John 5:2-18. The Lord of the Sabbath
This story centres on the healing of a paralysed man but the Jews objected to when he did this!
2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
7 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10 and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”
11 But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”
12 So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”
13 The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
14 Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.
16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. 17 In his defence Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” 18 For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
When relaxing over a drink after a game of tennis my opponent started talking about church but admitted that he had stopped attending many years ago, adding,
“I do think there is a god but it is Jesus I can’t understand – how can a man be God?”
I invited him to join us at a Christianity Explored supper but he clearly did not want to try and resolve his query. He clearly did not want to investigate further, though he accepted that the evidence is very strong.
Mark Twain, the author of ‘Huckleberry Finn’ once said about the Bible,
“I have no problem with those parts of the Bible I don’t understand. Its those parts of the Bible I do understand that give me fits.”
This passage from John’s record of the gospel describes the third of the seven miraculous signs selected by the apostle to convince people who Jesus is. He describes the healing of a lame man at the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem and there are many lessons to be learnt from this account.
At the end of John’s book there is a key paragraph that explains why these seven miraculous signs were chosen,
“Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” John 20:30-31
These seven miracles, interspersed with what Jesus taught, are really signs to show who Jesus is. This evidence is vital as it can lead to a genuine personal trust in Jesus, which itself results in people being given eternal life by God.
The previous signs are significant.
1. The first was the changing of water into wine (John 2:1-11). This illustrated that Jesus was about to replace the old Jewish system with the completed faith. Jesus used Jewish water jars of purification to teach about the new and very attractive righteousness that was to be given to those in his kingdom. The servants took Jesus at his word and whatever he ordered,
“They did so.”
2. The second sign was the healing of the royal official’s son who was terminally ill (John 4:43-54). He demonstrated his own authority over illness but it also teaches the response Jesus expects from all people. He heard Jesus speak and went home believing.
“The man took Jesus at his word and departed.”
The effect was not only that his son was healed but they learned that the word of Jesus was dependable.
“So he and all his household believed.” John 4:53
These signs are all about who Jesus is. The seven signs are linked to the seven ‘I am’ sayings that John emphasises Jesus saying. ‘I am’ is the name with which God introduced himself to Moses at the burning bush before Moses returned to free God’s people (Exodus 3:14) Jesus repeatedly said of himself, ‘I am’, so claiming to be that self same God. After the feeding of the five thousand Jesus said, ‘I am the bread of life’ (John 6:35). After the healing of the man born blind Jesus said, ‘I am the light of the world’ (John 8:12). After he raises his friend Lazarus from the dead he says, ‘I am the resurrection and the life’ (John 11:25).
It is important to see that there are hallmarks in these accounts that shout that they are authentic historical records. They are not fables. One example is the problem of the five colonnades.
“Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades.” John 5:2
For many years people thought the ‘five colonnades’ must be metaphorical, a picture of the five books of Moses; after all, how can a pool be surrounded by five colonnades? However, in the 1950’s, an archaeological dig outside St. Anne’s church in Jerusalem, near the Sheep Gate and the Fortress of Antonia, found this pool. It has twin pools, with the fifth colonnade separating the two.
Over the years people have thought that spa waters have special healing qualities. The word ‘SPA’ comes from the Latin ‘Salus Per Aqua’, ‘salvation or health through water’. It was because of this belief in the value of spas that William Wilberforce, the British politician who led the fight to abolish the slave trade, frequently went to Bath because he valued the quality of the spa waters there.
Everyone worships someone or something – even atheists. There are many false gods and idols but only one true God. The New Testament is much more critical of those holding gullible beliefs than of honest scepticism. People find it easier to believe in astrology, materialism and foundation-less religions than in Jesus and what he taught, in spite of all the evidence. Our courts accept the verdict of twelve good men and true, yet people wilfully reject the verdict of the twelve disciples, men who were willing to die for their conclusions about Jesus.
There is no doubt how Jesus’ contemporaries understood what Jesus was claiming,
“ For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.” John 5:18
The Miraculous Sign
Jesus visited the spa of Bethesda where many disabled people were lying around. Jesus notices one paralysed man who had been an invalid for thirty eight years. Jesus asks a penetrating question,
“Do you want to get well?” John 5:6
It is not such a silly question as first seems. Some people find security in their illnesses. People feel sorry for them. Some beggars can even make a good living; if they were healed they would have to work!
In discussions about Christianity it is not uncommon for people to ask questions that are a smoke screen. It is clear that some people do not want answers; ignorance can be just an excuse for inactivity. Sometimes it is worth pulling the plug by saying,
“Do you really want answers to your questions? If your questions are answered satisfactorily would you be willing to change direction or are they just red herrings?”
The paralysed man does not give a straightforward answer.
“I have no-one to help me into the pool . . .” John 5:7
Clearly there was a belief going around that the first person into the pool when the waters stirred would benefit. The man was about to understand that he was standing in front of a person who can help him in greater ways than he ever imagined.
Then comes an astounding event,
“Next Jesus said to him, ‘Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.’ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.” John 5:8-9
Instantaneously, without physiotherapy or stem cell therapy this man’s atrophied nerves and muscles spring back to life. He walks away.
But there is something seriously wrong. Where is the joy and excitement? Where is that exuberant gratefulness that would be expected? Why doesn’t he even ask, ‘Who are you?’
The Sabbath
“The day on which this took place was a Sabbath.” John 5:9b
God had introduced the Sabbath day at the end of the creation story. ‘Shabbat’ means ‘rest’ in Hebrew. God rested from his creative work, but continued with his other work sustaining all that he had made. Since the beginning, God’s people have honoured the Sabbath rest as a reminder of God’s significance. It is also a reminder of the future rest in heaven that he wants man to enter, although those with whom God is angry will not gain admittance.
“Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways. So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest’. Hebrews 3:11
The Ten Commandments, which included the requirement to ‘keep the Sabbath day holy’, were given to remind God’s people of these priorities. However the Jews later added more and more ‘do’s and don’ts’ about how the Sabbath should be kept holy, so that in all there were 613 detailed Jewish laws.
A friend of mine lives in a country house. His nearest neighbours were Jewish. One Saturday morning in mid winter his doorbell rang and there stood a delegation of Jewish rabbis. They explained that their central heating was not working, that they were desperately cold and asked if my friend could come and look at the problem. He went with them. All that was needed was to press the override switch – but being a Sabbath such work was not permitted to orthodox Jews. Similarly if they had toothache on a Sabbath they could not put vinegar on the tooth to deaden the pain as that would be an act of healing. However if food had vinegar in it, that would be acceptable as it was just eating. The rules forbid reading by the light of a lamp.
Jesus clearly broke these rabbinical regulations when he healed the paralysed man and then told him to pick up his bed and walk. Both actions involved work on the Sabbath!
The rabbis did teach that God himself, in contrast to man, does not need a sabbath; on the contrary, the universe requires him to keep sustaining all he has created.
Jesus is very provocative in that he publicly performed miracles on the Sabbath. He could easily have waited a day if he had wanted. The reason he didn’t was to it make clear that because his Father continues to work on the sabbath, so can he. He repeatedly claimed to be one with God the Father and this is just one way to make the point abundantly clear.
C.S.Lewis who wrote the Narnia stories had once been an atheist. In his book ‘Mere Christianity’, he explains why he had become a Christian, he wrote,
“Among these Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. Now let us get this clear. Among Pantheists, like the Indians, anyone might say that he was a part of God, or one with God: there would be nothing very odd about it. But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. God, in their language, meant the Being outside the world, who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else. And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.
One part of the claim tends to slip past us unnoticed because we have heard it so often that we no longer see what it amounts to. I mean the claim to forgive sins: any sins. Now unless the speaker is God, this is really so preposterous as to be comic. We can all understand how a man forgives offences against himself. You tread on my toes and I forgive you, you steal my money and I forgive you. But what should we make of a man, himself unrobbed and untrodden on, who announced that he forgave you for treading on other men’s toes and stealing other men’s money? Asinine fatuity is the kindest description we should give of his conduct. Yet this is what Jesus did. He told people that their sins were forgiven, and never waited to consult all the other people whom their sins had undoubtedly injured. He unhesitatingly behaved as if He was the party chiefly concerned, the person chiefly offended in all offences. This makes sense only if He really was the God whose laws are broken and whose love is wounded in every sin. In the mouth of any speaker who is not God, these words would imply what I can only regard as a silliness and conceit unrivalled by any other character in history.
Yet (and this is the strange, significant thing) even His enemies, when they read the Gospels, do not usually get the impression of silliness and conceit. Still less do unprejudiced readers. Christ says that He is “humble and meek” and we believe Him; not noticing that, if He were merely a man, humility and meekness are the very last characteristics we could attribute to some of His sayings.
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”i
I well remember a teacher at school telling us that Jesus never claimed to be God. How mistaken he was, he cannot have read the New Testament. The hostility against Jesus in his day can only be understood if he really did make the outrageous claim to be equal with God himself. If he is God then there is no problem in him being able to make a paralysed man walk instantaneously. The criticism of the religious leaders dramatically illustrates how some people cannot put on true perspective on anything. Their only response to this extraordinary miracle was
“It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.” John 5:12
The Healed Man
The healed man does not come across in an attractive light either. There was no ‘thank you’ and no praise. Instead, when accosted by the Jewish authorities for carrying his mat on the Sabbath, he blames Jesus.
“The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk’.” John 5:11
Instead of being immensely grateful and loyal to Jesus, he is willing to blame Jesus for telling him to pick up his mat. When they asked who the healer was, he says he doesn’t know. This reveals a remarkable apathy; most people would at least try to discover who had helped them so dramatically.
A little later it was Jesus himself who goes and finds the healed man. He says,
“See, you are well.” John 5:14
I suspect the man was a little nonplussed and embarrassed. Why had he not bothered to follow Jesus? Then comes a stern rebuke.
“Stop sinning or something else may happen to you.” John 5:14
Sin, in Jesus eyes, is not ‘carrying a mat on the Sabbath’ – it is the failure to follow the living God. What is worse than spending 38 years as a paralysed beggar? The point is clear. The eternal consequences of unforgiven sin are far worse than any physical illness.
Normally there is no direct connection between health and past sin. When Jesus met a man blind from birth, his disciples enquired,
“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” John 9:2
Jesus replied,
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned.” John 9:3
However occasionally there is a link. A man who goes with a prostitute may pick up a venereal disease. Even a man who takes part in the church Communion feast when he is not right with God may fall ill as a consequence (1 Corinthians 11:30). However Jesus is not making any link here – sin is simply our greatest problem. Sin is a wilful rebellion against God. The word has been well spelt,
S I n
Sin is living with ‘I’ in the centre, where God ought to be. Another explanation of sin, that we use in our Sunday School, makes the same point,
Shove off God I’m in charge No to what you want
Now, because Jesus has sought him out, this healed paralytic man knows who has healed him. His response is frightening.
“The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.” John 5:15
He is such an ungrateful, unattractive character - a ‘sneak’ or ‘snitch’. The effect of his action is that the Jews turn to persecute Jesus. In the subsequent conversation with the Jewish authorities, Jesus explains that they have misunderstood the reason he should heal on the Sabbath,
“My Father is always at work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” John 5:17
They explode because Jesus is talking about Yahweh, the Mighty God, as if he is his own Father. Now they want him dead not only because he is flagrantly breaking the Jewish laws but is clearly claiming to be divine.
“For this reason the Jews tried the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.” John 5:18
In our schools, universities and even theological colleges there are some who teach that Jesus never claimed to be God. Yet this passage is one of many making it clear what people understood Jesus to be saying. He never denies their conclusion that he was claiming to be God.
In the following verses Jesus make it abundantly clear that he places himself at the centre of the universe. Such megalomania is astonishing in one so humble, in a person who was even willing to sacrifice his life for others.
“For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. Moreover, the Father judges no-one but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father. He who does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent him.” John 5:21-23
Jesus continues to explain that our eternal destiny depends on how we regard Jesus and his teaching.
“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.” John 5:24
When Jesus met this man he did not just see an invalid, he saw into his heart. John loves to use symbolism. The man had been impotent and helpless for 38 years. He could do nothing to correct this problem. In a similar way sin results in us being helpless and we cannot undo the addiction that it causes. We need a miracle to change our hearts. Well intentioned resolutions for us to behave as God wants will be broken within a very short time. The good news is that a miraculous spiritual heart transplant is available to all God calls.
BVP
January 2019
iC.S.Lewis, ‘Mere Christianity’ Book 2, chapter 3
