Jesus Going Public

By Richard

We often think of Jesus as a public figure, yet at the beginning of John 7 we find His brothers complaining because He’s doing His ministry in secret (4). It’s time to go public they tell Him! Jesus reveals His caution. Generally the world hates Him because He challenges the true goodness of humanity. If He goes public too soon it will mean the premature end to His ministry, and He’s working to a plan.

The author Anne Rice, who researched everything she could on Jesus, for several years, made this interesting observation. Many sceptical scholars who devoted their entire lives to the study of the New Testament, “disliked Jesus Christ”! She goes on to write. “Some pitied him as a hopeless failure. Others sneered at him, and some felt an outright contempt. This came between the lines of the books. This emerged in the personality of the texts.”

She found it puzzling because in her many years of historical research, for her numerous other novels, she had never come across the same reaction to any other historical figure! “In general” she writes, “Scholars don’t spend their lives in the company of historical figures whom they openly despise.”

Have you ever wondered why the one who spoke so tenderly about God being a loving Father, the one who spoke so passionately about loving others, to the extent that we would even love our enemies and to do good to those who hate us - why someone like this would be so greatly despised? That is unless John is correct when he wrote that, “Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” (John 3:19)