Daily Liturgy and Scripture

The Feast of Tabernacles was a remembrance of the time the Israelites spent in the wilderness after leaving Egypt. This is the festival to which Jesus's brothers were going and mocking him for skipping. While Jesus was using wise discretion in avoiding confrontation with the Jewish leaders, it's wild that a festival that remembered a time where God showed himself to Israel through fire, clouds, and divine provision of food could now miss the actual presence of God because of the mockery of his earthly brothers. Luckily, Jesus still decided to go. 

Jesus calling himself the Bread of Life and pointing out that nobody had seen God were references to Exodus. In that story, God fed the Israelites with manna, and the manifestations of God were always veiled. God never appeared in person. Now Jesus is present to fill both of those roles: seeing him is seeing God, and he himself will become the bread that feeds God's people. Not physical bread, or we couldn't live forever. What Jesus gives by fully inhaling him is abundant life, forever, starting now.

Jesus didn't just show up on the scene to hand out free meals, and those who remained after the meal certainly got an extra helping of teaching. While they were looking for another miracle, Jesus wanted them to see the truth: the greatest miracle was him, and he would be the spiritual bread they needed at a much deeper level.

The moment where Jesus fed the crowd is an interesting one. Jesus is indiscriminately feeding everyone, distributing basic needs to all simply because they show up. This might be a good lesson for us: if people are in our sphere, they deserve our love and care. That doesn't look the same for everyone, but it should certainly look like something. Hopefully, it will look like Jesus.

Jesus does not come out of nowhere. John has prepared the way, and God the Father is empowering him. What does this mean? That God has intentionally come to live among men, to show what God is really like, with an introduction from a man (John the Baptist). It is an interconnected web called the Kingdom of God, and we are living in it now if we are living in Christ.

The response given by Jesus about this healing is a strong indication of where the Son of God put his focus. While healing people was important to show who he was, the healings weren't the point. Jesus was guided by God the Father, and was about doing the work of the Father, which was shared with him as the Son. This is important, because that means the work isn't about us either. It's not about this man who was healed. It's about God's work, who God is, and what God is doing.

Jesus’s decision to stay with the Samaritans for two days was an unusual one. The Jews and Samaritans were not generally on friendly terms, and some of his disciples probably thought he has a little goofy for making that choice. Still, he went, he stayed, and Samaritans believed. Jesus would never deny anyone who came seeking him.

It is no small matter that Jesus reveals who he is to this woman. She is an outsider, far from a distinguished or ‘important’ person. Yet, it is now that Jesus decides to unveil his divinity. This would become the trend in his ministry. He didn’t seek out those who had influence or family names. Instead, he spent his time with the least, the last, and the lost. It seems that they were much more open channels to what he was preaching.

Becoming less so that Jesus may become more wasn't a call that ended with John. We are challenged to do the same thing. It's difficult to live with that level of humility, but if you're putting yourself ahead of Jesus, you're trying to do some of the things that are his job. You're definitely not equipped for that.

Nicodemus may have approached Jesus in the night as a sign of respect, vs. debating him openly in public. This may have been a way to treat him as a peer. In any case, this moment was used to teach the Pharisee, and Jesus laid out some pretty complicated theology for him. This should have been right in his wheelhouse, because as Jesus pointed out, Nicodemus was indeed a teacher himself. The message of Jesus was often simple and told in stories, but he rose to the occasion with a more learned mind was before him.