Episode Transcript
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Morning where in John, continuing in
John Now Chapter Five, John Five,
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verses one through eighteen. In John
Five we have an inner and introduction that
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Jesus goes up to Jerusalem at a
time of the feast. It's not clear
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what the feast is and it doesn't
really matter too much because John is John's
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emphasis is not on the feast itself
but on the Sabbath and he as you'll
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and you'll see that in a moment. And let's give our attention to God's
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word. Now, John Chapter Five. After this, there was a feast
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of the Jews and Jesus went up
to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem, by
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the Sheep Gate, a pool in
Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed
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colonnades. In these lay a multitude
of invalids, blind, lame and paralyzed.
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One man was there who had been
an invalid for thirty eight years.
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When Jesus saw him lying there and
knew that he had already been there a
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long time, he said to him, do you want to be healed?
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The sick man answered him, Sir, I have no one to put me
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into the pool and when the water
is stirred up and when I have.
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Sorry, sir, I have no
one to put me into the pool when
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the water is stirred up. And
while I am going, another steps down
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before me. Jesus said to him
get up, take up your bed and
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walk. And at once the man
was healed and he took up his bed
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and walked. Now that day was
the sabbath. So the Jews said to
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the man who had been healed,
it is the sabbath and it is not
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lawful for you to take up your
bed. But he answered them the man
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who healed me, that man said
to me, take up your bed and
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walk. They asked him, who
is the man who said do you take
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up your bed and walk now?
Now the man who had been healed did
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not know who it was, for
Jesus had withdrawn and there was a crowd
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in the place. Afterward, Jesus
found him in the temple and said to
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him, see, you are well, sin no more, that nothing worse
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may happen to you. The man
went away and told the Jews that it
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was Jesus who had healed him,
and this was why the Jews were persecuting
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Jesus, because he was doing these
things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered
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them. My father is working until
now and I am working. This is
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why the Jews were seeking all the
more to kill him, because not only
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was he breaking the sabbath, but
he was even but he was even calling
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God his own father, making himself
equal with God. May God's word be
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blessed to us. You may be
seated. I love this passage for so
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many reasons. I hope I can
preach it fairly this morning. One of
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the things that is so remarkable to
me about this passage is it's a case
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study perhaps in missing the point.
The Jews had just seen this man who
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had been an invalid for thirty eight
years, thirty eight years, a lifetime.
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He had been healed miraculously got up
and walk. Jesus already knew this
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man. Presumably others did. Whatever
this scene was that is going on here,
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and I think a fairly intense scene. We have a multitude of invalids,
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we have crowds, probably because of
the feast that was going on.
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This remarkable thing happens and they go
up to the man and they say to
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him it is the Sabbath and it
is not lawful for you to take up
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your bed right is that the thing
that you should say to someone after they've
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just been miraculously healed thirty eight years
an invalid in the first thing that they
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think to say is it's not lawful
for you to be walking around with your
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bed. Now what we have here
is a controversy and even, in a
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way, a kind of trial.
Here at the beginning of John Chapter Five,
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we have an accusation, right,
an accusation first against this man who
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then kind of a cowardly way,
or perhaps a wrong way. You'll have
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to think about that and compare it
with another healing in John Nine, but
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either way, he sort of points
away from himself and started pushes the problem
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off on to the man that healed
me. I don't know who it was.
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Somebody told me to take up your
bed and walk. This is this
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is his fault. I'm not doing
anything wrong. In some ways, that
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the man kind of plays into the
same story and the same narrative, the
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same world view that's going on here
with these with the Jews, here,
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with these people that are wanting to, as we lay it learned later,
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kill Jesus over these things. They
are speaking very strongly because they are feeling
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very strongly they want to kill him
because of what he is doing. First
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because he is breaking the Sabbath,
as they see it, and second because
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he was calling God his own father, making himself equal with God. The
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man, not really understanding really what
it happened into him, sort of lives
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within that story that they're telling.
Rather than saying, why are you saying
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such a thing to me? He
didn't break the Sabbath, or can't you
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see that I'm walking now, or
isn't it wonderful what God has done?
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He kind of continues in the lie. He continues in this world of pride
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and Selfrighteousness, even as one who's
been healed and says answers their question in
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this way. He says the man
who healed me, that man said to
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me, take up your bed and
walk. Jesus doesn't answer the Jews questions
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like this. When Jesus answers questions
and accusations, it's usually with another question,
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it's usually with something that undermines the
way they're thinking about everything. And
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he will go on to do that
and in later on in this chapter,
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witnesses to Jesus and who he is
will be called. There's something of a
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judicial thing going on here in this
chapter. This morning. I want to
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focus on this accusation in particular and
spend some time thinking about, thinking about
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it. Is What they say true? Did the man break the Sabbath?
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Is Jesus breaking the Sabbath? And
what about that's the fourth commandment of the
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Ten Commandments. What about the third? Taking the Lord's name in vain,
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making himself equal with God by saying
these things about who he is? He
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says, my father is working now
and I am working. He says something,
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he attributes something to God and to
himself that they take as not true.
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They take it as taking the Lord's
name in vain, or perhaps even
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idolatry itself. What about their accusations? Well, how should we? How
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should we think about them? Well, one thing that should color the question
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of whether or not Jesus broke the
Sabbath is the irony of Jesus's own accusation,
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an accusation that Jesus makes. It
was just a few chapters ago,
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you might remember, that Jesus had
to drive the money changers out of the
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temple with a whip. We should
not think of the Jews as being extraordinarily
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pious here, right this this parallels
the gospel of Matthew, where there are
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these, where we find similar examples
of what we might call fake piety or
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pretend piety, hypocrisy, where there
is tithing, for example, but neglect
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of justice and Mirthy, mercy and
faithfulness. It's in Matthew Twenty three.
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Also, Matthew Twenty three, Jesus
accuses the Pharisees of washing the outside of
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the cups and plates while leaving greed
and self indulgence in their hearts. These
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people here are simply using the Sabbath. They're not protecting it, they're not
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loving it, they're not treasuring it, they're not resting in it, they're
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using it. They're using it to
boost their own sense of piety, while
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missing the point of it all together. And in noting this we see how
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John, even before the story begins, helps us to understand the ending,
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that it is Jesus, that it
is Jesus who is the truly holy one.
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Here, though, Jesus is being
the one who Jesus is the one
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who is attacked. It's not Jesus
who is wrong. The sut off the
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controversy begins in the first viewers versus, where Jesus purposefully sets things up,
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I think, for a showdown.
Why do I think that? One thing
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is that vers is one in two
tells us that Jesus performed this miracle in
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Jerusalem at a feast near the sheepgate. This may seem insignificant, but it
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becomes important later when the Jews appeal
to passages like Nehemiah and Jeremiah regarding this
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man's carrying a load. NEOMIAH says
in thirteen nine, I stationed some of
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my servant at the gates that no
load might be brought in on the Sabbath
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Day, and Jeremiah, seventeen twenty
one, says take care for the sake
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of your lives and do not bear
a burden on the Sabbath Day or bring
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it in by the gates of Jerusalem. So John's not just throwing in sort
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of extra details here about this happening
at at the sheep gate. It happens
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at the sheep gate because Jesus wants
it to happen at the sheep gate because,
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as I said, he's sort of
setting things up for a controversy in
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a way by healing this man on
the Sabbath near one of the temple gates.
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Jesus is clearly challenging them to understand
the law in a different way.
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Now, the key to understand this, however, is that the different way
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is not different according to Nehemiah or
different from Jeremiah, but different according to
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their interpretation of the law, different
to how they were using it, be
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different to how they were abusing it. This challenge is also evident from the
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Jews reaction. They believe that he
is not just challenging them, but the
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law itself, or at least their
own perverted view of it. As quickly
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as the reader hears that the man
was healed, they are introduced and they
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waste no time in marveling or wondering
at this mirror Cole. Instead, they
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jump right to this accusation. As
we've said, it is the Sabbath and
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it's not lawful for you to take
up the bed. Now you can imagine
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a theological case that could have been
made for this right. They could have
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appealed to the fourth commandment in Exodus
Twenty and deuteronomy five, that one should
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not labor on the Sabbath, nor
even anyone who is within a person's gates.
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Second in numbers fifteen, we read
of a man whom Yahweh commands Moses
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to stone for carrying sticks on the
Sabbath. NEEMIAH also accuses Israel of profaning
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the Sabbath and, as we've read, places guards at the gates and warns
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them not to carry a load and
as we've also read from Jeremiah these words,
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to not bring a better US burden
or carry a burden on the Sabbath
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Day or bring it in by the
gates. Jeremiah even goes on to say
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in chapter seventeen that he proclaims great
blessings for obeying the sabbath and curses for
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those who disobey it. So,
for these reasons, some commentators will say,
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if you read them, that these
legal rounds, for the legal grounds
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for the Jewess case are valid.
From some will even go on to point
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out, for example, on this
is a quote, that Jesus violated the
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rules of the scribes for the observance
of the Sabbath. Is is one of
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the most certain and of all the
historical facts about his ministry. I'm carrying
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things from one domain to another.
Is the last of thirty nine works forbidden
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in the missionik track a Sabbath seven, to caring empty beds is strictly prohibited
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in ten five. So what we
see here is that there is this biblical
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view about carrying loads, about doing
labor, about doing work on the Sabbath.
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But we also see is that,
within the tradition of that was around
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at this time of Jesus, these
laws had been applied in very particular ways,
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ways which are so explicitly against what
Jesus is doing here. So how
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do we make sense of this?
Well, really comes down to this question.
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Were the Jews right? Right?
Were they right in their interpretation of
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the law? The law is clearly
there. Where they right and interpreting it
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and applying it on this way.
Some commentators will say that they were right
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and they will say that Jesus did
in fact break the Sabbath. One commentator,
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for example, tries to solve this
by saying Jesus is transcending the chronological,
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theological and legal Sabbath background of the
reported events. Now, this may
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seem like a good solution on the
surface, but at the end of it
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it only weakens John's argument. It
also raises thorny issues about Jesus's relationship with
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the law, about his fulfilling it. Perfectly, Jesus doesn't say I came
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to break the law, I came
to sin against the law. Jesus says
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over and over again, I came
to fulfill it. As we've considered from
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Psalm fifteen and other passages in scripture, our hope is in the righteousness of
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Christ, not the rebellion of Christ. So how do we think about it?
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How do we think about this fourth
commandment? Did Jesus break the Sabbath?
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On addition to the fourth commandment,
the Jews also accused Jesus of breaking
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the third. This assertion is evident
from the background of the story that John's
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original audience, likely located in Ephesus, would have understood. Ephesus was well
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known as a place and a people
steeped and paganism, magic these kinds of
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things, and it makes sense why
stay would perhaps wonder if Jesus was attributing
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some sort of magical power to God
or himself. In some ways, Jesus
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saw Jesus using some the Jews saw
Jesus using some sort of power into pennant
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of God. Would this have been
a good ground to accuse him of blasphemy?
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Perhaps, but there's a more obvious
reason and that's what he says in
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seventeen. As I've said it several
times, my father is working until now
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and I am working. Why was
this so vexing to them? When you
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heard that, did that make you, if you are sort of to put
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yourself in someone else's shoes, go? Yeah, I can understand why they'd
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be upset about that. The first
time. I mean, I don't remember
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the first time I read it,
but I remember the first time it dawned
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on me that the question why would
that be so controversial? It was not
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that Jesus said that God was working
in spite of the fact that genesis two
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three says that the since the seventh
day of creation, God had ceased,
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ere ad wrested from his work.
The Bible assumes that God of course does
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continue his work in some sense after
creation, upholding, sustaining at these kinds
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of things. Now the concern that
the Jews had was that Jesus was saying
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not that God is breaking the Sabbath. That wasn't the problem. He doesn't
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break the Sabbath. Well, if
God doesn't break the Sabbath, if God
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is properly working and doing his DIV
vine work even on the Sabbath Day.
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Then the problem is that Jesus is
saying he is God. Right, their
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concern isn't that God. They're not
saying, Jesus, why are you saying?
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God is working? That that's fine. They understand that and they they
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even agree with that. The problem
is that he's saying and I am working
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and that's okay. Now, when
you read verse eighteen, it's important that
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we think about this as we think
about these accusations. Is Verse Eighteen might
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suggest that John himself agrees with the
Jews, because it says this was why
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the Jews were seeking all the more
to kill him, because not only was
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he breaking the sabbath, but he
was calling himself or but he was even
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calling God his own father, making
himself equal with God. This, however,
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we want to be careful not to
conflate the narrator's perspective with the perspective
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that he's narrating. Does that make
sense? Right? So you might get
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think of a news commentator that comes
on and says, you know, accusations
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being made today against such and such
a thing. Right. They're not sort
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of owning that for themselves, they
are reporting that and we know that because
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John is well, he's reporting right, he's giving this biography. We also
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know from this passage and many others
that John Does believes that Jesus calling himself,
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making himself equal with God, is
is not a problem. Jean doesn't
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see Jesus as as doing things that
are sinful or wrong. So what about
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John's vindication of Jesus? John Vindicates
Jesus. Jesus vindicates Jesus by witnessing to
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the fact of this statement about himself
and the father and that it is true.
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What we see in this passage is
that Jesus is not breaking or transcending
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the Sabbath, he's keeping it,
since indeed he was working as the father
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was working. You see that point. If Jesus is working as God is
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working on the Sabbath, and if
God does not work on the Sabbath,
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then Jesus is not breaking the Sabbath. The things that he do are somehow,
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and that's the point we want to
get to understanding. The things that
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he are doing are consonant with the
Sabbath, they resonate with the Sabbath,
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they are appropriate on the Sabbath.
Jesus, in other words, use the
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Sabbath for its intended purpose, and
thus it is Jesus, not his detractors,
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that really wanted to keep the sabbath
and the temple holy. How,
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how does this come out? One
way this comes out is in the dialog
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scenes that that happen in this passage. Every scene mentions the sabbath, except
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for one, the middle scene in
verse fourteen, where Jesus finds a man
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in the temple and says to him, see, you are well, sin
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no more, that nothing worse that
may happen to you. The Missing Sabbath
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Element here. You know, all
of the other scenes having it, except
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for this one, is not an
accident. By excluding it, John Marks
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it, he draws our attention to
it. He also does it by a
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special phrase. After these things,
which marks a high point in the book.
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In these words, Jesus, the
one who has the power to heal,
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makes it clear that he also has
the power to judge. He commands
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him, he doesn't suggest to him
sin no more. It is in imperative
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and it is attached to a warning. Now, while it may not be
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necessary, what now? While we
may not necessarily assume that some particular sin
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caused the man to become ill.
Scripture does see illness, is always resulting
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from sin in general, as being
a part of the curse, something that
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God is remaking, something that he
promises us in our new, resurrected bodies.
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This is important because it explains why, when Jesus Looks Olad over this
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multitude of invalids, it's a sad
thing. People Blind, who can't see,
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people lame who can't walk, even
were some of were paralyzed, stiff,
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dried in their bodies, not able
to move, not able to clean,
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dependent on everyone, and this desperate
seemed to this man. Jesus comes
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to him and says, starts of
this conversation. Do you want to he
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healed in the man says I can't. Some there was evidently some sort of
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power in this pool of water and
he's like, I can't get to it.
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It's right there and I can't.
Thirty eight years I can't get to
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it. And even if there weren't
all these other people that were beating me
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to the water, I'm stuck.
He's stuck. Sometimes in life desperation becomes
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despair, and I think we hear
that in this man's response. It's in
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this situation a sin, a situation
that Jesus links with Sin, carrot connects
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with sin, death, illness,
struggle, suffering. It's in that setting
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that Jesus does his work. John
is helping us to see that this desperate,
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sad, tragic crowd of invalids is
a depiction not just of this particular
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event, but is a is a
spit picture of the spiritual state that Jesus
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is walking into and d into Jerusalem. And you know, it's not just
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Jerusalem, it's not just the Jews. Blind, lame, paralyzed. That
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describes the spiritual state of the whole
world and even our physical states as well.
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Maybe we aren't all here fully blind, lame or paralyzed, but some
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of US struggle with some of those
problems, some of US struggle with deep
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and lasting problems in our bodies,
and all of us will face the end
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of those things eventually death, unless
the Lord returns before we die. The
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world is a very broken place.
And well, the Jews are worried about
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this particular thing, in that particular
thing, tithing, these little things,
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while forgetting the the very essence of
the law, the raiding this man for
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taking up his bed when he'd not
done anything wrong. They are missing the
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tragic thing that was around them and
the most wonderful thing that had just happened.
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Jesus was in their midst. Even
more prominent than this aspect of judgment,
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go and send no more that nothing
worse may happen to you is,
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of course, salvation. That's the
work Jesus is doing on the Sabbath.
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He's saving people. Jesus draws attention
to his role as savior, first by
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saving this man from illness, but
then, at another level, by connecting
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this with spiritual healing. To help
us understand the reality of Jesus's saving work,
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John Spends a lot of time setting
up the scene before the miracle,
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these blind and lamed and paralyzed people. The camera then zooms in on this
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man who had been there these thirty
eight years. Jesus sees the man and
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asks him if he wants to become
whole, healthy, healed. It reminds
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me somewhat of the situation of Ezekiel
in the valley of dry bones. You
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remember that in Ezekiel thirty seven,
this place where it's nothing but death and
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dryness, representing again Israel, Sin
and rebellion. But what happens. God
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gives him the word and an army
comes to life, or Lazarus dead in
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John Eleven, will get there.
John Talks about this man Lazareth. Lazareth,
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Lazarus in a tomb, wasted away, finally completely, and then Jesus
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speaks and Lazarus gets up and and
comes out. The grimness of these situations
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highlights the power of Jesus. John
does this by taking these long and descriptive
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sentences at the beginning of the chapter
and then giving this very quick, even
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abrupt thing that gets our attention.
He goes and he describes this whole scene
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and then Jesus says get up,
take up your bed and walked. And
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if that's not surprising enough, the
following thing that happens is even more surprising.
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The man walks. This is Jesus's
work on the Sabbath. My father
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is working and I am working and
praise God that he is. This work
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of mercy, be this work of
tenderness, not just aimed at the man's
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soul but also his body as well, exhibits what the Sabbath is all about.
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When God made man and put him
into the garden and gave him and
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worked for six days and then rested. God set a pattern for man to
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follow of working and then resting,
and not just in our regular everyday lives
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that of course we need to work
and then rest, but this was pointing
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towards a final hope. God's resting
on the Sabbath Day was holding out for
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man the promise of an eternal Sabbath, of entering into God's rest. If
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he obeyed, you shall not eat. If you eat, you die,
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but if you didn't, he would
enter into this rest that God had promised
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him, a rest that was consummated
and full. There was holy with an
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H and holly with a double.
Holy in the sense of set apart and
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sacred and to set apart under God, but holly with a double you in
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the sense of holistic body and soul, all made perfectly well, forever,
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complete with no more death, normal, no more sorrow. This is the
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Gee, this is the work that
Jesus is doing. He's anticipating it,
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he's bringing it about. Jesus is
doing what on the Sabbath? He's forgiving
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sins, he's making people's bodies well, he's showing us what heaven is like.
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He's doing he's he's doing the work
of God in bringing us out of
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our sin and misery, out of
the curse, into a state of rest,
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of peace. My father is working
and I am working. That's one
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reason we call it the Lord's Day. Belongs to the Lord who makes the
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Sabbath for man, not man for
the Sabbath. The Sabbath was set up
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as this promise of rest. Here
we see Jesus fulfilling that promise, doing
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what man had was unable to do. And so, as if all of
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Jesus is miracles, when Jesus heals
this invalid on the Sabbath Day, he's
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not just doing a trick, nor
is he even just showing his power.
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Miracles are signs that point us to
Spei civic things about the Kingdom of God,
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about who Jesus his, who Jesus
is, and that's what he's doing
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here. He's telling us that he
is doing the work that the father had
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given him to do as the son
of God. He gives signs that point
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to his identity as one who whose
relationship to the father is one that is
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also of equals, of judge,
of Savior. And so, by putting
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all of this in this context,
Jesus is showing us that he is vindicated
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from their claims. It's not there, it's not him who's breaking the Sabbath,
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it's them. It's them by being
concerned about all the things that are
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contrary to the Sabbath. The Sabbath
is about righteousness. The Sabbath is about
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resting in the work of God.
The Sabbath is about belonging to him.
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But after the fall, there's no
entering that without forgiveness. That's what Jesus
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brings. When Jesus came into the
world, he came to bring us into
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this sabbath rest, and that,
my friends, is what we enjoy every
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Sunday. We enjoy it on Sundays
because that is when the Sabbath itself came
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into consummation. The Sabbath moved by
the very will of God from Saturday to
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Sunday because of the resurrection of Christ, because that is when all was finally
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accomplished and we were brought into this
rest. We celebrate the Sabbath on Sunday
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because of what the Lord did on
the Cross. We come to the Lord's
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House on the Lord's Day, we
worship him, to celebrate these things,
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to celebrate the victory that is already
happened and the glories that are yet to
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be revealed. That's why we spend
time and doing things like hearing the word
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of God, being encouraged by him
and what he is doing in the world
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and in our lives, by being
assured of his promises, by taking time
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to stop and rest in those things. If you struggle in your body,
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if you struggle in your soul,
then rest in Jesus enjoy that rest in
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him, particularly on the Lord's Day. It's a day that he gives to
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you not to not to be filled
with pride and self righteousness, but to
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be filled with the joy of him
who has come. Let us pray
