JESUS ARRIVED IN JERUSALEM ABOUT OCTOBER 20, when the week-long Feast of Tabernacles was already half over.  When He began teaching in the temple, the Jews were surprised that an untutored man should be so learned, but Jesus said to them:

“My teaching is not My own, but His who sent Me.  If anyone desires to do His will, he will know of the teaching whether it is from God, or whether I speak on My own authority.  He who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory.  But he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is truthful, and there is no injustice in him. Did not Moses give you the Law, and none of you observes the Law? Why do you seek to put Me to death?”

The people, who were ignorant of the plans of their leaders, thought He was mad, but Jesus said to them:

“One work I did and you all wonder.  For this reason Moses gave you the circumcision, and on a Sabbath you circumcise a man.  If a man receives circumcision on a Sabbath, that the Law of Moses may not be broken, are you indignant with Me because I made a whole man well on a Sabbath? Judge not by appearances but give just judgment.”

Now they remembered Jesus’ miracle at the Passover, six months before, when He cured a paralytic at the Pool of Bethsaida and was accused by the Pharisees of breaking the Sabbath.  And they said to each other, “Is not this the man they seek to kill? And behold, He speaks openly and they say nothing to Him. Can it be that the rulers have really come to know that this is the Christ? Yet we know where this man is from; but when the Christ comes, no one will know where He is from.” Then He told them that they erred in concerning themselves with His human origin.  It is the divine origin of His mission that they must accept.

“You both know Me, and know where I am from. Yet I have not come of Myself, but He is true who has sent Me, whom you do not know. I know Him because I am from Him, and He has sent Me.”

John 7:14-29

Meditation:  Our Lord stressed that He was sent from His Father in heaven and sought His glory.  How different are we!  For almost everything we do, we have a personal and selfish reason.  It is the mark of a follower of Christ to act without thinking first of himself, of his interests, of his desires.  To become thoroughly Christ-like, which is the vocation of every Christian, we must conquer selfishness in our lives.

Information from The Life of Christ “Our Lord’s Life with Lesson in His Own Words for Our Life Today”  The Catholic Press, Inc. 1959.  129-130.   © 1954 edited by Reverend John P. O’Connell, MASTD and Jex Martin, following mainly A Chronological Harmony of the Gospels by Stephen J Hartdegen OFM NIHIL OBSTAT John A McMahon; IMPRIMATUR Samuel Cardinal Stritch, Archbishop of Chicago August 1, 1953.  Print.  Drawing by Albert H Winkler.

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