The Messiah and the Ritual of Israel (Continued)

The Temple illuminated at the 'Kindling of the Lamps'

The Feast of Tabernacles (Continued)

The Messiah and the Kindling of the Lamps

 The following day, the day of Shemini Atzeret, Jesus again came to the Temple. Entering the Court of Prayer and standing in the shadow of the giant Menorahs He proclaimed, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” (John 8:12) Like the Shekinah glory, which was revealed to Israel in the cloudy/fiery pillar, to guide them to Canaan, Jesus declared He was Israel’s Messiah and promised to lead any who would accept His Messianic claim. Those that followed Him, would be as if they were following the glory pillar that gave light to Israel. As Simeon remarked when the baby Jesus was first brought to the Temple, “a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel”. (Luke 2:32)  John intimated as much at the beginning of his gospel where he transliterated the Hebrew word ‘Shekinah’ to σκηνοìω [skenoo) in the first chapter of his gospel where it is normally translated ‘dwelt’. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth”. (John 1:14) Here he said that the Shekinah that departed at the time of Ezekiel had returned in the person of the Messiah. God became flesh and ‘Shekinah’d’ among us, and we beheld His glory. John had witnessed the Shekinah glory, radiating from Jesus, on the Mount of Transfiguration. This is not an overstatement of the claims of Jesus, because in the following confrontation with the Sanhedrists the Messiah declared, ‘Before Abraham was I am’. When He took the sacred Name of YHWH to Himself His opponents were enraged and “took up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.” (John 8:59)

 Leaving the Temple, the Messiah and His disciples observed a man that had been blind from birth.  Probably located near the double Gate at the entry to the Temple Mount, the blind beggar announced his condition while pleading for alms. This encounter promoted a query from the disciples. They asked, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2) They were merely phrasing their question in the context of the Rabbinical teaching of the day. Since this man has been disadvantaged from birth, it must be the result of a judgment of God, a judgment on sin. Therefore, there were only two alternatives available. God’s displeasure must have been provoked by the sin of the individual or the sin of the parents.  The Rabbis taught that everyone is born with an evil inclination and a good inclination, and these are present in the fetus in the womb.  If the evil inclination has dominance in the unborn child, then he or she could be born with a physical defect as a result. The second alternative regarding the sins of the parents was also common teaching.  Based on such verses as Exodus 34.7, they taught that the Lord by no means cleared the guilty, “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.” Jesus answered, using the context of the feast and the ceremony of the Kindling of the Lamps. He said, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”(John 9:3-5) The blind man had been selected to be a symbolic expression of the work of God. In healing this poor wretch, the Messiah did something unusual – he made clay of spittle and dust and then anointed his blind eyes, telling him to go to the pool of Siloam to wash! Bearing in mind the context of the festival where the water of Siloam was emblematic of the Holy Spirit, Jesus used this symbolism in one more telling sign. The earth that the Messiah used represents sinful man (Adam), who is of the earth, earthy. The use of spittle was significant. When an individual was spat upon, it was because he was considered contemptible, beneath the normal courtesies of life. No doubt, those who despised such beggars had often spat upon this poor man. That which represented this despised son of Adam was washed away by that which represented the Spirit of God. The man born blind was given sight! This miracle was a Messianic sign because the Rabbis taught that since this particular affliction involved the judgment of God on sin only Messiah would be able to cure it. This is clear from the subsequent criticisms of the Pharisees. Since this miracle took place on the Sabbath, the legalistic Jews took the newly sighted man to the Pharisees to explain. Some persevered in their opposition - “This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.” Others were ambivalent. They said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” (John 9:16) There was a division among them. The man who was the recipient of the miracle had the clearest understanding. All his life they had taught him that only the Messiah could alleviate his condition. Now cured he concluded, it must have been the Messiah who did it, for “since the world began it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind.” (John 9:32) Hearing such a clear statement from someone they had always despised, the Pharisees returned to their standard teaching, “You were completely born in sins, and are you teaching us?” (John 9:34) This man was excommunicated from the synagogue.

 At this point, the previously sightless man had not seen the Messiah.  He was still blind when he was sent to the pool to wash. So when Jesus found Him later and asked, “Do you believe in the Son of God?” (John 9:35) and he responded, “Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him?” Jesus said to him something that could not have been uttered before the miracle. “You have both seen Him and it is He who is talking with you.” (John 9:37) His response was heart-warming. “He said, ‘Lord, I believe!’ And he worshiped Him”. (John 9:38) What a day for this poor man.  It started like any other, with his begging by the Temple steps. But a meeting with Israel’s Messiah, “the light of the world”, brought him physical sight, and then later spiritual sight. The new start his physical healing provided was complemented by a new spiritual start. He had been truly ‘born again’.

 So the actions of the Messiah at the Feast of Tabernacles were in complete harmony with the context of the festival with its two central ceremonies. He offered ‘living water’ and ‘light’ and to illustrate this to the glory of God, He healed a blind man, by the use of living water from the pool of Siloam, and brought light to his darkness. Moreover, He did this on ‘Shemini Atzeret’, the day when God sought extra fellowship with His people.

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