About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and taught. The Jews marveled at it, saying, “How is it that this man has learning] when he has never studied?” So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me; if any man’s will is to do His will, he shall know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on My own authority. He who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of Him who sent Him is true, and in Him there is no falsehood. Did not Moses give you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill Me?” The people answered, “You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill You?” Jesus answered them, “I did one deed, and you all marvel at it. Moses gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man upon the sabbath. If on the sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with Me because on the sabbath I made a man’s whole body well? Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” 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? Yet we know where this man comes from; and when the Christ appears, no one will know where He comes from.” So Jesus proclaimed, as He taught in the temple, “You know Me, and you know where I come from? But I have not come of My own accord; He who sent Me is true, and Him you do not know. I know Him, for I come from Him, and He sent Me.” So they sought to arrest Him; but no one laid hands on Him, because His hour had not yet come.
John 7:14-30 (Gospel on the Feast of Mid-Pentecost)
Christ is Risen!
At the time of Christ, there were three great Jewish feasts—Passover, Pentecost and the Feast of Tabernacles/Booths. All three were related to the Exodus from Egypt. We have written about Passover many times, as the feast where the Israelites killed lambs without blemish, ate of the lamb and spread the blood of the lamb over their doorposts so that the Angel of Death would “pass over” their homes. This of course prefigures Pascha, the new Passover, where Jesus Christ is the Lamb. He is sacrificed and is without blemish. By His blood we are saved. And we partake of the Lamb of God through Holy Communion.
The Feast of Pentecost fell fifty days after the Passover, and marked the giving of the Ten Commandments and the Law on Mount Sinai, which occurred shortly after the Exodus from Egypt. The Law was the basis of how Judaism was practiced.
The Feast of Tabernacles or Booths was held later in the summer, and commemorated the forty years of wandering in the desert between the Exodus and the entrance into the Land of Canaan (the Promised Land) by the Israelites. This feast would coincide with the feast of the Transfiguration (August 6), it is held at that time of the year.
These three feasts were entrenched in Jewish practice at the time of Christ. Pentecost was a Jewish feast, not a Christian one, but it was on Pentecost when God decided to send down the Holy Spirit on the Apostles and allow them to speak in all the languages of the world, effectively establishing the church and inspiring a massive number of people coming to Christianity in those early years. It is interesting that the Old Testament prepared the people so thoroughly to recognize that a Savior/Messiah would be coming. The people held out great faith that God’s promises would be fulfilled.
When Jesus came, there was a two-fold response. Many flocked to Him and either recognized or hoped that He was the promised Messiah. Mixed with that hope was a good deal of confusion whether He was or was not. And then there were those who felt threatened by Jesus. The Jewish leaders led the charge. Jesus had garnered a lot of support and popularity, attracting large crowds. Yet at the time of the crucifixion, He had essentially been abandoned by everyone, even His closest friends. Because as the bloodthirsty crowd demanded crucifixion, there wasn’t so much as a whimper that this was not the right thing to do.
Seven weeks after the Resurrection was the day of Pentecost, and we read in Acts that two thousand souls joined Christianity on that first day and then it was like an avalanche of people putting all the pieces together, that indeed Jesus is the Messiah, and that this new movement of Christianity was supposed to spread throughout the world. The Chosen people (the Jews) had been redeemed, and the message was not only for them but for the rest of the world (the Gentiles).
In John 7:14, we read About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and taught. We know that many of the Jews made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Passover and Pentecost and some stayed for the entire time. Just as now in Orthodoxy, we have a Pentecostarion, or a fifty-day festal season that begins with Pascha and ends with Passover, the Jews at the time of Christ had the same time—a festal period connecting Passover and Pentecost. The Orthodox Church has chosen to have a feastday to mark this midway point between Pascha and Pentecost, and in the Gospel that is read on this feast, we pick up a narrative from the Gospel about a dialogue that Jesus had at the midway point of the feast.
The interaction between Jesus and the people in John 7 makes reference to the healing of the Paralytic, which had occurred shortly before in the Gospel narrative. This is also why the Orthodox Church places the Gospel of the Paralytic, John 5:1-15, on the Sunday before Mid-Pentecost, as it would line up with the Gospel timeline. Jesus had healed the Paralytic on the Sabbath, incurring the ire of the Jewish leaders, leading to this interaction during the following week.
There were different thoughts about Jesus, expressed in the Gospel reading. The Jews marveled at how Jesus knew so much but had not studied. Jesus refuted that answer by saying that He is teaching what He has been given by God, which of course incurred further negativity, as now Jesus was putting Himself into direct communication with God the Father. Jesus references that there are people who want to kill Him (John 7:19) Jesus points out the hypocrisy of the criticism He received for healing a man on the Sabbath, saying that indeed the Jews would “work” on the Sabbath if that work was doing a circumcision. Yet they had a problem with His work on the Sabbath even though it involved healing the body of a Paralytic. And then the reference is made in John 7:26, questioning whether Jesus is indeed the Christ.
It is interesting that the icon of Mid-Pentecost shows Jesus in the temple when He was twelve, teaching the temple leadership, as recounted in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 2. While Jesus was now at least thirty years old, and certainly not twelve, the story from Luke 2 sets up the story from John 7, in that Jesus, who is unknown by anyone in Luke 2 and unknown still by many in John 7, comes into the temple and teaches with authority.
O Lord, midway through the feast, give drink to my thirsty soul from the living waters of right belief. You, O Savior, proclaimed to everyone, “Let whoever is thirsty come to Me and drink” You are the fountain of life, O Christ our God. Glory to You! (Apolytikion of Mid-Pentecost, Trans. by Fr. Seraphim Dedes)
Today’s feast combines both theology and history, the foundation from the Old Testament fulfilled by Christ in the New Testament.
