AT THE TIME when Jesus came to Jerusalem, the Feast of Tents was half
over. Many had been looking for him, for all through the land he was
talked about. At the Feast the people were saying, "Where is he? Has he
come up to the Feast?"
Some said, "He is a good man." Others said, "No, he cannot be a good
man, for he is leading the people away from the law of Moses." But no
one spoke freely about him, for fear of the rulers and the people of
Jerusalem whose minds had been set against Jesus by the priests and the
scribes or teachers of the law.
From his home in Bethany at Martha's house, Jesus came quietly into the
Temple and began teaching the people who gathered there during the
Feast, going out at evening to Bethany. All who heard him wondered at
his words, and every day the crowds around him grew. People said to each
other, "How did this man get all his knowledge? He has never studied in
the college of the scribes."
"My teaching," said Jesus in answer, "is not my own; but it comes from
Him who sent me. Any one who chooses to do God's will, will know whether
I speak in God's name, or whether I am talking in my own name. Did not
Moses give you the law? Yet none of you honestly tries to keep the law.
If you did try to keep the law, you would not try to kill me!"
The crowd replied to Jesus, "You are crazy! Who is trying to kill you?"
But Jesus knew that he was speaking the truth, for he knew what was in
the minds of the rulers and of many in Jerusalem. He said to the crowd:
"I will be with you only a little longer, and then I am going to him who
sent me. You will look for me, but you will not find me, and where I am
going, you cannot come."
"Where is this man going," said the Jews, "that we cannot find him? Is
he going among our people in foreign lands, to teach the foreigners?
What does he mean by words like these?"
Jesus meant that after they should kill him and he should rise from the
tomb and live again, he was going back to his home in heaven, a place to
which they could never come.
[Illustration: "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink"]
The last and greatest day of the Feast of Tents came. On that day they
brought water into the Temple and poured it out, amid great rejoicing;
calling to mind how God had given water from the rock to the Israelites
in the desert.
In the midst of the pouring out of the water, Jesus cried with a very
loud voice, so that all heard him:
"If any one is thirsty," he said, "let him come to me and drink! He who
believes in me, out of him shall flow rivers of living water!"
Some of the people, when they heard this, said, "This must be really the
Prophet who is to come!"
Others said, "This is the Christ, the King of Israel!"
But there were those who said, "No, this cannot be Christ the King, for
this man comes from Galilee, and the Bible says that Christ is to come
from the line of King David and from David's town of Bethlehem."
These people knew that Jesus came to them from Galilee, but they did not
know that he had been born in Bethlehem and belonged to the royal line
of David. They were divided over Jesus: some thought that he was their
promised king, while others wanted to seize him as a teacher of
falsehood. The rulers sent out officers to make him their prisoner, but
somehow no man dared to lay hands upon him.
When the officers came back to the chief priests and leading men, they
were asked, "Why did you not bring this man with you?"
The officers answered, "No man ever spoke as this man speaks!"
"What! has this man led you astray, too?" said the rulers. "Have any of
the leading men, or the Pharisees, believed in him? As for this crowd
who know nothing of the law, they are of no account!"
Nicodemus, that one of the rulers who a year before had come by night to
talk with Jesus, said to them:
"Surely our law does not allow any man to be treated as guilty before
hearing what he has to say and finding out what he has done!"
"Are you too from Galilee, like all the followers of this man?" they
answered him. "Search, and you will find that no prophet ever comes from
Galilee."
In the evening all the people went to their homes, and Jesus went over
the Mount of Olives to his friends at Bethany.
[Illustration: View of Bethany]
Jesus and the Sinful Woman