Some years ago a Jewish Rabbi friend invited me to celebrate Sukkot with him and his family. On the outside back decl of his house his family had built a make-shift temporary structure to remind him and his family of The Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot, a great annual pilgrimage festival when the Jewish people gathered together in Jerusalem not only to remember God’s provision in the Wilderness but also to look ahead to that promised Messianic age when all nations will flow to Jerusalem to worship the Lord. Tabernacles is unique, my friend told me, in that the nations also were invited in ancient times to come up to Jerusalem at this season to worship the Lord alongside the Jewish people. This tradition first arose from the command given to Moses that Israel should sacrifice seventy bulls at Sukkot, which were offered for the seventy nations descended from Noah (see Numbers 29:12-35). When Solomon later dedicated his Temple at Sukkot, he also called on the Lord to hear the prayers of all the foreigners that would come there to pray (2 Chronicles 6:32-33). Thus, Jerusalem and the Temple itself were destined from the start to be a “house of prayer for all nations” (Isaiah 56:7).
A second unique aspect of Sukkot is that it is a feast of joy. It is a fall harvest feast to be marked with great rejoicing in the ingathering of the fruit of the land. Israel also was called to instruct the nations in the laws of God and the people were to take joy in this task. Thus, Sukkot also serves as a harbinger of the joyous last-days ingathering of the nations.
John includes a story in chapter 7 of his Gospel about Jesus going to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles:
“After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He did not wish to go about in Judea because the Jews were looking for an opportunity to kill him. 2 Now the Jewish Festival of Booths was near. 3 So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea so that your disciples also may see the works you are doing, 4 for no one who wants to be widely known acts in secret. 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 against it that its works are evil. 8 Go to the festival yourselves. I am not going up to this festival, for my time has not yet fully come.” 9 After saying this, he remained in Galilee.
10 But after his brothers had gone to the festival, then he also went, not publicly but, as it were, in secret. 11 The Jews were looking for him at the festival and saying, “Where is he?” 12 And there was considerable complaining about him among the crowds. While some were saying, “He is a good man,” others were saying, “No, he is deceiving the crowd.” 13 Yet no one would speak openly about him for fear of the Jews” John 7:1-13.
The question is whether Jesus should go to Jerusalem because there is danger awaiting Him there. His family wants Him to go to Judea to perform miracles. Jesus gives them two answers: His time, the hour of glorification when He returns to His Father, is not now, so He will not go up to Jerusalem. Jesus speaks about not “going up” at this time to Jerusalem, because he will “go up” on the Cross when it is His time. The irony is that He does “go up” to Jerusalem, although in disguise. Again, remember the great symbols of this feast, including winter rains, or water, and lights lighted by immense torches. Jesus knows His time to shine as the Light of the world is not today, but later, on the Cross and three days later at his resurrections. When He dies water and blood pours from His side when a lance pierces his ribs. The time, of which Jesus is in full control, is not now at this feast, but later.
Consider that Jesus is in full control of life and in full control of your life and the life of the world. Come to Him in prayer today, humbly!
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.
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