Do you ever wonder where church song writers get their material? If you’re a church-goer, you might have sung recently, “Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name be the glory” (Ps 115:1). Or another popular line, “Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; His love endures forever” (Ps 118:1).

Jesus also sang (or chanted) these lines–at least four times a year, in fact. We call these Psalms, 113-118, the Hallel. The Mishnah (the 2nd century code of the Rabbis) gives their title and use.

At Passover, Israelites brought their lambs to the temple for butchering and sacrifice, and while the priests were preparing the meat … “[The Levites meanwhile] proclaimed the Hallel Psalms [113-118]” (m. Pesahim 5.7)

[In between courses] “The first Passover requires the recitation of the Hallel Psalms when it is eaten” (m. Pesahim 9.3).

According to the Mishnah, the devout also recited the Hallel at the Feast of Huts (Tabernacles) (m. Sukkah 3.9; 4.1) and possibly also on New Year’s day (m. Rosh Hashshanah 4.7) in the fall.**

L. Finkelstein makes the case from the Babylonian Talmud and Rabbinic practice that the Hallel was recited at the Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah) in the winter and at the Feast of Pentecost (Weeks) in the spring.++

Jesus and his disciples would have known the Hallel (Psalms 113-118) pretty well by repeating it at least these four times a year — year-after-year. I imagine that it was like some of the popular stadium-event tunes we hear repeatedly today.

_________________
** Jacob Neusner, The Mishnah: A New Translation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988).
++ Louis Finkelstein, “The Origin of the Hallel,” Hebrew Union College Annual 23 (1951): 319–337.

Between the Lazarus incident and Jesus’ final trip to Jerusalem, he spent time in a remote region in a village called Ephraim. In John’s Gospel, we read the statement, “[Jesus] withdrew … and stayed there…” (11:54)

I wonder…For how long? Where did he stay? What did Jesus do to fill the hours? Can we legitimately fill in what we know of the geography, climate, and culture?

This wondering and filling is normal. In fact, it is inevitable. Literary theorist Seymour Chatman explains:

Whether the narrative is experienced through a performance or through a text, the members of the audience must respond with an interpretation: they cannot avoid participating in the transaction. [The audience] must fill in the gaps with .. likely events, traits and objects which for various reasons have gone unmentioned. . . .  There is a virtually infinite continuum of imaginable details between the incidents, which will not ordinarily be expressed, but which could be. The author selects those events he feels are sufficient to elicit the necessary sense of continual. Normally, the audience is content to accept the main lines and to fill in the interstices (the gaps) with knowledge it has acquired from ordinary living and art experience.**

Chatman’s observation leads me to conclude that SpendaYearwithJesus is the inevitable response of a participating audience member. I “must” fill in the gaps thereby infusing the story with meaning.

** Seymour Chatman, Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978, 1993), 30.

I don’t envy the town leaders of Capernaum. I get to read the story of Jesus after twenty centuries of clarification. They had to live it in the confusion of real-time.

That said, Jesus doesn’t mince words about their fate. He pronounces “woe” on the three towns where he made his home base — Capernaum, Chorazin, and Bethsaida (Luke 10:13-15).

Let’s assume for just a second that the language is kind of like a radioactive sign. It’s a warning rather than retaliation.

Jesus had experienced plenty of social ambivalence during his teaching and healing tours. In fact, he had been asked to leave some places. People come and go around Jesus without “woe.”

But I take it that in these three cities there was some sort of official rejection since they had the most to lose if Jesus was condemned as a false prophet (which he ultimately was). And it’s that official rejection that Jesus warns against for the general population.

After Jesus left Galilee the summer of his last year, his world grew smaller and smaller until his final, fateful feast-visit to Jerusalem.