thoughts on John 7:1-9

"After this, Jesus stayed in Galilee, going from village to village. He wanted to stay out of Judea where the Jewish leaders were plotting his death. But soon it was time for the Festival of Shelters, and Jesus' brothers urged him to go to Judea for the celebration. "Go where your followers can see your miracles!" they scoffed. "You can't become a public figure if you hide like this! If you can do such wonderful things then prove it to the world!" For even his brothers didn't believe in him. Jesus replied, "Now is not the right time for me to go. But you can go anytime, and it will make no difference. The world can't hate you, but it does hate me because I accuse it of sin and evil. You go on. I am not yet ready to go to this festival, because my time has not yet come." So Jesus remained in Galilee."

the opposition of family
it is hard for me to reconcile how the church today has become an institution where the primary focus seems to be on family values. while i agree that the role of the family is critical both within churches and within families in general, i see Jesus regularly overlooking his own family for the sake of the church and for the sake of the Way. There is another passage in Matthew 12:46-50, where Jesus refuses to speak with his own family claiming that anyone who believes in him are his 'mother and brothers'.
i am by no means saying that family values and the relationships we build there are not really that important, but I am perhaps a bit surprised to see that even Jesus did not have 'peachy' relationships with his own brothers. It's almost comforting to see this part of Jesus. God as a human had trouble getting his own brothers to believe in him.
were the brothers too familiar?
were they too jealous to be able to see the miracles he was doing were from above?
what exactly was the problem?
i have no answer, only comfort.

the importance of timing
in the book "the Jesus i never knew" by philip yancey he makes the following point about when Jesus was tempted by Satan in the desert (Luke 4)... the temptations were temptations of urgency:

• stones into bread? ... will you WAIT for your food when you can have it now?

• the adoration and worship of the world? ... will you WAIT for the end of the age when every knee will bow?

• the respect and belief of the religious leaders? ... will you WAIT for that?

it seems that Jesus knew how to wait. it seems to me that waiting was critical to him when it came to pleasing his father.

the number one danger for christians today is to want the right thing too soon because we doesn't even see it as a temptation from Satan. the right thing in the wrong time is perhaps more dangerous than the wrong thing to begin with.

in your time, Jesus. thank you for this journey. everything in my life has brought me to this point and now i wait on you for the things that only you can make clear to me as we go along this path together.