tabernacle

April 27, 28 A.D.  – Jesus rides in a parade, rearranges furniture, and kills a tree.— The Year of the Lord’s Favor #80

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Week 63 — Jesus rides in a parade, rearranges furniture, and kills a tree.
Matthew 21:18-19

As we follow Jesus’ ministry day by day, in 28 AD, this is the week of Passover, the week between Palm Sunday and the Resurrection.  At times over the past year, I had only had one short scripture passage to cover the events of that week in Jesus’ ministry.  But the week between the triumphal entry and the resurrection is so important to the story of Jesus that there is a lot of material: Seven chapters of Matthew, five chapters of Mark and Luke, and eight chapters of John.   Almost one-fourth of the material in the four gospels is about this final week.

There is no way to cover the material in those 20 chapters.   So I want to step back this week and get one aspect of the big picture of what is going on in the story of the Bible in that week.  The Bible is one cohesive story of how God is working to reestablish his relationship with his creation, and the key to that plan is what happens in this week and 50 days later.  Jesus does three symbolic acts at the beginning of that week.  We have already discussed two of them, so today, we will look at the third one and see how these fit into that big picture.

Matthew 21:18-19   In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry.  And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once.  

I know what you’re thinking.  “So, out of 20 chapters of Gospel Material from Jesus’ final week, this is what you pick as a focal passage?  And why is Jesus hating on a fig tree? “

At the beginning of Jesus’ passion week, he performs three significant symbolic acts, which carry a lot of meaning to his followers who are familiar with the scriptures. He rides a donkey into the city (the Palm Sunday triumphal entry that we discussed two weeks ago). He drives the money changers and animal salespeople out of the temple area (which we discussed last year), and then he curses a fig tree.

These may seem out of character for the Jesus we have seen this past year—that meek and mild Jesus who told people not to talk about his miracles, who was leaving town when he gathered crowds to try to fly under the radar, and who mostly avoided confrontation. Here, we see him in a big parade entering the capital city, jumping into the middle of a confrontation in the temple, and then performing a miracle of destruction. What has changed? Let’s look at these events.

The cleansing of the Temple happens twice in Jesus’ ministry.  Both at the same time of the year, just before Passover..  Every Jewish person at that same time every year would, in preparation for the feast of Unleavened Bread, go to great lengths to remove every bit of yeast from their homes.  This is to commemorate the exodus from Egypt when they left after Passover and ate only unleavened bread, because they didn’t have time to let the bread rise as they hurried out of Egypt.  Yeast came to represent sin and corruption.  So every home would be cleansed to remove any traces of yeast every year.  Walls would be scrubbed, and cooking utensils boiled in water.  This still happens in Orthodox Jewish homes today.  Jesus enters the Temple and sees that the House of God is full of corruption and takes it upon himself to do some spring cleaning in preparation for the festival.  This has great symbolic meaning to the people of Jesus’ day.  (You can go back to my blog entry of April 10 last year to review.)

Then there is this episode about the fig tree, which seems odd to us.  Again, these are very symbolic acts.  To understand what is really going on in these events, you have to have a good working knowledge of the first 2/3 of the Bible.  But most people don’t spend much time in the ‘First Testament.’  We call it the ‘Old Testament.’   Why study something old when you have something newer?   I really don’t like the ‘old/new’ nomenclature.  Jesus just called the Old Testament ‘the Scriptures.’  The only Bible that Jesus and the disciples ever read is the one that very few people now ever read.

But the Old Testament is the context for the New Testament. Jesus assumes you have a working knowledge of the Scriptures when he talks. Ten percent of his teachings are quotes from the Old Testament.  If you don’t understand his quotes, then you misunderstand what Jesus is saying.  These acts are a good example.  We miss what God is communicating if we are ignorant of the context and connection to the Scriptures.  So bear with me while I go way back to give you the big picture you need to understand the fig tree.

The key to these incidents is found in Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament.  

Malachi 3:1-2a “And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says Yehovah Tzavaot. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?”

Let me put this verse in its historical context for you.  The Jews were conquered by Babylon in 586 BC.  The Babylonians destroyed the city and the temple. Most of the Jews were taken to Babylon, where they lived in exile for 70 years.  When they finally returned, they rebuilt the wall around the city and the temple.  But they didn’t have the riches of Solomon to build the temple this time, and this temple they built was a sad imitation of the grand structure that had been.  The people came back from Babylon expecting to have all the promises of the prophets come true, that the Messiah would come and set up God’s kingdom over Israel and restore the nation with a time of prosperity, justice, and peace.

But the people don’t see that, so in Malachi, they complain to God, 

“Hey God, things are going very well.”  

And God could answer, 

“You’re telling me, I allowed your country to be conquered because of your sins, hoping that the time of exile would lead to repentance and that you would come back ready to truly follow me and my commandments and abandon your idols.  But you have not repented.  You are committing the same sins as your ancestors did, which got them exiled.”

The people keep complaining to God. (The book has six disputes between the people and God), And he says, 

“You are on my last nerve with all this griping and complaining and bad behavior.”  

(Or maybe that was my wife talking to one of my sons in the backseat of the car one day.)  But Malachi says it this way:

Malachi 2:17  “You have wearied Yehovah with your words.”    [He is tired of your griping.]

They are asking, “Where are you, God?”   Why are they asking this?  They have been back in the land for almost 100 years.  They had rebuilt the temple, and everyone came to the grand opening except God.   He didn’t show up.  To understand this, we have to go back even further.

Remember when Israel first encountered Yehovah in the wilderness of Sinai.  They had escaped from Egypt, and 50 days later came to Mt Sinai.  God invited them to come up on the mountain with him, but on that day, God came on the mountain with a great cloud of smoke, and with fire and the sound of a loud shofar, like a roaring wind.  And it scared the people so that they would not go up on the mountain to meet God.   So Moses goes for them, and while up on Mount Sinai, God gives him instructions to build a tabernacle, a tent of meeting.  God told Moses, 

Exodus 25:8  “Have them build me a tabernacle, a holy place so that I might dwell with them.”

God wants to dwell with his people.  He wants to walk with us like he did with Adam and Eve in the Garden.  Sin destroyed the fellowship between humans and God in the Garden, and the whole story of the Bible is God working a way to restore that fellowship so that he may dwell with his people again.

So they built the tabernacle, and when they dedicated it:

Exodus 40:34-38   Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of Yehovah filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of Yehovah filled the tabernacle.

Leviticus 9:23-24  And Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting, and when they came out, they blessed the people, and the glory of Yehovah appeared to all the people. And fire came out from before Yehovah and consumed the burnt offering and the pieces of fat on the altar, and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces.

Just like on Mount Sinai, God comes in a cloud with fire.  Since they wouldn’t come up on the mountain, God comes to dwell with them in the cloud and fire and leads them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

 And 400 years later, Solomon builds a more permanent structure. And the nation of Israel was at the pinnacle of its wealth.  So this temple was very impressive.  And when it is time to dedicate the temple:

2 Chronicles 7:1-3    As soon as Solomon finished his prayer, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of Yehovah filled the temple. And the priests could not enter the house of Yehovah, because the glory of Yehovah filled Yehovah’s house. When all the people of Israel saw the fire come down and the glory of the Yehovah on the temple, they bowed down with their faces to the ground on the pavement and worshiped and gave thanks to Yehovah, saying, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.”

First at Sinai, then at the tabernacle, and now at Solomon’s temple, God’s presence comes in mighty fashion.  Have you ever been in a church service where you wondered if God was present?  No one left these dedication services wondering if God showed up.  

But things go downhill in Israel, and God punishes the Northern and Southern Kingdoms by allowing them to be conquered by a foreign nation.  Four hundred years after Solomon’s Temple was built, the Jews were conquered by Babylon in 586 BC.  The Babylonians destroyed the city and this wonderful Temple. Most of the Jews were taken to Babylon, where they lived in exile for 70 years.  And that horrible day of destruction is still mourned by Israel today on their calendar on the ninth day of their month of Av.

But the worst part of this tragedy is seen in a vision by the prophet Ezekiel.  Now, most people reading the Bible miss this because Ezekiel is not exactly an easy book to read.  In his vision in Ezekiel 10, he sees God on His throne leave the temple in Jerusalem.  This is that odd vision of the throne chariot with the cherubim and the ‘wheels within wheels.’  God abandoned his temple and allowed the temple to be destroyed.  

Ezekiel 11:23. And the glory of Yehovah went up from the midst of the city and stood on the mountain that is on the east side of the city.   

(What mountain is on the east?  The Mount of Olives.)

But in Ezekiel, there is hope.  God abandoned the temple, but he didn’t abandon his people, and Ezekiel talked about God preserving a remnant and that God will one day take away the heart of stone and give them a new heart.   And in Ezekiel, we have the vision of the restoration, the valley of dry bones brought back to life.  And finally, in Ezekiel, there is a vision of God’s presence returning to the temple. Ezekiel sees God coming back from the East

Ezekiel 43:1-2   Then he led me to the gate, the gate facing east.  And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east. 

And 70 years later, Ezekiel’s prophecies started coming true.  A remnant of the people returned from Babylon to Jerusalem and rebuilt the city and the temple, though as I said, it was nowhere near as grand a structure.  And as before, they held a dedication service:

Ezra 6:16-18   And the people of Israel, the priests and the Levites, and the rest of the returned exiles, celebrated the dedication of this house of God with joy.  They offered at the dedication of this house of God 100 bulls, 200 rams, 400 lambs, and as a sin offering for all Israel 12 male goats, according to the number of the tribes of Israel. And they set the priests in their divisions and the Levites in their divisions, for the service of God at Jerusalem, as it is written in the Book of Moses.

It was a grand service, and huge numbers of people crowded in to see the spectacle. But something was missing.  God was missing.  There is no great storm of wind, thunder, clouds, and fire that shows God’s presence in the temple.  They set up the altar, but this time, fire didn’t come from heaven to consume the sacrifice.  They have to light the fire themselves, because God doesn’t show up.

That is why the people of Malachi’s day asked, “Where is God? We rebuilt the temple, but he didn’t show up.”

They knew Zechariah had prophesied of the time when God would return.

Zechariah 8:3  Thus says Yehovah: I have returned to Zion and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem shall be called the faithful city, and the mountain of the Yehovah Tzavaot, the holy mountain.

So we see in Malachi that they complain that God has not returned as he promised. They had conveniently forgotten the first part of Zechariah, which made it clear to them that this was a conditional promise.  

Zechariah 1:3  Therefore, say to them, Thus declares Yehovah Tzavaot: Return to me, and I will return to you, says Yehovah Tzavaot.

But God explains, “You returned to the land, you returned to the city, but you didn’t return to me.  You haven’t repented.   You are still committing the same sins your fathers did that got them exiled.  So I have not returned to you. 

But when the people complain, Malachi answers, “Oh, God is going to come back to his Temple…”

Malachi 3:1 “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Yehovah Tzavaot.”

Malachi says that a messenger of the covenant will come, and then God is coming back to his temple, but he may not come exactly like you want him to come.  The next verse, Malachi 3:2a

“But who can endure the day of his coming and who can stand when he appears?”   

Uh-oh… he is coming in judgment.  Malachi is the last prophet in the Old Testament. There would be 400 years of waiting until another prophet comes, until the time Malachi predicted.  And the Gospels tell us the messenger did come, John the Baptist, preaching repentance, and after that, God returns to the temple 

So in his final week, Jesus is again staying at the home of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary in Bethany.  He has his disciples get a donkey from the nearby town of Bethphage.  And Jesus rides into Jerusalem on the colt of a donkey, with people shouting praise and proclaiming him as king, and he enters the temple. This is the first of those three symbolic acts Jesus did this past week. People of his time easily recognized the symbol of the king being coronated and triumphantly entering the city just as David and Solomon did.  But more than that, God, in the form of Jesus, is coming back to the temple as Zechariah and Malachi prophesied.  And he is coming just as Ezekiel predicted, from the east, from the Mount of Olives.

Ezekiel said, “Behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east.”  The Triumphal Procession on Palm Sunday – God returning to his temple.

And how does Jesus enter the temple?  As Malachi said, He comes not in peace but in judgment.  God’s presence will eventually come, never to depart again.  And it will come with a great sound of rushing and with fire.  But first, God has to deal with the problem of sin.  There has to be a cleansing of the temple first.  Jesus enters the Temple and sees that the House of God is full of corruption, and begins the process of cleaning it out.

Matthew 21:12-13   And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.   He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”

He drives out the money changers who are charging exorbitant fees for the special coin that could be used to pay the temple tax. Then he turns over the seats of those selling animals and taking advantage of people who have to purchase animals to sacrifice.  And which animals does Matthew specifically note? The pigeons. They were the sacrifices of the poor who could not afford a sheep or goat.  Religion for profit, stealing money from the poor.

He is coming to judge.  As Malachi asked, “Who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?”  But Jesus is just getting started with the cleansing.  Every time he comes back into the temple, the next week he is coming with his gloves off, he speaks in judgment, especially of the Scribes and Pharisees.  Matthew chapter 23 has 7 statements of woe on these leaders because they are ‘hypocrites,’ ‘false teachers,’ ‘blind guides,’ ‘all show and no substance,’ ‘dead on the inside,’ ‘sons of snakes,’ ‘people who will not enter the kingdom of God.’

This is the same Judgment God had passed on Israel in the past.  Look at the similarities from the prophet Jeremiah:

Jeremiah 7:2-11   Hear the word of Yehovah, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship Yehovah.  This is what the Yehovah Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place.  Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!”   If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever.

But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.  Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe”—safe to do all these detestable things?   Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you?  But I have been watching! declares Yehovah.”

And the third symbolic act we find in Matthew 21:

Matthew 21:18-19   In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry.  And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once.  

He sees this fig tree full of leaves.  And these fig trees produce an early fruit that comes when the leaves appear.  It is not as big as the later harvest of figs in the summer.  This fruit is not as good or mature, but these early figs bring the promise of more mature fruit later.   Early figs in Hebrew are ‘phage.’  And this happened in a town called Bethphage, which is in Hebrew, the house of early figs.

If you know the scriptures (the Old Testament), you know the prophets frequently used this symbol of early figs. I could give a bunch of examples, but we only have time for one.

Micah 3:9-12   Hear this, you leaders of Jacob, you rulers of Israel, who despise justice and distort all that is right; who build Zion with bloodshed, and Jerusalem with wickedness.  Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets tell fortunes for money.

Yet they look for Yehovah’s support and say, “Is not Yehovah among us? No disaster will come upon us.”  Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets.

Micah 7:1-4  What misery is mine!  There is no cluster of grapes to eat, none of the early figs that I crave.  The faithful have been swept from the land;  not one upright person remains.…

Now is the time of your judgment.

You are wicked and producing no fruit.  You will be judged.

So, as Malachi predicted, God would come back to his Temple, but in judgment. This condemnation of this fruit tree that was all leaves and no fruit is a symbol of Jerusalem. Its leadership is all leaves and no fruit, all show and no substance.  

You have to bear fruit.  This is the message of the messenger that Malachi predicted would come before God came back to the temple.  That messenger was John the Baptist, and he had a 2-part message.

First, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  — Clean your house, God is coming back.  So all these people were coming to repent, and John said, “Hey, that’s great that you want to repent, but you can’t just say ‘I repent ‘ and then get baptized.  Your life has to change.  

Repentance is not something you say; it is something you do.

So the second part of the message is “You have to bring fruits worthy of repentance.”  You have to perform acts that are consistent with the life you have decided to live.  Don’t tell God you are going to change — show God how you have changed.  Then he warns them that a time of judgment is coming— either bear fruit or perish. And Jesus shows that symbolically with the fig tree.

Remember the reason God didn’t come back to the Temple they built in Malachi’s day?  They didn’t repent.  There is a reason Malachi saw the messenger coming before God came back to his Temple.  There is a reason John comes before Jesus.  The Messenger has to preach repentance before God returns. 

 And John told them it is judgment time, either bear fruit or perish.  Because the Kingdom of God is near.  God it about to return to his temple.  And we are in week 63 of this 70-week study.  You don’t want to miss week 70.  Because that is when God returns in power to his temple, as he did before with fire and the sound of a rushing windstorm.  But first, the temple must be cleansed.   First, there must be repentance.

Repentance is the necessary step everyone must take before establishing a relationship with God, and it is a step we must all continue to take as we walk with Jesus.  The old man dies hard.  We want to make our own rules.  We want to go the way that seems right to us, even though we are warned it leads to destruction.

Don’t miss the story of the fig tree.   But I can’t finish this morning without looking at Jesus’ other story of the fig tree Jesus tells in Luke:

Luke 13:6-9   And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none.  And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’  And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure.  Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”

Why does this tree get a second chance when the other fig tree is condemned immediately? This Fig tree has been barren for years.  It is just taking up space in the vineyard.  How do we reconcile these two stories?   What is the difference?

This tree has an advocate—a vinedresser who intervenes and asks for mercy on its behalf. Someone who will show this tree more care and love in an effort to encourage it to produce fruit.  Thanks be to God that we have an advocate.

Romans 8:34. Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

1 John 2:1  We have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.

We have a loving, merciful Father who remembers his children not for the day of their trouble, but the day of their salvation.  He remembers us not for our worst day but for our best day.

And Jesus and the Spirit within us are interceding for us.   And we can intercede for each other.  We can go before the Father asking God to be merciful just as this vinedresser interceded for this tree.  We can then, as the vinedresser did for the tree, show these people love and encourage them to produce more fruit.

Time is short.  Spend time in prayer before the Father on behalf of your friends and family.  And each day, seize the opportunity to produce fruit.

October 13, 27 A.D.  –  Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles —   The Year of the Lord’s Favor #56

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , , , , , ,

Week 35 ———  Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles
Luke 9:51-62    John 7:1-52

This is week 35 in our 70-week walk through the ministry of Jesus.  The Day of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement have passed.  On this day in 27 AD, October 13, on the final day of the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus stands up in the temple area and says, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.”  You know this scripture.  But do you know the context for that verse?  I want you to understand it like the people in Jesus’ day understood it. 

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

We are now at the halfway point of Jesus’ 70-week ministry, and things continue to heat up.  He has had several confrontations with the Pharisees and Sadducees, and they are seeking to kill him.  So going to Jerusalem or the surrounding province of Judea, where they have firm control, seems like a bad idea.  But it is time for the Feast of Booths (the Feast of Tabernacles), or in Hebrew, Sukkot. This is one of the three appointed times for which attendance in Jerusalem is mandatory. God commanded it way back in Leviticus. 

Jesus’ brothers come to him and ask him to join them in departing for the feast.  People making the 3-4 day trip down to Jerusalem usually traveled together in families for the feast.  There was safety in numbers.  You know the story of the robbers on the road and the good Samaritan.  Jesus’ brothers were watching his ministry. They saw that many had left Jesus after the feeding of the 5000, and they knew that performing miracles in front of thousands of people at the feast might bring his followers back.  John adds,   For not even his brothers believed in him.  Notice how the Bible uses the phrase: “Believed in him.”  These were Jesus’ brothers. They knew Jesus did miracles and wanted others to know, too.  They may have felt he was the Messiah.  But he was not their Messiah.  They had a relationship with Jesus as brothers, but he was not their deliverer, their Lord.  Only one relationship with Jesus matters.  Jesus can be your friend; he can be your brother.  But if he is not your Lord, then he is not your savior.

Spoiler alert:  his brothers will believe in him later.
After his resurrection, we know Jesus’ brother, James, became a leader in the church and wrote the Book of James.  He comes to have this relation with Jesus and in James 1:2 calls him “our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.”  Another of Jesus’s brothers wrote the book of Jude, and he begins his epistle, “Jude, a servant of Jesus the Messiah…”  That is the only relationship that matters.  Jude is the servant of his Lord, Jesus.

Jesus tells his brothers:  You go ahead without me; I’m staying here.  “My time has not yet come.”  You see this phrase or “my hour has not yet come” often in the book of John.  It is essential to understand the Biblical concept of ‘The Fullness of Time. ‘    Paul speaks of it in Ephesians:

Ephesians 1:7-10  In Him we have redemption through his blood … making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

God’s plan for the world is on a timetable.  What Jesus did on the cross and what will happen in the Last Days are all according to the fullness of time.

The most commonly used Greek words in the NT for ‘time’ are chronos and kairos. Chronos is what we usually think about when we think about time. It is clock and calendar time. This is the time of your watch and your day planner.  Kairos is the particular time when God has arranged circumstances to be ripe for action. It is the time of the decision that anointed time when God brings you to a fork in the road. It is ‘the opportune time’.  Some versions of the Bible even translate ‘kairos’ to ‘opportunity.’ 

Do you know where the word ‘opportune’ comes from?  Years ago, people living in seaside towns based their lives on the tides. The rise and fall of the tides determined when ships would depart and arrive and thus ruled all commerce and transportation. Ships would come to the entrance of the harbor to enter the port but had to wait until the tide would rise enough to make the harbor deep enough to enter into the harbor.  That moment was called ‘ob portu’.  ‘Ob’ in Latin means ‘toward,’ and ‘portu‘ means ‘port’ or ‘harbor.’  So they had to wait until the ob portu time. Thus, our phrase ‘opportune time.’

Kairos is where chronos meets God’s opportune moment.  Let me use it in a sentence:

Galatians 6:10   So then, as we have opportunity [kairos,] let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

As we have opportunity…  We should be like the ship waiting at the harbor’s edge, ready to enter when the opportune moment arrives.  This is how we should go through this world, sitting on ready, waiting to do good to someone as soon as the opportunity arises.

Jesus was very aware of kairos.  He knew God’s plan had its own timetable.  In John 2, when his mother asks him to solve the lack of wine at the wedding, Jesus tells her, “My hour has not come”  (John 2:4).  Twice, people came to arrest him, including on this occasion at the feast of Tabernacles in John 7, but they could not  “Because his hour had not come.”  Jesus is on a schedule.  It is not his mother’s schedule, nor his brother’s.  It is the Father’s timetable.  God set up appointed times in the beginning.  He will keep his schedule.  

God will arrange events so that they only happen at the opportune moment.  When the week before Passover arrives, Jesus says, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”  (John 12:23)   On the night he will be betrayed and arrested, Jesus prays in the garden, “The hour has come; glorify your Son that your Son may glorify you.”  (John 17:1).  God is making very sure that Jesus will die on the cross at the exact time as the Passover lambs are being slain.  God wants us to understand what is happening, so He is painting a picture in history that we can’t miss.  (Assuming we study the scripture as He asked us to.)

God has a timetable for history.  He will make sure things happen on his schedule.   We have discussed the appointed times God set up on the calendar when Israel left Egypt and headed toward the promised land.  God appointed seven times on the calendar: four spring feasts and three appointed times in the fall.

The spring appointed times are Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, and Pentecost. We have seen how God fulfills these appointed times on the same exact day that he set up over a thousand years before.  Jesus dies on Passover and is resurrected on the day of Firstfruits.  The Holy Spirit comes on Pentecost.  All of these things happened at the same time the Jews had been celebrating for over a thousand years. It is not a coincidence.   God is making history happen on His timetable.  I think the future fulfillment of the fall feasts will also occur on the day God has determined.

In the past few weeks, we discussed the Day of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement.  The Day of Trumpets announces the first day of the festival month. It lets people know that the Day of Atonement is coming, so there are ten days of confession and repentance in preparation for the Day of Atonement when the high priest will enter the holy of holies and make atonement for sin.  We talked of how these appointed times will be fulfilled in the future.  One day, the final trumpet will sound.  There will be a final day of judgment, and Jesus, our High Priest, will be the atonement for our sins before the Father.  We don’t know the day or the hour1, but I bet the final trumpet sounds on the Day of Trumpets.  That brings us to the final appointed time of the year, The Feast of Tabernacles.

Jesus’ brothers ask him to travel to this feast with them, but Jesus tells them to go ahead without him. Remember, God’s law commands all Jewish males to travel to Jerusalem for this feast.  Is Jesus going to break one of God’s laws by failing to go to the feast?  Obviously, the answer is no.  Jesus will be without sin; he will not break one of God’s commandments.  So Jesus sent his family ahead, and he did not travel with the large group of pilgrims headed to Jerusalem.

John 7:10  But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly but in private.

If Jesus goes with the crowd from Galilee, he will be immediately recognized by everyone, and it will be quite the parade when he arrives in Jerusalem.  He will make this journey precisely this way next Spring on the pilgrimage to Passover.  But this is not the time yet.  Jesus can wait a day to leave but still arrive at the same time as his brothers because he takes the straight route through Samaria instead of the longer route east of the Jordan River that avoids Samaritan territory. 

The Feast of Tabernacles was commanded in Leviticus 23 and received by Moses on Mt Sinai.

Leviticus 23:39-40   “On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall celebrate the feast of Yehovah seven days. On the first day shall be a solemn rest, and on the eighth day shall be a solemn rest.  And you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees, and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before Yehovah your God seven days.

So, it is a whole week of celebration beginning on the 15th of the month. The first day is a day of rest.  Then, there is an eighth day, which is called “The Last Great Day,” which is also a day of rest. It is a time of rejoicing.  What is rejoicing with fruit and tree branches?  Now I understand rejoicing with fruit; that’s part of a feast.  But rejoicing with tree branches?  Let’s read a little further in Leviticus:

Leviticus 23:41-43    You shall celebrate it as a feast to Yehovah for seven days in the year. … You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All native Israelites shall dwell in booths so that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am Yehovah your God.”

It is a harvest festival where they dwell in ‘booths.’  Here is a picture of a ‘booth’ or ‘tabernacle’ that I saw in a farmer’s field in Egypt.  It is a temporary structure built for the harvest time.  As the farmers would spend days (and perhaps nights) in their fields to harvest, these temporary structures were constructed to provide a break from the sun or minimal shelter at night.  After escaping Egypt, the Israelites dwelled in similar temporary shelters during their time in the wilderness.  And to remember that time, the Jews today still stay in temporary shelters during this week.

The ‘booth’ (Hebrew ‘sukkah’) is supposed to be a temporary shelter.   It is not that sturdy and offers little protection from the elements.   The sky should be visible through the roof.  This is to remind them that they should not depend on their own resources for protection but depend on God for their defense.  There is a message there for us:  We tend to feel protected in our homes, with cameras and security systems, and perhaps weapons to defend ourselves.  We need to remind ourselves that God is our refuge and our strength.  The Psalmist said:

Psalm 20:7  ”Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.”

For our protection, we don’t trust in our weapons or walls but in God, who knows us, sees us, and watches over us.

But this Sukkot, many people were looking for Jesus, and everyone had an opinion of him.

John 7:10-13   The leaders of the Jews were looking for him at the feast and saying, “Where is he?”   And there was much muttering about him among the people. While some said, “He is a good man,” others said, “No, he is leading the people astray.”   Yet for fear of the Jewish leaders, no one spoke openly of him.

But everyone was scared to speak of him.  Everyone knew the religious leaders were looking to kill him.

And Jesus shows up at the feast in Jerusalem and teaches in the temple area.  And the temple guards were told to arrest him. But they did not.

John 7:25-27   Some of the people of Jerusalem, therefore, said, “Is not this the man whom they seek to kill?   And here he is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ?   But we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.”

Jesus showed up at the feast in Jerusalem and taught in the temple area. The temple guards were told to arrest him, but they did not.

John 7:25-26   Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, “Is not this the man whom they seek to kill?   And here he is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ?”

The last day of the feast of Tabernacles (the eighth day) was called ‘The Last Great Day,’ in Hebrew, ‘Hosannah Rabhah.’  Rabhah means ‘great,’ and Hosannah means ‘save us’ or ‘deliver us.’    So this is the day to ask God for deliverance.  Deliverance from hunger now and the future deliverance of the Messiah.  First, since this was a harvest festival after all the crops were in, there was a time of thanksgiving and then prayer for rain.  Following harvest, the ground needed to be plowed and broken up.   But with no heavy equipment, it was essential to have the fall rains to soften the ground so it could be tilled.  There was a ceremony where a priest would go to the Siloam pool to draw water and come and pour some around the altar as an offering.  As he did this, the people waved palm branches (praising God with the branches of trees) and shouted out these two verses:

Isaiah 12:3   With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. 
Isaiah 44:3   For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.

These were prayers for deliverance today and for the deliverance of the Messiah to come.  So picture it.  Thousands of people are gathered in the temple.  The priest comes to offer water on the altar as a thanksgiving offering for the harvest and for the coming rain that will soften the ground and the future hope of the spirit that will be poured out on the people. It is a grand celebration.  Everyone is singing the Hallel Psalms and waving palm branches.  This is the setting for John 7:37.

John 7:37-39  On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”   Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

Jesus is saying, “I am the Great Hosannah.  I am your salvation. I am the source of living water. And I will give the holy spirit to those who believe in me.  That Messiah you are praying for right now — I am here.”  Now you know why Jesus said what he said. Jesus is the source of living water. Just as he offered it to the Samaritan women at Jacob’s well, he offers it today.  

We talked about the future fulfillment of the seven appointed times. Again, the four spring feasts were all fulfilled by Jesus about 2000 years ago with his death, resurrection, and the gift of the Holy Spirit.  The fall appointed times have yet to be fulfilled.  

One day, the final trumpet will sound, fulfilling the Day of Trumpets and announcing the Last days.  There will be a final day of judgment, and Jesus, our High Priest, will be the atonement for our sins before the Father, fulfilling the Day of Atonement.  And the Feast of Tabernacles, a harvest festival, will be fulfilled when God gathers all his family in for a time of rest, praise, and thanksgiving in His tabernacle – a harvest of souls.  One day we will enter into our final rest.  It will be a grand celebration for those who believe in Him.

1.  The Day of Trumpets is the one appointed time that no one can know the day or the hour until it happens.  According to scripture, it begins when the new moon is sighted from Jerusalem for the seventh month of the year.  If the moon is obscured, then it will be the day following.  When the moon is sighted and verified, then the trumpets are blown, and the fires are lit to spread the word (see TAY #52  https://swallownocamels.com/2024/09/24/september-21-27-a-d-yom-teruah-the-year-of-the-lords-favor-52/ )