SUNDAY FEBRUARY 16
My time is
not yet here; for you any time will do. John 7:6
Waiting on God’s Timing for
Jesus’ Mission
All sorts of things, important or not, are all about
timing. Passing a restaurant billboard as your stomach growls. Catching her
eyes across a crowded room. Being the seventh caller and winning the prize.
Hearing a sermon just when you’re encountering that exact temptation. Seeing a
shooting star. Running into a friend on a day you really needed some
encouragement.
For Christ’s mission of redemption, God’s timing was
crucial. One wonders what it was like for the eternal Son of God to experience
the flow of time as a human being. However it felt, Jesus was committed to
perfectly obeying the timing of His Fat her’s plan, as we see in today’s narrative.
Knowing the right time to do the right thing was important for Him as well as
for us (see Feb. 5).
Jesus’ brothers (born to Mary and Joseph after
Jesus’ birth) advised Him to go to Judea for the Festival of Tabernacles in
order to gain more public exposure (vv. 3–4). Whether they were recommending a
marketing strategy or, as it turned out, insincerely mocking Him (v. 5), the
brothers showed a complete lack of understanding. Doing miracles to gain
attention and “promote a career” as a miracle-working rabbi was not at all what
Jesus was about.
Instead, Jesus was all about obeying God and
submitting to His plan. “My time is not yet here,” He told His brothers, “for
you any time will do” (v. 6). He knew that His person and message spurred
controversy among the people and hatred from the leaders, and the time to bring
things to a head had not yet come (vv. 7–8). “My time” specifically referred to
His coming death and resurrection. Later (see the rest of John 7), Jesus did go
to Jerusalem in secret, and then began teaching publicly about halfway through
the festival.
Taken
from the Word for You Today Devotional
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