with John 20:19-23 for being the chosen one. [“Pick me! Pick me!”] As I read John’s seventh chapter, I was astounded by the story of Jesus appearing in Jerusalem for the Sukkot festival – the Festival of Booths [or Tabernacles, Tents] – and the attitude Jesus had. I remembered the early parts, where Jesus’ brothers told him it was time to go to Jerusalem [from Capernaum in Galilee], and Jesus telling them to go ahead without him. I remember that he went, but all the details had faded from memory. While it is not clearly stated why Jesus chose not to go to the festival, but then did, the fact that John wrote, “He did not want to go about in Judea because the Jewish leaders there were looking for a way to kill him” speaks the truth. Because Jesus did go to the festival, his concern was not for his safety, because Jesus told his brothers “My time is not yet here.” The concern was for his disciples, who could have suffered in the “Jews” attempt to arrest Jesus. Without it being directly written, simply by Jesus truthfully stating, “My time is not yet here,” he had the inside skinny of the Godhead, sent to his possession of the Christ Mind. Knowing when his time would be, the alert was a “Danger Will Robinson!” [The robot’s warning from Lost in Space] about the safety of one or more of his followers.
Because John wrote, “For even his own brothers did not believe in him,” Jesus could truthfully say (about them), “for you any time will do,” meaning both their future deaths and their natural safety at a Jewish festival was not his immediate concern. Like in some cheap Hollywood suspense production, when it is hard to get the drop on the hero, the villain always goes after the innocent sidekicks and threatens to kill them, unless the hero turns himself over to the villain. By Jesus being shown that danger involving his disciples, he came up with a truthful reason why he was not going to the festival that year: “My time has not yet fully come.” That said he needed to avoid conditions that would jeopardize any innocent lambs. This can be seen after John wrote, “Not until halfway through the festival did Jesus go up to the temple courts and begin to teach.” The festival is a seven-day happening, always beginning on 15th day of Tishrei and ending on the 21st [this year in mid-October]. This says that Jesus appeared in Jerusalem on 18 Tishrei. By that time, his brothers would have already informed the disciples that Jesus was not going, so they would have gone and scattered out with their families once there, maybe looking for Jesus to change his mind and arrive for a day or two, but then giving up and just considering the time as like a trip to the ‘state fair’. For all the talk of not wanting to go because the Jewish leaders wanted to kill him, the way Jesus acted after beginning to preach at the temple courts says there was absolutely zero fear within him. That lack of fear says his reasoning (and I use that term loosely, as being a wife of God means no need to try and ‘figure things out’) was for the safety of others. By Jesus ‘going stag’ he could let it all hang out; and he did. Jesus arrived in Jerusalem and immediately had an attitude that purposefully got in the face of those who sought to see him dead.
It is an attitude that I have been feeling lately as well. When my wife (who was a beloved Episcopal priest – a true Saint) died last year, I was cast aside by all of her priestly friends, including those from her flocks, of which I was also a member. I always stood out in the flock as ‘the black sheep’ that everyone put up with, because of my wife. In the length of time that my wife entered seminary and became ordained (only nine years), we often discussed privately the sad state of the Episcopal Church and Christianity in general. My wife, mostly, agreed with my views; but, being a Saint, she continued to pat the sinners on their fuzzy little heads and I kept silent.
Once my wife passed, all the sinners have treated me like the leaders of Jerusalem treated Jesus, making me feel a swell of anger inside that makes me become more bold (now alone) and ask, “Why are you trying to kill me?” (from John 7:19c)
Without my wife to care for, I have been writing much more than when I was caring for her needs. Lately, I have found myself (again being led to awareness by a higher voice) getting in the face of the Episcopal Church, pointing out all of their quite apparent weaknesses. John 7 has renewed that anger, as it clearly makes the Jews of Jerusalem mirror Christians in America in 2020. Whereas social distancing became en vogue with a relative recent sudden fear of death worldwide, it did not change my lifestyle, other than taking my only means of social contact away from me – going to an Episcopal church on Sunday. Since the Church has become a whimpering, sniveling poor excuse of Christianity, I have become more aggressive in my criticism; and, now that I do not have to be silent to help my saintly wife minister to the heathen, among the pagans who call themselves priests, I am like Jesus at the festival, unencumbered by assistants he was responsible for. In my mind (again, being divinely led to use my brain), I read John’s seventh chapter and I see Jesus speaking to every denomination of Christian churches that are scattered across the globe. I welcome you to read John 7 with the same sense of vision. Holy Scripture is “Holy” because it is more than a history lesson. It speaks the truth for all times. If this happened in the life of Jesus, John wrote about it because God said, “Write this memory down because it will always strike a nerve.” The verses that particularly struck my nerve are those that say, “The Jews there were amazed and asked, “How did this man get such learning without having been taught?”
There are countless numbers of priestly Facebook friends of my wife’s, a few of whom have accepted my invitation to be my Facebook ‘friends’. There are countless friends and past congregation members that are still shown on my wife’s Facebook friends list. Some of those have been on my ‘friends’ list. When my wife was alive, every time I published an article about what I found in Scripture, she would “like” it and immediately there would be five to ten views of that article, posted on my blog. After my wife’s death, and even by posting a link to an article about Scripture on my wife’s Facebook timeline, very few (mostly none) will read anything I write.
I do not write and post lengthy articles that have an educational bend to them because I need pats on the back and the praise of adulation. I am called to write so every soul that floats away from its body in my lifetime of writing these articles will have to face a God that asks, “Why?” For all the excuses that will begin to flow, God can always say, “But you never read and acted on those blogs I had my servants maintain.”
Jesus came to provide the truth, but like the saying goes, “You can lead an ass to water, but you can’t make it drink.” I have found the same rejection of truth that Jesus found in Jerusalem. When my wife went to seminary, I was there with her. I was not a student. I was a spouse. The majority of those three years I was writing about the truth of Nostradamus, which is not a subject taught in schools. The “End Times” theme that is impossible to miss in The Prophecies was clearly one rejected by the children’s church seminarians that never want to face the reality that the world is a terrible place, and the threats of death are why having a serious attitude about religion is so important. Simply by being asked, “What do you do?” and truthfully answering, “I write about Nostradamus.” The next question: “What did Nostradamus say?” always led to the general truth of the world being headed towards annihilation unless it changes, which brought about big frowny faces and my being avoided like the plague in all future class gatherings (for the most part).
Think about how that is the truth, which was not only true then but is true today. Mosaic Law is a cornerstone in the laws of all Western nations; but after the first Ten Commandments, where God told Moses to mandate killing just about anyone who does not follow the Law, those laws are ignored. The first law is: “To love God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind,” but who does that today?”
Jesus was the human example of how one can follow all the laws, but nobody wanted to hear him say, “You are all going the wrong way!”
The aspect of Jesus asking a stranger, “Why are you trying to kill me?” must be seen in the light of not allowing oneself to become Jesus reborn. That concept sounds so foreign to EVERYTHING a Christian has been taught. When Jesus was still alive and walking on the face of the earth, no one wanted to be like Jesus. After Jesus was crucified and disappeared to “be seated at the right hand of God,” Christians have fought long and hard to keep Jesus dead and not around to say, “You are going the wrong way!” John wrote that someone in the crowd said, “You are demon-possessed.” The crowd then asked, “Who is trying to kill you?”
Think about that response to a statement of truth made by Jesus. It is denial. It is blaming the victim. It is a refusal to accept the truth, simply because the truth does not fit snugly into the paradigms one has been trained to accept as truth. In the Greek of that translation, the statement and question is actually this: “Daimonion echeis ; tis se zētei apokteinai ?” That correctly states, “Divine spirit you have ; who you desired to put to death ?” This not only refutes what the NIV translation says, but looks beyond that simpleton accusation and question, to the hidden meaning those words written by John convey. The Greek word “Daimonion” does translate as “an evil spirit, a demon” and in usage it implies “a heathen deity.” (Strong’s) What is missed in that translation is the capitalization, which shows the importance of God speaking through “the crowd,” where Jesus was indeed speaking as a man ‘possessed’. He was possessed by the Spirit of God; and as such, Brown-Driver-Briggs says (of “daimonion”): “as its number one (primary) definition: “the divine Power, deity, divinity.” Thus, the Jews in Jerusalem for a God-commanded festival said to Jesus (without realizing they were speaking the truth), “You have God within you.” This new way of realizing what God led the people to say, then should be seen as God then leading them to question that Holy presence within Jesus, asking “Why would you desire to be killed?” [The Greek word “tis” can be “who? which? what? why?” so “Why” is a viable replacement.] The questions “Who is trying to kill you?” and “Why would you desire to be killed?” are both pointing to Jesus knowing he would be unjustly killed, but it also states the necessity of that death. Thus, Jesus said, “My time is not yet here.” That also says, “My time is coming, but it I not that time yet.” Therefore, God led the subconscious mind of “the crowd” to ask its collective self (thus also us today and always), “If Jesus was possessed by the Divine Spirit of God, why would anyone want to kill the chance of the same Spirit of God possessing them?”
The righteous choose to let God cast judgment. This makes the noun “krisin” be turned around and become a statement how the Law is the “judge,” by which the “righteous” are measured. It is a form of the noun “krisis,” which means, “a decision, judgment,” implying “divine judgment.” This says the Law, as divinely dictated to Moses by God, becomes the measure of who is righteous and who is a sinner (law-breaker). That means the only “judge” of any merit is God, such that by Jesus saying, “Stop judging by mere appearances,” the “exception” (“on the other hand”) is anyone who judges, other than God, has overstepped his or her boundaries. The verb “krinete” then tells what one should do (rather than “judge correctly”), which is: “properly, to separate (distinguish), i.e. judge; come to a choice (decision, judgment) by making a judgment – either positive (a verdict in favor of) or negative (which rejects or condemns).” This is a choice that only can be relative to Self, and not anyone else, as “the righteous choose God’s judgment,” as it is the only judgment that counts or matters.
This needs to be fully grasped as God talking through the Son, so it applied then just the same as it applies today. The capitalization of “Eti” makes the word have the importance of time, more than simply translating as “yet.” It places a strong emphasis on continuing, where “Remain” becomes a statement of everyone’s time left alive in their present body of flesh.
Jesus had been having an argument (or debate) about the need to become righteous, Divinely-possessed and enabled to understand the Law, thus choose judgment from God. The point now is, “When are you going to do that?” “When are you going to be me? … when YOU will only Remain capable of self-sacrifice, to be reborn as Jesus Christ, so the “I am” is the Divine within, for a short time [five, ten, fifteen, twenty … etc. years?]. “kai [importantly] hypagō pros ton pempsanta me .” That separate statement says importantly, “I die advantageous for this one having sent me .”
The death of Jesus releases his soul, according to the purpose for God’s promise of a Messiah being fulfilled. The soul of Jesus is the Christ (the Messiah), which will join with other souls, making those others Divinely-possessed [Apostles or Saints]. “zētēsete me kai [importantly] ouch heurēsete [me] ;” says, “you will seek me importantly not will find [me] .”
Not shown in the NIV translation is the second “me” having brackets surrounding it. According to Scribendi (a writing service): “Brackets (parentheses) are punctuation marks used within a sentence to include information that is not essential to the main point. Information within parentheses is usually supplementary; were it removed, the meaning of the sentence would remain unchanged.” While this means this segment of words implies the second use of “me” is superfluous, “me” is not essential, read it as if saying “you will seek me and not will find,” but with a caveat. What this intends (the truth) is “anyone who seeks Jesus will not be able to find the ‘me’ of self-ego IF one is to be Jesus Christ reborn.” Conversely, “if one seeks to find Jesus but cannot find him,” then that one will not let go of self, unwilling to be Divinely-possessed. The use of “kai” in the middle of these two halves says “not will find “me” (Self)” is important. “kai [importantly] hopou eimi egō ,” says importantly “in what place I exist mine ,” which is clearly (to me) a statement that wherever one is filled with the soul of Jesus (Divinely-possessed by God’s Son) that becomes the place where Jesus has been reborn into the flesh, with that flesh his and where he says “I am.” This means the “ego” of the one possessed can then be considered “in the name of Jesus Christ.”
After understanding the prior segment properly, it then becomes almost redundant to say, “you [the self-ego me] are not able to come” to the place “where Jesus reigns as king.” However, this completely befuddled the Jews, who got bent out of shape talking about how crazy Jesus was to think he could go someplace where they could not find him.
Again, they did not understand because they did not have Divine-possession showing them the meaning. However, it plainly says “You,” as your ego, “do not have the power” or “are not able” “to come” forward, as you once did all the time. Once you submit Self to do the Will of God, as His Son reborn (regardless of human gender), your ego takes a seat and enjoys the time you have Remaining on earth, with Jesus Christ at your controls. By understanding this, I return one’s focus back to the capitalization of “Eti,” where the time that “Remains” is the key element at all times, past, present and future. We are all mortal creatures. We will die sometime. Those who put off this submission of Self, through marriage to God, and being reborn as Jesus Christ, there is only so much time remaining to make that decision. I do not believe waiting until one is on one’s deathbed will satisfy God’s needs.
When will it be time for Jesus to die and be reborn in you?
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