John 7:6-9 6Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready. 7The world is not able to hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. 8You go up to the feast. I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come.” 9 And after saying this, he remained in Galilee. 10But when his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly but in secret.
Jesus’ obscure saying in verse 6 is in response to the disbelief of his earthly half-brothers who wanted him to go to Jerusalem. It was not yet time for him to go to Jerusalem to reveal himself and face rejection, a trial, and eventually, crucifixion. The word for time (kairos) has the connotation of a specific, pointed, or opportune time. The timing had to be right according to the Father’s eternal plan. The brothers were like Jesus’ mother Mary in 2:4, who also wanted Jesus to do something to show himself. The time was right for the brothers, however.
The difficult part about this verse is what Jesus meant by their time. Several options seem possible. One is simply that they could freely go to Jerusalem for the annual Feast of Booths. They would easily fit into the crowds, and it would not make any difference. Another possibility is more spiritual. This was a crucial point in their spiritual development when they would need to make a decision about whether to believe in Jesus or not. Would they accept him as their Messiah, Lord, and King, or would they go the way of other Jews and so-called disciples who turned away?
Verse 7 suggests that the second option is more likely. The brothers were still stuck in the world, a word that has a negative sense of unbelieving and lost in John’s Gospel. The brothers were acting like the rest of the world that did not believe. The good news, however, is that God sent his Son into this world to save it, so there was still hope for the brothers. At the time of this story, their identity was like the world’s, and so the world would overlook them and not hate them. Jesus, however, did not fit into the world and as a result, the world hated him. Jesus came as the Light of the world, but the darkness of the world did not receive his light but rejected it and even hated it. The part of this verse that should have shocked the brothers from their unbelief and complacency is the last part of the world being evil. If the brothers were acting like the world, then they were also being influenced by the evil of the world. It was time to shift their thinking. Jesus encouraged his brothers to go on up to Jerusalem.
This passage provides further insight into God’s plan for the salvation of the world, with the brothers being examples of one struggle people have. Jesus would not let any human, even his earthly family, determine his schedule or route. He got his directions fully from the Father, and the Father had told him that it was not yet time. God’s timing is sometimes difficult for us to determine. We may be tempted to rush into things based on our own thinking and not God’s purpose and plan.
Jesus knew that it was not his time yet, and so he continued his ministry in Galilee at least for a short time. When he got the go signal from his heavenly Father, he went up to Jerusalem. This short episode shows that Jesus would not take his directions from people (see 2:24-25) but only from the Father. Waiting on God can be difficult because the world offers what might appear to be easier solutions, but God’s will is always best.
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