“No one works in secret if he wants to be known publicly" John 7:4
“No one works in secret if he wants to be known publicly. If you do these things, manifest yourself to the world.” For his brothers did not believe in him.” John 7:4-5
The first verse is spoken by the Disciples to Jesus. “Brothers” in this verse refers to the Disciples. It is hard to imagine that well into Jesus’s public ministry the Disciples “did not believe in him”? They saw him turn water to wine; heal the lame; feed the 5000 men; walk on water, and probably many other things that did not get written down. Yet they did not believe in him? What more did they want?
What more do we want out of our God?
I think the Disciples probably also spoke for us when they said, “If you do these things, manifest yourself to the world.” Wow! That is a pretty brazen statement. It sounds to me like they were asking for bigger, better miracles from Jesus. Feeding five thousand people-- not big enough? Walking on water not--big enough? Maybe the problem was that the miracles which Jesus gave them were not the miracles that the Disciples wanted.
In this verse, the word “manifest” is a verb. According to Webster’s dictionary, there is only one definition for the verb “to manifest”, even though there are several versions for the noun. Manifest means “to make evident or certain by showing or displaying.” In other words, the Disciples wanted Jesus to prove that he was the Messiah. Unfortunately, for them, the proof that he was giving wasn’t the proof they wanted or could understand. They understood Jesus in the context of their own geo-political climate, and they wanted God to do something about their very real problems. They wanted the Romans overthrown. They wanted to be free of a heavy tax burden. They wanted to feel safe in their own lands and homes. And because Jesus was not fixing their problems the way that they wanted, they “did not believe in him.”
The Disciples are no different than we are today. We want miracles our way. We want God to do what we tell him. We want to be saved from our problems the way we want the outcome to be, with little or no change or effort required on our part. However, that is not the Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer God. The God of the Universe is all about saving the whole world, and bettering the lives of all creation. It is not just about you. It is not just about me. Jesus clearly tells the Disciples why he is not “Manifesting” the way that they want him. “Whoever speaks on his own seeks his own glory, but whoever seeks the glory of the One who sent him is truthful, and there is no wrong in him” (John 7:18). What brings Glory to God? “Faith, hope, and love remain, these three, but the greatest of these is love,” according to St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:13.
If we are stressed out and miserable this Holiday season, we may need to stop and look inward. If everyone is driving us crazy and things are not going our way, maybe we need to start asking ourselves hard questions. What is it that I really want? Why am I so upset that I am not getting my way?
Most of the time when we are truly upset, it is because something or someone is “making” us feel under-valued, or unloved. Deep-down, we all just want to be loved! Love is all that really matters in life, as we see from the words of St. Paul, and in the sacrificial love of Jesus’s life. Fr. Richard Rohr writes, “Faith at its essential core is accepting that you are accepted … God’s impossible acceptance of ourselves is easier to grasp if we first recognize it in the perfect unity of the human Jesus with the Divine Christ. Start with Jesus, continue with yourself, and finally expand to everything else” (Universal Christ, 2019, pg. 29). “Love never fails” as St. Paul said (1 Corin. 13:8). Maybe the miracle that we really need from Jesus is to truly believe and feel loved to our very core. That is a miracle that God can manifest if we only ask.