Jesus’ experience included a series of withdrawals his last year. During the summer months, he traveled in and out of Galilee. During the winter, he visited Jerusalem and withdrew multiple times.

This pattern of engagement and withdrawal points to the mounting tension between Jesus and the religious authorities.

The perception of Jesus as a dynamic, likable teacher-leader is true enough. But often in our focus on Jesus, we ignore the feelings of all of the other dynamic leaders around him who were competing for public interest, let alone those who were attempting to preserve the power they had already attained.

The leaders in Nazareth and Capernaum and other towns in Galilee turned against Jesus. Not long afterwards in Jerusalem at the Feast of Huts, the religious leaders sent the temple guards to arrest him. And a few months later, on Jesus’ next feast-visit to Jerusalem, some of his listeners/competitors intended once again to seize him.

Jesus lived in this mounting tension of rejection and hostility for months. Yet he never lost his nerve or his focus.

If we tell the story overlooking this tension, we do it not because the circumstances demand it, but because we are so overawed by Jesus’ calm in the face of unrelenting opposition.

During the winter of Jesus’ last year after his withdrawal from Jerusalem, Jesus went to the place where John had baptized (John 10:40). John had been imprisoned and executed, but apparently even after his departure places were known by his baptizing activity.

In fact, twenty years after John’s life the impression left by his baptism still influenced the preaching of a man named Apollos (Acts 18:18). Priscilla and Aquila, friends of Paul, tutored Apollos, but that is another story.

Around fifty years after the John’s baptizing activity, his influential reputation remained. Josephus recalled John’s execution by Herod as well as John’s message of virtue (Ant. 18.5.2 § 116-119).

All of the Gospels mention John. Mark describes him briefly as an unconventional man who prepared the way for the Lord. Mark also comments that John drew crowds from rural Judea and Jerusalem (1:2-8) and recalls John’s execution by Herod (6:14-29).

Matthew follows Mark’s basic outline (Matthew 3:1-12; 14:1-12), and Luke adds additional dialogue to Mark and Matthew (Luke 3:1-20). Meanwhile, the Gospel of John offers a more personal glimpse of the eccentric holy man (John 1:19-39; 3:22-30) ending with John’s acknowledgement that Jesus must increase, and he [John] must decrease (3:30).

John worked in places around the Jordan that were away from the main roads, i.e. remote places (called “wilderness” in many English translations of Mark and Matthew).

During this last winter after a clash with religious folks at the temple, Jesus took the opportunity to withdraw to one of John’s old baptizing sites probably as tensions naturally settled in the city.

Timing is everything.

It was the Feast of Dedication. As the people engaged Jesus in a heated argument over his identity, Jesus quoted a song. Today, we read about the exchange in John 10:22-42, but we hardly know the song.

What Jesus said was, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are gods’?” (10:34). The people revolted against Jesus’ title “Son of God,” so Jesus invoked the authority of the Hebrew Scripture and Psalm 82 to validate the designation.

The problem is the next few lines in the song (which to most readers today are unfamiliar) — “But you will die like men and fall like one of the rulers” (Ps 82:7). The Psalm itself is about God judging injustice! Was Jesus trying to enrage his listeners?

But it gets even more interesting because there is a reference in the Mishnah to the songs that the Levites sang in the temple corresponding to the days of the week (m. Tamid 7.4).** On the third day of the week (Tuesday), guess what they sang? Psalm 82!

This song, Psalm 82, was well-known in Jesus’ experience. His words cut like a knife. And the attendees of the Feast of Dedication, the people in the temple court, mobbed to grab him.

** Jacob Neusner, The Mishnah : A New Translation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988), 873.

The “good shepherd” is an important leadership image from Jesus’ experience. Jesus referred to the metaphor during the Feast of Dedication when the nation celebrated political independence.

The national significance of the shepherd image originates from the Hebrew Scripture in the writings of the prophet Ezekiel, among others.

Ezekiel described how bad shepherds feed themselves and ignore the needs of the sheep. They fleece their followers for wool, and kill them for meat. Strays are abandoned (Ezek 34:1-6).

At the Feast of Dedication, Jesus suggested that he stood (right there in the temple courts) as the antithesis of Ezekiel’s scathing metaphor. Jesus was the “good shepherd” (John 10:14).

One can imagine the reaction of the religious authorities. They wanted to finish what they had started at the Feast of Huts, but once again, Jesus retreats.

In the previous posts, we looked at Jerusalem’s resilient leaders and the preservation they achieved for their nation. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were part of that tradition.

So was Jesus trying to pick a fight with people in power?

As Jesus’ story continues, the plot thickens. On one side, the religious leaders’ work to preserve their nation. On the opposing side, the unpredictable popularity of an obscure teacher threatens the status quo.

The leaders in Jerusalem had a great heritage of national preservation. Their ancestors had survived invasions by the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Egyptians, and the Syrians.

Josephus, the Jewish historian from the latter half of the first century, relates in detail the miraculous delivery of Jerusalem from Alexander the Great.

As Alexander approached the city, the high priest Jaddua dreamed instructions from God to go out and meet the conqueror (Ant 11.326ff. **). When Alexander saw the procession, he greeted Jaddua peacefully. For Alexander, too, had seen a vision of the scene many years before (Ant 11.331ff.).

After Alexander entered the city, the priests showed him the scroll of Daniel (possibly  Dan. 7:6; 8:3–8, 20–22; or 11:3). Josephus writes, “Wherein Daniel declared that one of the Greeks should destroy the empire of the Persians, he supposed that [he] was the person intended.” (Ant 11.337)

National preservation and national participation in the Law converged in the next scene. When Alexander asked how he might favor the people, Jaddua replied that they wished to follow the Mosaic law, the people in Jerusalem as well as those scattered among the nations.

Jesus collided with Jerusalem leaders committed to political and legal preservation within a world of foreign dominance. And as Jesus’ last year passed, it was becoming clearer to the authorities that Jesus threatened the gentle balance of peace.

** Flavius Josephus, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged ed. and trans. by William Whiston (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987).

Around 200 years before Jesus’ last year, Judas Maccabees led his army into Jerusalem liberating the city from foreign invaders.

1 Maccabees 4:36-61 tells the story of the rededication of the temple — later called the Feast of Dedication and now known as Hanukkah. Judas and the people celebrated for eight days beginning on the 25th day of the 9th month Kislev.

During the two centuries from Judas Maccabees to Jesus’ day, the temple feasts grew in national significance and participation. A major part of Jesus’ experience was the calendar of holy days and feasts reinstituted from the Law of Moses. In fact, the Gospel of John tells of Jesus’ travels to the feasts in Jerusalem including the Feast of Dedication (John 10:22).

The irony is that in the previous 1,000 years, the nation had inconsistent feast celebrations and participation at best. Kings David, Solomon (2 Chron 5:3), Hezekiah (30:1), and Josiah (35:1) as well as reformers Ezra and Nehemiah (Neh. 8:18) led efforts to revive the instructions of Moses including the celebration of the Feasts — during their lifetimes.

In the first century, the Mosaic Law was definitive not only for Jesus personally but also for the nation around him and not just a few devout leaders.

One of the major statements of Jesus’ teaching was that he came to fulfill the Law. Jesus could not fulfill the Law without the celebrations of his nation. When Jesus entered the scene, the stage had already been set starting centuries before his birth.

His was a once-in-a-millennium opportunity.

Jesus told his closest followers, “I am the vine, you are the branches” (Jn 15:5) He talks about pruning as well. The metaphor rises and falls on our knowledge of growing and tending vines.

Here are three things to keep in mind from Pliny the Elder’s Natural History written in the first-century.

• Vines require space but not too much space.

The space between every two vines in a soil of medium density should be 5 feet, in a rich soil 4 feet at least, and in a thin soil 8 feet at most. (Pliny the Elder, Natural History 17.35.171)

• Vines are pruned and pruned again. And the pruning is drastic.

A quickset (a cutting of the vine) placed in a vineyard after two years is cut back right down to the ground, leaving only one eye above the surface. . . . In the following year also it is again lopped in a similar way, and it acquires and fosters within it sufficient strength to bear the burden of reproduction (italics added, 17.35.173).

• There is a big difference between growth and bearing fruit.

…in its hurry to bear fruit [the vine] would shoot up slim and meagre like a bulrush and unless it were restrained with the pruning described would spend itself entirely on growth. No tree sprouts more eagerly than the vine, and unless its strength is kept for bearing, it turns entirely into growth (17.35.173).

Jesus was a carpenter by trade, but he knew something about vines in order to craft such a rich metaphor.

Greek mythology has seen a resurgence in cinema over the last few years with the adventures of Perseus and Percy Jackson among other films.

Perseus is a fascinating character because his origin is both historical and mythological.

Herodotus,  who wrote around 450 BCE, investigated the history of the Greeks and Persians and their wars. In his study of Greek kings, he writes,

…what I write I follow the Greek report, and hold that the Greeks correctly recount these kings of the Dorians as far back as Perseus son of Danae—they make no mention of the god [Zeus]—and prove these kings to be Greek; for by that time they had come to be classified as Greek. (Hdt. 6.53)

Herodotus, in fact, goes on to say that he can’t find the name of Perseus’ father at all.

So Perseus is one of the first Greek kings at a time when the Greek civilization was forming out of cultures like the Dorians. This is really ancient history!

Where Perseus’ origin gets interesting is in the book about the Persians where Herodotus mentions Perseus again, this time “the son of Danae and Zeus” (Hdt. 7.61). Yes, that’s the Greek god Zeus. While this passage has some chronological issues, suffice it to say that legend had developed around Perseus’ origin.

To the modern ear, son of god has a distinctive ring, reserved among titles. To people in the first century, the concept was rare but certainly not unique. Perseus was one example among several ancient heroes.

Herodotus, trans. by A. D. Godley. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1920. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0126. Last Accessed: 10/23/2013.

What happened to the arrest warrant issued by the religious authorities during the Feast of Huts? After the feast, Jesus left Jerusalem. The guards did not stop him.

There are several reasons, political in nature, why the religious authorities would assume a wait-and-see posture toward Jesus.

First, the gentle balance of power with the Roman governor moderated action. While Rome delegated authority particularly within the temple courtyards, the rulers were still subject to Roman rule.

Second, the guards had to own the arrest. As they listened to Jesus, they were unconvinced that he was a threat (Jn 7:46). Arrest might upset the zealous among the feast crowds — a constant threat.

Third, members of the ruling court encouraged caution (Jn 7:51). The gentle balance of power necessitated time to assess whether Jesus’ threat-level would grow or fade.

Finally, Jesus himself said that he was going somewhere that they could not follow (Jn 7:33-34). That statement alone could have diffused the situation as the rulers waited for Jesus to leave the country.

Conflict looms over Jesus’ experience, yet in Jesus’ actions we do not observe the hesitancy of someone looking over his shoulder. Instead, we observe calm resolution (Proverbs 28:1).

Piecing together Jesus’ experience in the SpendaYearwithJesus timeline is a challenge — getting to know the characters, grappling with the setting and producing a set of plot options true-to-life.

Major principles like no shortcuts, religious conflict, and friendship frame Jesus’ experience.  Cues from the Gospel stories help fill in the gaps.

There are two important dynamics shaping the winter story-line.

The first dynamic is the development of Jesus’ friendship with Lazarus. However we tell the story it needs to account for the development of friendship between two first-century men.

The second is the aborted arrest order of the Jerusalem religious rulers at the Fall Feast. The winter tension in John 10 resumes the explosive fall tension recorded in John 7-9.

Jesus’ pattern was to engage and withdrawal, so withdrawal in between the tensions and after is logical based on the cues.

To be sure, the winter story-line is one of tension  to the end.

Connect with Jesus’ experience.