My Time Has not Yet Come

7:1 After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews [1] were seeking to kill him. 2 Now the Jews' Feast of Booths was at hand. 3 So his brothers [2] said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. 4 For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” 5 For not even his brothers believed in him. 6 Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. 7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. 8 You go up to the feast. I am not [3] going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come.” 9 After saying this, he remained in Galilee. 10 But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly but in private. (John 7:1-10 (ESV)
Jesus has some brothers. Not only do his brothers not believe in him, it seems they want him dead. My guess is they are getting a lot of pressure to have their brother sent to his death. Jesus had more disciples in Galilee where he was from than in Judea. There were some in Judea, but there were also a lot of them who wanted to kill Jesus. It’s hard to believe they want to kill him for healing and feeding people. However, the times were quite charged, and wannabe saviors had caused a lot of unrest in the region causing the Romans to react brutally.
His brothers taunt him to go to Jerusalem with a taunt that makes sense on the face of it. “No one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly.” The church has a long tradition of being very open and upfront about what we believe and practice, for this very reason. We seek to be known openly. We want the whole world to believe what we believe. But at this time Jesus knows that they are seeking to kill him, and his time has not yet come. By his time, he means the time that the Father has set for him to give his life for the sins of the world. And neither will he let his brothers mock him and box him into doing what they want him to do. He tells them he isn’t going. And he waited until his brothers had gone to go up in private. Sort of a fix there, because the feasts weren’t optional things according to the law. It wasn’t as if he could not go. But he goes privately so as not to cause attention to himself and be caught by the Jews who are trying to kill him.
When his time is right, then everything will happen. But it will not happen on anyone else’s schedule. It happens when God wants it to happen.