Going to the Feast

Gospel: John 7: 1-2, 10, 25-30

The Feast of Booths, or Sukkot, is an autumn harvest festival in Judaism.  It celebrates both the harvest as well as the Exodus story.  It is a festival of hospitality where people share their food at table with others.  At the time of Jesus this festival was one of the pilgrimage feasts where people would come from all over to Jerusalem for the celebration of the festival.  It is for this reason that we find Jesus in Jerusalem in today's Gospel portion and not in the familiar region of Galilee.

Yet, Jesus attends the feast secretly for two reasons.  The first is that there is a plot to put him to death.  The irony of a festival of hospitality being the backdrop of a plot to kill Jesus is one of the many ironies of the Gospel.  Yet Jesus has more important reasons for going secretly.  He has repeatedly taught his followers to seek the lowest places at festivals, to not put on airs and public displays of false piety so as to be noticed.  HIs quiet presence at the festival is entirely consistent with Jesus' other actions and statements.

As we approach the great festival of the Triduum we might well consider our own posture and demeanor.  Are we going to attend the feasts in order to be seen, or are we attending them so that we might encounter the Lord in an authentic way and to be transformed by their narratives? A little bit of Lent still remains for us to practice our comportment for the upcoming festival days and how we might enter into them with humility and an open heart.