Jesus Goes to Jerusalem (3D Jesus Part 5)

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Welcome to Out of Zion with Susan Michael, an exploration of the Bible and the land of

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Israel.

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From ancient biblical sites to the story behind the stories, join Susan on a journey through

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the most exciting book on the planet.

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Hit the subscribe button for future episodes which will deepen your faith and bring the

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Bible to life.

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And now here's our host, Susan Michael.

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Well, hey there.

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Welcome to the 3D Jesus series.

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We're part five today.

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We're going to be talking about Jesus Goes to Jerusalem.

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Now next week we're also going to be talking about Jesus in Jerusalem, but it's going

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to be focused on the last week of his life, the time that he spent there.

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So today we want to talk about other times before the last week when Jesus went to Jerusalem

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and why.

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And what did he encounter there?

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And it's going to set the context and sort of set the stage for better understanding

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of what we're going to be talking about next week.

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So let's get started.

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All right.

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Well, Jesus did go to Jerusalem several times during his Galilean ministry.

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We know this mainly from the book of John where he tells us that Jesus went up to some

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of the Jewish Feast.

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You know, there were three great Feast of Israel in the Bible.

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And during each one of these three Feast, the men of the tribes of Israel were required

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to come up to Jerusalem to worship the Lord there and to celebrate and observe this Feast.

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And so of course not every man could go every single time.

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But many did come and the city of Jerusalem would just be bursting at the seams with all

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the people that had come up for these Feast that were usually a week long.

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And they would camp all around outside the city.

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And so in this context, we know from the book of Luke that Jesus's family went up to Jerusalem

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every year to celebrate the Passover.

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And so they made that caravan.

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And we talked about last week the story, how that in one of those caravans they go up to

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Jerusalem with half the village of Nazareth probably, and all the kids are traveling together

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and playing together and they get halfway home and they discover, no Jesus, where's

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Jesus?

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We left him behind.

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And Joseph and Mary have to go back and they find him in the temple.

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And so that was a part of their annual family pilgrimage with their neighbors and their

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relatives from Nazareth to go up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.

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Now we know from John chapter 10 that Jesus went to Jerusalem during the Feast of Hanukkah,

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or it's called the Feast of Dedication.

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And I just told you the whole story of Hanukkah in our first part of this series, setting

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the stage.

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But we talked about the Maccabees that took over the temple.

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It had been desecrated by Antiochus, the fourth Epiphanes, and a pig had been sacrificed

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in the Holy of Holies and it had been made as a temple to Zeus.

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And so the Maccabees took over the temple, they cleansed it, they rededicated it to God,

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they relit the big menorah, and by a miracle it burned for eight days while they waited

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for more of the precious holy oil to be brought down from the Galilee.

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That's the story of Hanukkah.

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The only time it's mentioned in the Bible is in the New Testament and the book of John

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because it took place after the Old Testament was completed.

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And so in the New Testament, the one time it's mentioned, we have Jesus going up to

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Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Dedication.

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So during the Feast of Hanukkah, as you can imagine, they're celebrating how these zealots

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from the family of Aaron had freed them from the pagan Greek rule of the Seleucids and

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had taken over their temple.

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And so there's a lot of talk about, well, will God free us from the Roman oppression

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that we have?

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And where is Messiah?

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And do we have a Messiah to lead us against Rome and to free us from this?

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And so it's in this context that we read in John 10 where they come to Jesus and they

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say, look, are you or aren't you?

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Are you going to reveal yourself now?

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Are you the Messiah?

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And we read Jesus' response and it's kind of like, Jesus, just come out and say it.

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In a way, he is coming out and saying it.

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But in a way, he's saying, he's not wanting to get called up in a zealot rebellion against

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Rome.

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And he's looking for those that have the heart to follow after what he's presenting

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to them that is God's will for them.

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It's a heart matter and it's those that really want to know the truth and that want to obey

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it and that want to be righteous.

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They're the ones that are going to hear him.

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They're the ones that are going to see his miracles and follow him.

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So he tells them, he says, look, if you haven't believed my works, you're not going to believe

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me.

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And so it's in this context there and the Feast of Hanukkah.

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You can read the whole passage there and his go back and forth.

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In the end, he says, I and the Father are one.

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And they try to stone him then for blasphemy.

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They're looking for a political messiah to free them from Rome.

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They're not looking for someone to claim to be divine.

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So that's how that kind of ended.

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Jesus also went to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.

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And we read about that in John 7.

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And John 7 is followed, of course, by eight and nine and 10.

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And it's a whole series of things that happened either during the Feast of Tabernacles or

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right after it.

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It's very interesting.

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I'm not going to give a teaching on this.

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I'm not going to go into it in detail.

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But it's during the great Feast of Tabernacles that they had what was called the Water Libation

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Ceremony.

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The Feast of Tabernacles, it's a feast where they celebrate the harvest, the fall harvest,

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and they celebrate that God had provided rain for them and that they had had an abundant

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harvest and they bring their tithes and offerings up to the temple.

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But they also began to pray for rain for the coming year because it's a very arid part

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of the world.

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And they had to have God's blessing in the form of rain for there to be crops.

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And so the Water Libation Ceremony played upon this importance of water.

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And it also used water as a sign of the Holy Spirit.

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And so the priests would go down to the pool of Siloam and take up water in a beautiful

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golden container.

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And they did a whole march back up the hill to the temple.

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And they would take this water and pour it out over the altar.

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And it was signifying God's not just provision of rain, but actually His presence and His

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pouring out of the Holy Spirit over His people.

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And it's in that setting that Jesus stands and He says that if any man is thirsty, come

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to me as the true fountain of living waters.

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Wow.

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You and I read it and we're like, why is He saying that?

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He's saying it in this context of this whole ceremony.

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Everybody around Him knew what He was saying.

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Another interesting thing is that, of course, during the great feast they had not just the

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menorah lit that burned all the time, but all kinds of menorahs all around the temple complex

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lit.

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The light shown from there throughout all of Jerusalem, it was such full of light during

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this festival.

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And it's within that context that Jesus stands and says that He's the light of the world.

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So as you understand these feasts and these settings, you understand better some of the

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things that Jesus was saying and doing.

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But He always ended up in an argument.

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And so this is one of the things that I want to talk about in a minute.

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During the feast, He ends up in an argument with the priest and the Pharisees.

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It goes on.

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It gets quite heated.

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And then He heals a blind man.

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And it's a whole section here of three or four chapters.

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And so my point is that Jesus went to Jerusalem and He observed these feasts just like any

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believing Jew of the time.

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Now He also went up for Passover.

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But we're going to talk about that next week because Passover occurs during that last week

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of His time in Jerusalem.

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It has great special significance.

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And so we're going to save that conversation for next week.

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But now let's talk about Jesus at the temple.

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He comes up as a religious Jewish man to fulfill the feast, to come before the Lord there in

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the temple.

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They have the sacrifices.

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They have these ceremonies going on.

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They have many prayers.

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They're reciting the scriptures.

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He knows exactly what to expect.

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They do this every year and He's there.

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But as I said, He usually ended up then in conversation which easily led into argument.

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And so this has led to some oversimplifications.

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There's my word again.

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We talked about it in the 3D Bible series several times.

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We tend to oversimplify things.

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And then we end up actually in error by portraying something as what it really wasn't.

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To understand these arguments and the confrontations that Jesus would end up in, we first need

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to discuss some of these factions that were there in Jerusalem.

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I mean, they were throughout the land also.

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But in Jerusalem, they're all there.

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It's crowded.

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It's tight.

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They're rubbing shoulders with each other.

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They're hearing each other.

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They get into conversation.

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And we, 21st century Christian readers, we read it and we kind of tend to lump all the

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Jews together.

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And then there's Jesus.

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That's what we can't do.

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So I want to go through some of the different factions that were there so that you can understand.

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And next week, you'll especially understand some of what took place in that final week

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in the life of Jesus.

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So first we have the Sadducees.

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The Sadducees were the priestly class.

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They were wealthy.

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They were educated.

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They were aristocrats.

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They were affluent.

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They were very powerful because they made up of the 71 members of the Sanhedrin, which

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was the governing body for the Jewish world.

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These were the Sadducees.

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The High Priest was appointed from their midst.

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And the High Priest had been and was of one certain family.

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It was an aristocratic family at the time of Jesus.

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Nevertheless, the High Priest was appointed by the Roman authorities.

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That way the Romans could control who was the High Priest.

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And the job of the High Priest was to bring about some kind of peace between the Roman

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authorities and the people of Judea, the Jewish people.

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And in between was the priestly class and the Sadducees and the High Priest.

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And so this High Priest had a very diplomatic job of keeping peace between the Roman authorities

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and the people of Israel.

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Now the Sadducees did not believe in the Oral Torah, which I'll explain that in a minute,

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but they only believed in the written Torah, the written first five books of the Bible.

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So they did not believe in any kind of afterlife.

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Once you died, that was it.

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It was all over.

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There was no kind of eternal punishment or reward.

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It was all about the here and now.

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Now because this priestly class was a little corrupted, I mean power corrupts, money corrupts,

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but here they were having to appease the Romans and almost be like the Roman voice piece to

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the Jews.

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And it really corrupted them.

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And it dirtied their motives at times.

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And so in reaction to that, we had another movement called the Essenes.

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And the Essenes wouldn't have anything to do with the temple sacrifices or any of the

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ceremonies in the temple because they would have nothing to do with that aristocratic priesthood.

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And the Essenes, actually some of them were priests that had broken off away from the

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corrupt priesthood.

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And some of them had gone down into the desert near Qumran and they had this very strict

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community.

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But not all the Essenes were like that.

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The historian Josephus said that there were Essenes in like every town and every village

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in Israel.

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Throughout the whole area there were Essenes.

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So it was like a denomination, if you want to think in Christian terms.

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It was like a movement of people that focused on purity and being righteous and having no

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respect for the priesthood because they saw it as corrupted and as co-opted.

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And so that was the Essenes movement.

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Now the Essenes had great zeal for God, but they were focused on purity and focused on

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being righteous.

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And as I said earlier in the series, we believe the Essenes had some influence on Jesus'

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upbringing and on many of the people that followed Jesus.

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Now then there were the zealots.

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They also had great zeal for God and they didn't have a respect for the corrupted priesthood.

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But they wanted to fight.

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They wanted to have an uprising and to fight the Romans and to free the Jewish people of

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Roman rule.

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So the Romans were very, very afraid of the zealots.

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And the other movements, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, Essenes, they were all worried about

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the zealots because at any moment the zealots could bring about some kind of uprising.

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And we all know that the Romans would stomp it out in a minute and it would be very, very

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bad for the Jewish people.

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Then we have the Pharisees.

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The Pharisees were also zealous for God, but they were not of the priesthood.

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They were not of the Sadducees.

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First of all, they disagreed with the Sadducees.

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But the Pharisees, their focus was on the Torah and teaching the law of God, the Torah,

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the first five books of the Bible.

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But alongside the written Torah, they also had an oral Torah.

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It was the oral traditions of the leaders and the rabbis that had been carried down alongside

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the written Torah.

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And so they were the ones that tried to interpret the Torah and the law for the everyday Jewish

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person.

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And so they're telling them, well, in order to observe the Sabbath, you can't do this,

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you can't do that, you need to be careful of this, you need to be careful of that.

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And they were down at the everyday level of the everyday person.

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And they were also throughout the country.

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But they believed in this oral tradition and this, you could say, elaboration of the law.

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And the Sadducees didn't go for that.

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The high priest and the priests there in Jerusalem, they disagreed with the Pharisees very much

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on this particular point about the oral law.

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So in addition to these religious groups, Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, Zealots, then

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you have other divisions like the Judean Jews versus the Galilean Jews.

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And the Judean Jews really looked down on the Galilean Jews.

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And at times in the New Testament, you'll read where it says that the Jews did this

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or that the Jews will do that.

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And you're like, but wait a minute, they're all Jews.

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And we think it's a translation issue that it's actually talking about the Judeans.

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The Judeans were opposed to the Galilean Jews.

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And interesting enough that the saying like, can anything good come out of Nazareth, that's

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your typical Judean outlook looking down on the Galilean.

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But in all reality, many of the famous rabbis of the time of Jesus of that era all came

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from the Galilee.

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And that's because I think that was more their center of study and reflection and teaching

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versus the whole temple complex that was going on in Jerusalem.

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That was like a whole different world and universe.

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And that was more the Sadducees world.

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So now, within this array of divisions and arguments amongst each other, we have the

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role of rabbi.

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And I want to talk about it for a minute.

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Rabbis were teachers of the law.

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Most of the rabbis, I think, probably came from the party of what we call the Pharisees.

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And most Jewish scholars, which recognize that Jesus was most definitely a rabbi, he was

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addressed as rabbi, his disciples called him rabbi, but he was a teacher and he functioned

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like a rabbi.

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But they also recognize Jesus was a Pharisee in terms of his theology.

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And a lot of times in the Christian world, we have this negative view of Pharisees because

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of Jesus's arguments with the Pharisees.

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But Jesus actually probably was a Pharisee.

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So and there's one scripture in Matthew where he actually tells his disciples, it's in Matthew

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23, where he tells them, you know, do as they say, but not as they do.

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So in other words, obey the teaching of the Pharisees.

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Just don't obey what they do because they're not living it.

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So his beef with the Pharisees was how they lived.

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It wasn't actually in what they were teaching or in the law of Moses.

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I'll come back to that in just a minute.

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A rabbi was not like today what we would call a priest or a pastor or even a rabbi today.

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A rabbi today is an ordained official like a pastor.

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They can do marriages and funerals and it's an official position in the time of Jesus.

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A rabbi really was just an everyday designation of a teacher.

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And in Jesus' taught, he had disciples.

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Jesus had disciples.

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But all rabbis at the times of Jesus gathered around them disciples and there were certain

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expectations of their disciples.

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Their disciples would memorize everything that their teacher said.

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The disciples would try to imitate the lifestyle that they saw their rabbi living.

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They followed him.

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They ate with him.

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They lived with him.

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It was very close contact and it was a teaching by example.

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And that's exactly what we read about Jesus doing in the Gospels with his disciples.

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But you need to know that's how every rabbi was with their disciples.

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And the disciples were expect...

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This was a high honor to be invited to be a disciple of a rabbi.

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And in return, you were to leave your home and your family and your livelihood and you

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were to put everything into following and learning from this rabbi.

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And it was an honor to be given that opportunity.

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So when we see the disciples of Jesus doing that, we understand that was the way it was

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between rabbi and disciple.

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Now, Jesus...

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We're told in the Gospels that Jesus taught in all the synagogues in the area there, in

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the Galilee.

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So this means that not only was Jesus a rabbi, he was a very learned man to be able to go

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in and speak and to be accepted as a speaker meant that he was very learned and also that

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he was totally observant of the law of Moses.

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Jesus was totally observant.

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He kept Sabbath.

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He kept all of the eating and the dietary laws.

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He wore the garments with the tassels on them as any religious Jew of the time would have.

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He was totally observant or he would have never been accepted into the synagogues nor

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would he have been called rabbi.

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It's very clear to understand.

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He was a totally observant Orthodox Jewish rabbi of the time.

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Jesus never questioned the law of Moses.

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He actually lived in total obedience to it.

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What he questioned was how the Pharisees had added on to it in their interpretation and

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in ways that contradicted the actual heart of the law.

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That's what he argued about with the Pharisees.

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So I want to talk a minute about Torah and about law because in the New Testament the

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word Torah is translated law and in our Christian sermons and teachings and all we give law

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a very very negative treatment.

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Once again I think it's an oversimplification but we see law's negative grace is good.

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Law is legalism.

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Grace is freeing.

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Okay I agree but it's also an oversimplification of what we have here in the law of Moses because

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Torah in Hebrew with the Jewish people is actually interpreted teaching or instruction.

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They see the law as being instructive and it surely is.

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In the law God was revealing his character.

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He was revealing how holy and righteous he is and what he required of his people in order

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to live in fellowship with him and enjoy his blessings.

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That's what the law is all about.

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And then he tells them do this and don't do that because he's instructing them how to

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stay in his presence, how to live righteously so that they can live in fellowship with him.

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Now the Pharisees came along and they said okay but how do you really obey a law?

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So I'll give you an example about observing the Sabbath.

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The law says they were to rest on the Sabbath and to not work.

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Well how do you do that?

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How do you work?

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So let me just ask you if God were to say to you okay on the seventh day you're to rest

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I don't want you to work.

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What does that mean to you?

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For those of you that work out in society in a paid job you would say well that means

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I'm not supposed to do anything that makes money on that day.

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I'm to not go to my work or go about my work if I own a business.

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I'm not to do that.

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That's my work.

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Well for someone that might work in the home raising children, feeding the family, cleaning

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the home, what does work mean to them?

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It's not at all about money.

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So then you need a rabbi to help you determine well what's work because I've got to feed

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my family.

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We need to eat.

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So what is actually considered work in this situation?

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And that's where the Pharisees would come in and they'd say well it's this and it's

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not that and therefore you can't do this but you can do that.

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A very very interesting little tidbit I'll give you is that in Hebrew the word actually

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means that you're not to create.

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Now remember this law was first given about Sabbath.

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It was first given not to Moses but in the creation story.

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And it says that God created the earth in six days and on the seventh day he rested.

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So in the law you're not supposed to create on the seventh day.

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So what does that mean?

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What do you create?

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And that means well you're not supposed to create any fire and therefore you can't start

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a fire.

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You can put the pot over the fire but you can't start the fire.

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So the fire has to be started before Shabbat begins so that you don't break the commandment.

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And so in the modern world today we don't light fires.

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We just turn on the burner or we turn on the light but actuality when you turn on the switch

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you're lighting the electricity.

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You're starting a spark of electricity that then lights the light or turns on the gas

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or turns on the burner.

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So in an ultra-orthodox and an orthodox observant community they're not going to turn on the

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heat so they have to have food that they heat, they turn on the heat before the Sabbath.

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And you can have hot food maybe that night it's still hot but on Sabbath you're not

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going to have any hot food left.

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And this kind of thing.

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And so there's a lot of traditions.

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If you get in the elevator you can't push the button to go to your floor because that's

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igniting that starting a fire.

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It's starting a spark that leads to the choice of your floor.

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You can ride the elevator but you've got to get off on the floor with the other people

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and then maybe walk down the stairs to get to your floor.

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All these little things.

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This is where the Pharisees came in.

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They had to help the everyday person determine what actually constitutes violating that law

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because I don't want to break the Torah.

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Well there's a very famous Jewish practice called building a fence around the Torah and

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that's what the Pharisees would do.

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They'd say well this law says don't light, you know, don't create on the Sabbath.

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Because you don't want to take any chances.

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You don't want to accidentally break the Sabbath.

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So therefore don't even do this.

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Don't even get on the elevator.

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I'm just making up a law here but to give you an example it's like so they would have

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00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:47,920
the people go to the ens degree farther than what the law required just so that they would

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be safe, that there would be a fence of safety around that commandment and they wouldn't break

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it.

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Jesus did the same thing and the sermon on the mount.

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He said you've heard it said but I say to you and then he gave them a fence around the

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Torah that was all related on the heart.

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Jesus also taught in parables.

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Parables have two roles.

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One is they teach a concept into a simple everyday term by using an everyday story, something

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that happened on the farm, some picture that everybody's very familiar with to teach a

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lesson.

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Parables also sometime concealed what he was really trying to say because Jesus wasn't

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about starting a revolution against Rome.

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He wasn't trying to start a movement as a messiah.

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He was trying to get to the hearts of the people.

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So his parables a lot of time just took him to the heart while it kind of covered up a

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more direct and more incendiary meaning to it, something that might ignite a reaction.

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So the last point I want to make before we end today is about the art of debating because

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we see in the Gospels Jesus is in Jerusalem.

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He's at the temple, he's surrounded by Pharisees, by other rabbis, by Sadducees, by zealots.

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There's no Essenes in the temple because they won't have anything to do with it but when

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he leaves in the evening I think he was with the Essenes.

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But nevertheless at the temple he's surrounded by all these people and they would get into

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heated debates.

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00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:54,880
I tell you we as 21st century Christians we read some of these stories and we're like

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00:31:54,880 --> 00:32:02,360
wow, they really were opposed to him or Jesus was really feisty.

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00:32:02,360 --> 00:32:09,120
But you kind of understand debate was a part of everyday religious discourse.

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00:32:09,120 --> 00:32:18,120
The Jewish people were brought up debating and questioning and in their study of Torah

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00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:25,200
they were put into couples and your study partner was called a Chaver which we translated

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00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:31,960
as friend but your Chaver you studied with, you debated with one another through the text,

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00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:37,800
you questioned the text and you recited then how the rabbis answered that and you as a

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00:32:37,800 --> 00:32:43,360
partner you worked through your studies in a debate kind of form.

435
00:32:43,360 --> 00:32:49,680
So in the personality of the Jewish people in the everyday discourse debate was just

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00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:51,520
very natural.

437
00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:59,560
It just came natural to them and so as they debated Jesus leader to leader it didn't mean

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that Jesus wasn't a part of them as a people.

439
00:33:02,960 --> 00:33:06,680
It didn't mean he wasn't respected even as a teacher.

440
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:10,800
It didn't mean he wasn't respected even as a Pharisee.

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He was, it's how they conversed, how they interacted with each other on it and yes then

442
00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:27,920
sometimes it would get heated enough that it came to a point of disruption and of outright

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disagreement and walking away.

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But I bring this out because it's very very natural even in today in Israeli society.

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I had a conversation with a young Israeli that grew up in Israel and the school system

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00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:52,560
in Israel and they were taught, they had Torah classes there and they were taught this way.

447
00:33:52,560 --> 00:33:58,480
They question things, they just outright question things in the scriptures and as a part of

448
00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:02,840
the way they studied and then his parents moved to the United States and he was put

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00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:12,640
in a Christian school and when they had their Bible class he would just debate and he would

450
00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:20,120
just ask and the teacher got so upset because she interpreted it that he was questioning

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00:34:20,120 --> 00:34:21,120
her authority.

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00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:25,640
He was questioning Christianity and he kept being sent to the principal's office.

453
00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:28,640
He just thought that was the way you studied the Bible.

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So I thought it was a cute story, you might enjoy that but this whole art of debating

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00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:41,120
and of not accepting just what you're told but questioning it is one of the reasons,

456
00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:47,600
one of the reasons that today Israel is leading the world in innovation and technology and

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00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:56,640
science and medicine because they as a people don't just accept what you're told, they

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00:34:56,640 --> 00:34:58,200
question it.

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00:34:58,200 --> 00:35:05,760
As they see a barrier in science or in industry and water conservation or whatever it is, they

460
00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:08,240
have an impasse.

461
00:35:08,240 --> 00:35:10,840
To them that's just a challenge.

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00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:18,720
Begin to poke at that, begin to question it, see over it, see under it, see around it,

463
00:35:18,720 --> 00:35:20,280
get around that.

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That impasse is just something to be overcome and to be torn down and so their art of debating

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00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:34,600
and questioning and going beyond is making them a world leader.

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So I hope this has been helpful to you.

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We're going to play on some of this next time when we talk about Jesus's last week.

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But I do have a couple of resources I want to recommend as we're bringing this to a close

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today.

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There are two books that I would recommend that you if you're interested in learning

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more about this first century Jewish setting that Jesus grew up in and that he ministered

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in.

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We have two books that we sell in our bookstore.

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One is called Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus.

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The other is called Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus.

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The author of both of those books is Lois Berberg and they are excellent.

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If you want to know more about that first century world, you will love those two books.

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So in today's show notes, which are right below, we link to both of those books in our store

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and I would recommend that you get them for further learning about this first century Jewish

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world of Jesus.

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See you back here next time.

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We're going to talk about the last week of Jesus in Jerusalem.

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God bless.

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We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael.

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Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion now on Apple Podcasts, CPNshows.com, YouTube or wherever

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you like to listen and learn.

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Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJUSA, All Rights Reserved.