John 7,1-10: "After this, Jesus went around in Galilee. He did not want to go about in Judea because the Jewish leaders there were looking for a way to kill him. But when the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was near, Jesus' brothers said to him, 'Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works you do. No-one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.' For even his own brothers did not believe in him. Therefore Jesus told them, 'My time is not yet here; for you any time is right. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil. You go to the Feast. I am not going up to this Feast, because my time has not yet fully come.' Having said this, he stayed in Galilee. However, after his brothers had left for the Feast, he went also, not publicly, but in secret."    (Today’s NIV)

Why did his brothers urge Jesus to perform his miracles publicly, in the center of Jewish life? In verse 5 it is expressed clearly: They did not believe in him. That means that in order to fight their own unbelief they wanted to watch whether Jesus was really so superior to the religious leaders as he as “Son of God” had claimed to be. For this purpose they were even ready without inner doubts to accept that their brother might be killed there.

Jesus took the opportunity to teach them about the difference between Godly and human works. For human beings it was right at any time to do what was expected of them. To be righteous in God’s eyes they would always have to be ready to abstain from their evil works and live according to God’s law. And yet they were not able to. Jesus to the contrary, did not have to prove anything. He always was in accordance with the will of his Father. He went wherever the Father led him.

Christians, in whose place Jesus kept the law once and for all and for whose failure he died, are in a similar situation as he was then: We don’t have to prove anything any more to God and to people. Neither do we have to allow them to push us that we should perform certain works. (Do they also miss the faith God would be able to make it without us?). It is enough when we recognize what steps the Lord has already prepared for us and when we then walk these steps full of excitement and expectation.