Sermon 
Christ And The Feast Of Tabernacles 
March 10, 2002 
Pastor Donald Sheley  

We've been studying now for a number of months from the Gospel of John, and we're at chapter 7 today. If you're going to be using your pew Bible it's on page 719 or 720. We're going to read the first nine verses. John chapter 7 verses 1 through 9. 

"After these things Jesus walked in Galilee; for He did not want to walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill Him. Now the Jews' Feast of Tabernacles was at hand. His brothers therefore said to Him, "Depart from here and go into Judea, that Your disciples also may see the works that You are doing. "For no one does anything in secret while he himself seeks to be known openly. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world." For even His brothers did not believe in Him. Then Jesus said to them, 'My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready. "The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil. "You go up to this feast. I am not yet going up to this feast, for My time has not yet fully come." When He had said these things to them, He remained in Galilee."

Now if we would take the small country of Palestine and divide it, the northern part is known as Galilee, the southern part is Judea. The Galilean side was known as those that were illiterate, the down-and-outers. It did not have a high prestige factor.

And so Jesus has been up in Galilee. The reason being, is because He has a contract out on His life by the religious leaders. They want to kill Him. Our Lord had just given the Bread of Life discourse. And as a result, we noticed last Sunday that many of His disciples withdrew and did not walk with Him anymore. The crowd was not interested in a Savior who was primarily spiritual. The drama of that rejection now continues in this chapter which we are about to study.

The annual Feast of Tabernacles was at hand, and His brethren were anxious for Christ to go to Jerusalem, and there give a public display of His miraculous powers. And so John begins his comments with these words: After these things Jesus walked in Galilee.

Now if we were to read other Gospels, the Matthew, Mark, and Luke portions, they would fill in that gap. Most Bible scholars believe that most likely there is at least six months in that one sentence; other Bible scholars say there could be at least a year in a half. And John just simply says, after these things Jesus walked in Galilee. Now when you go to the Gospels you'll find that He left Capernaum, He went up to what would be near Beirut, up to Tyre and Sidon, ministered up there, then He came back to Delmutha, and then He went clear up almost to Damascus to what was known as Caesarea Philippi. He ministered there for a few weeks, then He drops down on the east side of the Sea of Galilee, and then finally He gets back to Capernaum.

Now we can find all of those events in the other Gospels, and they will fill us in as to the kind ministry that Jesus had while He walked in Galilee. John chooses not to fill in that history for us. And at the bottom of our notes I make mention: John is not trying to give a full account of Jesus' ministry. He selects the incidents that will further his purpose and is quite capable of passing over considerable intervals of time without saying anything about them.

What he wants to tell us, and he's already at the last of his letter, he said, I write these things so that you'll believe. Remember, John is about 100 years old when he's writing this Gospel, and at least 60 years have gone by since he walked with Jesus. And so he's had all of these years to think through those experiences and those moments that he spent with Christ. So he, at the end of His life, He jots down and tells us of the incidents and the discourses that he thinks, that he feels led by the Spirit, that if we understand these and if we believe them, we'll put our trust in Jesus Christ as our Savior.

From now on to the end of the public ministry, John depicts a steadily deepening hostility toward Jesus. You know when I thought about that, when Jesus came onto the scene back in Matthew chapter 2; He's born, the wise men have followed a star, Herod says go find Him and when you find him come back and tell me because I want to go worship Him. And in verse 12 of chapter 2 of Matthew it tells us that being warned of God in a dream they, the wise men, departed another way.

Verse 14 -- Herod now knows that he's been sidestepped. He's angry. And he sends out this decree for all the area around Bethlehem that every male child under two years of age is to be slain, and there is weeping in Ramah. The very beginning of Christ's life, He becomes the object of one to be killed.

He goes to His public ministry, He's baptized and then He goes to the wilderness, and the first thing that Satan wants to do is kill Him. Why don't You just jump off of that high place? Satan would like to have destroyed Him.

Jesus goes to Jerusalem to start His ministry. He walks down to the pool and there is a man who's been ill for 38 years. Jesus touches him and He heals him and yet the crowds, and the religious leaders, don't look at it as a miracle. It's a violation of their Sabbath rules. And as the result, verse 16 of John 5, from that point on they want to kill Him. Jesus was the target of hatred and rejection. And as I studied that this week I thought of those words of Isaiah, He was despised and rejected. He bore our sorrows and there is no beauty in Him that we should desire Him.

John takes us on a journey now and will, in the rest of his Gospel, on this decline and this deepening hostility to the ministry of Jesus.

It had now become dangerous for Jesus to appear in Judea, so that His appearance at Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles must be carefully arranged. Jesus was forced to withdraw and minister in Galilee because the religionists throughout Judea and Jerusalem had reacted so violently against Him. And that was the healing of the man by the pool.

Now the word "sought" is an interesting word. It's a verb of continuous action. That is, they kept on seeking. They were pursuing Him relentlessly all through His ministry with the desire to find the moment to kill Him.

Now when John portrays the Jews, he says, for He did not want to walk in Judea because of the Jews. We've learned in our study of John that has always reference, not to the nation per se, but to the religious leaders who hated Him. And John uses that phrase over and over again. It was the Jews who said thou art a Samaritan and hast a demon. It was the Jews who cast out the man that Jesus had healed from the synagogue. It was the Jews who took stones to stone Jesus. It was the officers of the Jews who took Jesus and bound Him, and it was for fear of the Jews that Joseph of Arimathea came secretly to seek the body of Christ. John uses that phrase over and over again -- the Jews -- but what he is saying, it was the religious leaders who hated Jesus.

Now we come to verse 2. It says that now the Jews' Feast of the Tabernacles was at hand. One of the joys of preaching in an expository fashion, which we do just verse after verse, chapter after chapter, is because you come across subjects that normally are not a subject that most preachers talk about. And really come most people don't have much interest in the Feast of Tabernacles. But let me ask the question -- I've asked every other congregation -- how many of you have heard a sermon on the Feast of Tabernacles?

So we've got a brand-new subject today: a brand- new subject. Well let's go to Leviticus chapter 23. Let's find out about this feast that Jesus is going to, because it's imperative that we do. Because the rest of the chapter is going to wrap itself around this feast, and if we understand the feast, all the rest of the chapter will absolutely blossom like a beautiful rose.

So in Leviticus 23 it says: "Speak to the children of Israel, saying: 'The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days to the Lord. On the first day there shall be a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it. For seven days you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. On the eighth day you shall have a holy convocation, and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. It is a sacred assembly and you shall do no customary work on it.

Now we're at verse 39: Also on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep the feast of the Lord for seven days; on the first day there shall be a sabbath-rest, and on the eighth day a sabbath-rest. What he's simply saying, there will be a Sabbath on both sides of the festival -- a sabbath-rest.

Then he goes on to say: And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. You shall keep it as a feast to the Lord for seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in your generations. You shall celebrate it in the seventh month.

And you shall dwell in booths for seven days. All who are native Israelites shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. So Moses declared to the children of Israel the feasts of the Lord.

So the Feast of Tabernacles, or it could be called the Feast of Booths, really took place when all the harvest had been gathered. It was a joyous time of celebration, and a very well attended festival; for two reasons. It was an exciting festival to attend. Great joy -- people coming from all over. And secondly, it was one of those three festivals that attendance was required.

Now I put in our notes, and most Bible commentators would say this, that anybody who lived within twenty miles of Jerusalem by law you had to be there. Dr. Barclay in his notes says 15 miles, so there is a difference in the interpretation as to the distance. But this we do know, if you lived in close proximity to Jerusalem by law you all had to go. And so the place was jammed.

Josephus, the great historian, tells us that on occasions there were upwards and over 2 million people at these festivals. Now can you imagine 2 million people in a city smaller than San Bruno? That's wall-to-wall people. And you were greeting people that had come from distance and from afar, and it was a joyous time. It was an eight-day party. And I notice here that during the feast great throngs gathered. If it were to occur today, we would probably call it the Jerusalem Camping and Recreational Vehicle Convention. Now I did that so you can kind of get in your mind, everybody is camping you've got tents, you've got booths; they're every place.

In fact, it says that shelters sprang up in the most unlikely places-on rooftops, down the alleys, even in the courts of the temple-and all of the shelters followed the rabbinical building code. What was the rabbinical building code?

Well, the walls had to be extra-thin so that light came through, and the roof had to show enough sky so the stars could be seen, thus reminding the Jews of how they had wandered in the wilderness and of how God had provided for them. It was a festive time.

People dressed in their Sabbath-best for the entire week. They called it "the season of our gladness." And when you read the writings of Zachariah, the prophet, he uses it as a symbol of the glorious future of the people of God -- and he calls it the Feast of Tabernacles.

Now at the heart of the celebration was a daily rite, a rite we must understand in order to catch the sense of John 7. Rabbinical literature tells us that each morning great multitudes would gather at the Temple of Herod. They would come with a citrus fruit in their left hands, and it was called an ethrog. The ethrog was a reminder of the land to which God had brought them and of their bountiful blessings. In their right hands the people would carry a lulab, which was a combination of three trees: a palm tree, a willow, and a myrtle. This was emblematic of the stages of their ancestors' journey through the wilderness.

Each morning the people gathered together, and after the priest was sure everything was in order, he would hold out a golden pitcher. The crowds would then follow the priest to the Pool of Siloam, chanting some of the great Psalms and waving their lulabs in rhythm. As they approached the Pool of Siloam, the priest would dip his pitcher into the water, and the people would recite some beautiful words from Isaiah. "With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation."

Then the crowd would march back to the temple, entering through the Water Gate to the blast of the priest's trumpets. The priest would then circle the altar once, ascend with accompanying priests to the platform, and he would pour the water out that he had gathered from the Pool of Siloam.. This was a daily event. That was the way they started their day of celebration. And they would spend the rest of the day in sacrifices, in offerings, in festivity, and wonderful times of fellowship.

That was the event that Jesus is reminded here of in verse 2: Now the Jews' Feast of Tabernacles was at hand. Now all of this was going on up to Jerusalem while Jesus remained in Galilee, where a conversation ensued between the Saviour and His physical brothers, His own flesh and blood.

Before we get to that conversation, I note here that though Leviticus 23 is the first time this event is mentioned by name, there is an earlier reference to it, namely, in Exodus 23, where it is termed the Feast of Ingathering. So now we've got three names, don't we, for the same feast -- the Feast of Booths, the Feast of Tabernacles, and the Feast of the Ingathering, and yet it's all the same feast.

I'm at the top of page 5. The Feast of Tabernacles then was the grand Harvest Festival, when the Lord of the harvest was praised for all of His temporal blessings. It's much like we do on Thanksgiving, and I'm going to make a recommendation that we make Thanksgiving a full week long. That would make it biblical, wouldn't it? That's what they did in ancient times. They spent a whole week telling God how grateful they were for their harvest.

And there's another interesting note concerning this festival. In the Old Testament records, and I find this fascinating, there are only two mentions of this important feast -- when it was required, ordained by God.

According to our notes, the first occasion is recorded for us in 1 Kings 8, and it was in the days when Solomon had completed the temple and was dedicating it. It was a time at the Feast of the Tabernacles.

The second account of Israel's past celebration of this Feast is recorded in Nehemiah 8:13-18. And I think it would be good to go there. In your pew Bible it's page 335. Now here's what it says. Now on the second day the heads of the fathers' houses of all the people, with the priest and Levites, were gathered to Ezra the scribe, in order to understand the words of the Law.

Let me give you the background. Remember, they have been down in Babylon for 70 years. Nehemiah leads them back to Jerusalem, which is torn down and it's in shambles. He's going to rebuild. So those come out of captivity, they're back in Jerusalem, they're in the process of building the walls and other things, but Nehemiah is deeply concerned about the spiritual dimension of his nation.

He has Ezra the scribe, and he says to Ezra, now Ezra, you go back through the ancient texts and we've been away from our homeland for 70 years, find out what we've been missing and bring us up- to-date. We want to do everything that the word of God says for us to do as a nation. So Ezra goes about that, and they found written in the law the Lord had commanded by Moses that the children of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month. And that they should announce and proclaim it in all of their cities and in Jerusalem, saying: Go out to the mountain, and bring olive branches, branches of olive trees, myrtle branches, palm branches, and branches of leafy trees, to make booths, as it is written.

Then the people went out and brought them and made themselves booths, each one on the roof of his house, or in the courtyards, or the courts of the house of God, or in the open square of the Water Gate, or in the open square of the Gate of Ephraim. So the whole assembly and those who had returned from captivity made booths and sat under the booths; for since the day of Joshua the son of Nun until that day the children of Israel had not done so.

That's interesting. Such an important feast, attendance required, but Ezra makes notice that that has been a neglected feast since the days of Joshua. Now back to our text. We're in the middle now of page 5. Let's continue.

His brothers therefore said to Him, "Depart from here and go into Judea, that Your disciples also may see the works that You are doing. For no one does anything in secret while he himself seeks to be known openly. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world."

I make a comment: we must remember that after the birth of Jesus, Joseph and Mary lived a very normal married life in that they had other children born to their union. And I know that that is a difficult thing to accept if you have a Catholic background, because you were told that Mary never had children and she lived as a virgin all of her life, and she was ascended into heaven equal with the Godhead.

When I was talking to the congregation at 7:00 this morning, I had a man who has a background in the Eastern Orthodox Church and he said, pastor, we as Eastern Orthodox people we were taught that Joseph was much older than Mary and that his first wife had deceased, but there were children born to that first marriage, and therefore when Joseph married Mary he brought to the family children of a previous marriage. And thus, the Eastern Orthodox churches say that Mary did not have children, but that those with the children of Joseph's prior marriage. His wife had deceased.

Well, what does it say in Matthew. Matthew 13 says: "Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these parables, that He departed from there. When He had come to His own country, He taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished and said, "Where did this Man get this wisdom and these mighty works?"

"Is this not the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this Man get all these things." And so it's very clear that Jesus, when He got back home, was recognized as the man who used to work the carpenter's shop. He's got four brothers, He's got some sisters, and they know His mother's name is Mary.

Well it was these brothers, verse 3, His brothers, because when you go back in the Greek text it has reference to blood brothers. His brothers therefore said to Him, "Depart from here and go into Judea, that Your disciples also may see the works that You are doing. For no one does anything in secret while he himself seeks to be known openly."

Let's just stick to our Bible now because I just have a few minutes left. These brothers say to Jesus, Jesus, what You ought to do, I mean let's get a real promotional program going here, I mean You're spending all Your time up here with these hillbillies, up here in Galilee, these illiterate people that amount to nobody. And, really, if You want to be known openly, You've got a go to the capital. I mean these folks up here You can put anything across. They're so illiterate they'll believe anything, but if You go down to Jerusalem there are smart people down there. They're sophisticated. And they'll know if it's right and that way You'll get some disciples.

Sarcasm -- just kind of a mockery. Do you know why? Look at verse 5: Even His brothers did not believe in Him. They're mocking Him. They're egging Him on. You know, when I begin to think that through, how do you live in a house with Jesus? How to you grow up and He's part of a family? How to you miss all those years, and then when He grows up, you mock Him, and you don't believe in Him?

When you think through -- Jesus, we've talked about Him being hated, a contract on His life, He's called a demon. You'll find that when you read Mark chapter 3, that on one occasion His family thought He was insane, and His mother and His brothers come over to fetch Him home. And when He goes to church at the synagogue they all call Him demon possessed. Can you imagine that? Hated, a family that doesn't believe in Me, they think I'm insane, and when I go to church they call Me demon possessed.

He was despised and He was rejected of men. You know, folks, as I thought about that, I said, Jesus, thank you for going through all of that just to be My Savior. Can you imagine living all your life hated, a contract on your life, your family thinks you're crazy, your own family doesn't even believe in your faith, and the people down at the church consider you to be demon possessed? Even His own brothers did not believe in Him.

You know, I minister to a number of folks, and maybe you're here today, you're the only Christian, the only Christian in your family. I want you know my heart goes out to you, because to grow up in a family where even your closest of kin don't even believe in the Christ you love, makes it hard, doesn't it? And Jesus didn't even have the encouragement from a believing family. That makes me cry inside. He must have lived a lonely life. The birds had their nests, the foxes had their holes, but He had no place to lay His head. That's my Jesus.

Look at what He says to His brothers: My time, fellows, has not yet come, but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of its evil works. Here's what He's saying, boys, you're not a part, you don't identify with Me, you're part of the world. The world's not going to hate you because you love the world. And your only responsibility is to be a good Jewish citizen, and any time now you can get on your mule or just start walking. The time is yours. Get on up to the feast, for a good Jewish man is going to be up at the feast according to the law. Your time is always. You can vary your time, but I want you to know I'm under divine constraints. I have a timetable set in eternity, and I'm going to live according to that timetable.

Now if we had time today there is a fascinating study, a word study, on this word "time". I give some of it to you in your notes. There are a number of Greek words. There's one called chronos, from which we get chronology or chronological, and when you think of the chronos of time you think of the happenings that chronologically bring you to an event and move you on in history. That's the chronological, that's the chronos, aspect of time.

There's another very interesting word - kairos -- and kairos is a word laced with hope, with the impression that here is a moment so filled with eternity it has a determined purpose. It's a kairos. It's a golden opportunity that may only come once, and therefore it is exceedingly...and chronology is made up of many times where there is a kairos, where there's an event that's laden with importance.

And here's what Jesus is saying, fellows, because My chronos has been set in eternity, I must watch when the kairos comes, or that moment of opportunity, because I must be within God's timetable. He knew that at a certain time His journey had to be made so He'd end up in Jerusalem for the Passover and for Calvary. That's why He would always say, My time has not yet come -- My time has not yet come.

He's saying, brothers, you're of the world. Your time is as free as you want to make it, but I live under a divine timetable and I'm under eternal constraints. Now the world's not going to hate you because you're of the world, but the world hates Me; when I appear, My very presence, shows how evil they are. I'm hated. You're not.

Now my time is gone so I've got to bring our lesson down to one very simple truth today, because you see now we've covered the background. Now when we get into the text we'll understand this feast that Jesus has gone to. But I want you think of this: Jesus was under a divine timetable, and as His followers, so are we.

Paul says to the Ephesians in 5:16, redeeming the time because the days are evil. The original text is, buy up every opportunity. And as Christians, now that we're followers of Christ, we recognize the value of time. There are moments that God puts in our lives that are kairos, that are exceedingly important, and if we don't act then we'll never be able to respond to the same opportunity.

The longer you walk with God, the more you sense that God has a divine timetable, and there are going to be people that He's going to put in your life and situations where you can shine forth His glory. And that time may only come once, but you're under divine time constraints, and every opportunity you buy up for the glory of God. We as eternal beings, in the sense that we're part of His eternal kingdom, now realize that one of these days will be our last day, and all shall be over, and we'll be in the presence of our God.

We live under time constraints. Soon He'll come, but until that day we want to make sure that every day is used and every opportunity for His eternal glory. It may be tomorrow that person will come into your life down at the shop whose heart has been broken by a thousand things in his life, and he walks in and that may be the golden kairos; that's the moment God set up so that you can show him your love, and maybe change his life. We all, as Christians, live under a divine timetable. I tell you as your pastor, I sense that, and I have felt that for years.

Back to the '50s when I pastored down in San Francisco, I got a call from a man in one of those hotels down on skid row, Sixth and Mission. He called me and said, preacher, come to me quick, I want to talk with you. Not being sensitive to eternity and divine timing I found enough things to do in the office to defer my departure until the night was at hand, and it was too late to go. But the next day I drive down to Sixth and Mission Street and I find his old dilapidated hotel, and as I'm going in the door here comes the corner down the stairs with a bed and a sheet wrapped around. I asked who it was, and it was the man that I should have talked to yesterday.

I have never -- I can't forget that. When a phone call comes in and I sense there's a need, I'm going to go immediately because that's God's timing, that's His kairos. It may never happen again. Jesus is saying, fellows, when My time is right, the golden moment, the opportunity, when the kairos says -- I'll go. You'll find that He went four days later.

Do you remember in verse 37, He says, Ho everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, drink. It happens just after the priest had got back to the platform, poured the water out from the Pool of Siloam, Jesus stands on the platform and says, come you that are thirsty. Now you see the setting. When the time is right the message is right on.

I want you think about this week. You're a Christian. Time marches on. The chronology of time moves on, but the kairos of time happens. Those are the moments that God said, I put you here. Esther could say, I have come to the king for such an hour as this.

And you in your walk this week may come to that kairos in God's kingdom where you'll only have the chance to be used once. Use it for His glory. Amen?

Father in heaven, thank you for Your word. And help us not to take life lightly nor time. Help us not to waste time. Help us not to kill time. Help us to use time with eternal results. Make us sensitive to eternity even though we're just children of time. That's our prayer, and we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.