Encountering Jesus as Life-Giver (Healer)

Encountering Jesus as Life-Giver

Introduction

In the gospel of John so far, we have seen Jesus shown to be:

Word made flesh (God incarnate, God taking on human flesh)

Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (the testimony of John the Witness - and a link to Passover)

Giver of Joy - in the wedding at Cana

New Temple/meeting place for God and God’s people

Giver of new birth/birth from above (Nicodemus)

The Saviour of the World (the testimony of the Samaritan woman)

Last week, we read Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus - a night-time conversation in Jerusalem. (Giver of new birth/birth from above)

Then, we skipped over a section where Jesus and his disciples had gone to Judea.

Chapter 4 begins with them going through Samaria in order to return home to Galilee. As they pass through Samaria, Jesus encounters the Samaritan woman who comes to draw water in the middle of the day. And, based on her testimony, we hear of Jesus as The Saviour of the world. This is the other encounter we read together last week.

This week, we will also read two stories. Both of the stories reveal Jesus as healer. or life-giver.

But before we read these two encounters, lets get a sense of when & where the 4th evangelist sets these stories. We’ve noticed already that the gospel of John is full of “timestamps” and these are present once again.

Timestamps:

John 4:43–46 NRSVue

43 When the two days were over, he went from that place to Galilee 44 (for Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in the prophet’s own country). 45 When he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the festival, for they, too, had gone to the festival. 46 Then he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had changed the water into wine.

The two days - what two days? that the people who came to believe through the testimony of the Samaritan woman… the woman Jesus met at the well. (vs 40)

So our reading picks up just after Jesus has remained in Samaria for two days, and now he’s headed for Galilee, to Cana to be exact. (Which should have bells ringing for us - in Cana, we saw the first sign - water into wine. Or, to put it another way, Jesus as the giver of JOY! But remember, that wasn’t a public sign. It was seen only by the servants and Jesus’ friends at the wedding. And, presumably, his mom. In this first healing story, we will read of an encounter with a royal official whose son is terribly ill.

There’s another timestamp for the second healing story.

John 5:1–9 NRSVue

1 After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2 Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. 3 In these lay many ill, blind, lame, and paralyzed people. 5 One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” 7 The ill man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am making my way someone else steps down ahead of me.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a Sabbath.

Jesus is going yet again to a festival in Jerusalem. (This is a key difference in the fourth gospel - Jesus making many trips back and forth)

In Jerusalem, beside a pool - where lots of folks with physical disabilities gather. (Remember, they weren’t allowed to be many places - so this is both a place they are “allowed” to be as well as a place where some seem to occasionally experience relief or even healing of some degree.

As we listen to these two encounters, notice what Jesus says and does and how the people respond.

As Becky & Brian come to read, would you prepare your hearts to listen to God’s word? And, as you are able, would you stand?

Reading

John 4:43–54 NRSVue

43 When the two days were over, he went from that place to Galilee 44 (for Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in the prophet’s own country). 45 When he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the festival, for they, too, had gone to the festival. 46 Then he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in Capernaum. 47 When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. 48 Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” 49 The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my little boy dies.” 50 Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. 51 As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive. 52 So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, “Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.” 53 The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he himself believed, along with his whole household. 54 Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.

John 5:1–18 NRSVue

1 After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2 Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. 3 In these lay many ill, blind, lame, and paralyzed people. 5 One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” 7 The ill man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am making my way someone else steps down ahead of me.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a Sabbath. 10 So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, “It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.” 11 But he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’ ” 12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take it up and walk’?” 13 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. 14 Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. 16 Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the Sabbath. 17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.” 18 For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the Sabbath but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.

This is the Word of the Lord. THANKS BE TO GOD.

Sermon

(These stories invite us to ask what the difference is between curing and healing.

So often, we have a problem and we are seeking a solution to the problem. (My son is dying! I can’t get down to the pool. No one will help me. And others budge the line!)

And of course, even when healing happens, even when Jesus the Life-Giver gives life to something that was dying or bringing death… well, we might be more like those Jewish leaders than we’d care to admit.)

If I had to summarize these stories, I’d say, “Jesus the Life-Giver - But who does He think He is?”

What do we see Jesus doing?

Jesus speaks life.

(Your son will live, do you want to get well?)

Jesus seems to give life. To have the capacity to speak life into what looks like a no-win situation. (The boy is dying. Jesus declares that he lives.)

Jesus speaks life.

The man has been ill - we aren’t told exactly his symptoms, but we are told that “in the porticos lay many ill, blind, lame, and paralyzed people…”

Jesus offers to this man, who has been ill for a long time, health, healing, restoration - not just of whatever he has been dealing with, but also restoration into the society he has been excluded from for 38 years.

And with a QUESTION! Do you want to get well? (The Chosen’s version of this encounter is so beautiful!)

And, from this second story, we discover that Jesus speaks life even on the Sabbath.

For us, this might not register as something. But, clearly it matters. John tells us that this is happening on the Sabbath. And then later, we see the religious leaders critiquing the man for carrying his mat - missing the glory and joy of the healing that has just occurred.

How do the people respond?

The official - trusts!

The son - lives! (obeys the Life-giver!)

The household - believes!

The man beside the pool - obeys (gets up and takes his mat)

(Does he know it’s the sabbath and that Jesus is asking him to do something forbidden?)

The Jewish leaders (perhaps Nicodemus is among them?) - are threatened. They are all about protecting the rules and seem to miss the restoration of the man ill for 38 years… which is really fun to mock until we realize that we might be a bit like them, too. Missing the work of God in our midst sometimes because we’re fixated on the rules and regulations of what a life of following God needs to look like.

What is Jesus doing now?

Speaking life.

Even still.

This was announced in the Prologue of John’s gospel.

John 1:3–4 NRSVue

3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

And will come to its crescendo in John 10 and 11 and … well at the resurrection.

But in John 10, we get what Brad Jersak calls an interpretive centre. Jesus, calling himself the Good Shepherd is calling out the “other shepherds” who are really just thieves.

In John 10:10 Jesus puts it out there are plainly as can be.

John 10:10 NRSVue

10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

The other shepherds are death-dealing. I am the Good Shepherd. And how will you know me? Because I am the life-giver.

Jesus is still speaking life.

And from the other side of death.

Jesus, the Life-Giver.

Even when it doesn’t fit our parameters?

Where might Jesus be asking us if we want to get well?

Where might Jesus be declaring LIFE over something that seems hopeless?

Where might we be searching for a cure, when Jesus is offering us something more - healing?

And how will we respond?

We’d rather identify with the official or the man who is healed… but we must consider how we might find ourselves also in the reaction of the Jewish leaders…

Trust?

Belief? (Which is related to trust!)

Obedience? (Which is also related to trust!)

Threat? (like the Jewish leaders?)

When we encounter Jesus the Life-Giver… Word made flesh (God incarnate, God taking on human flesh)

Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (the testimony of John the Witness - and a link to Passover)

Giver of Joy - in the wedding at Cana

New Temple/meeting place for God and God’s people

Giver of new birth/birth from above (Nicodemus)

The Saviour of the World (the testimony of the Samaritan woman)

The Life-Giver

Communion

INVITATION

This is the table, not of the Church, but of the Lord. It is to be made ready for those who love him and who want to love him more.

So, come, If you have much faith and if you have little, if you have been here often and if you have not been for a long time, if you have tried to follow and if you have failed.

Come, not because it is I who invite you: it is our Lord. It is his will that those who want him should meet him here.

THE STORY

On the night on which Jesus was betrayed, he sat at supper with his disciples. While they were eating, he took a piece of bread, said a blessing, broke it, and gave it to them with the words, ‘This is my body. It is for you. Do this to remember me.’ Later, he took a cup of wine, saying, ‘This cup is God’s new covenant, sealed with my blood. Drink from it, all of you, to remember me’. So now, following Jesus’ example and command, we take this bread and this wine, the ordinary things of the world which Christ will make special. And as he said a prayer before sharing, let us do so too.

THE PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING

Loving God, we praise and thank you for your love shown to us in Jesus Christ. We thank you for his life and ministry, announcing the good news of your kingdom and demonstrating its power in the lifting of the downtrodden, and the healing of the sick, and the loving of the loveless. We thank you for his sacrificial death upon the cross for the redemption of the world, and for your raising him to life again, as a foretaste of the glory we shall share.

We give you thanks for this bread and wine, symbols of our world and signs of your transforming love. Send your Holy Spirit, we pray, that we may be renewed into the likeness of Jesus Christ and formed into his Body. This we pray in his name and for his sake. Amen.

THE SHARING

Taking and breaking the bread

Among friends, gathered round a table, Jesus took bread, broke it and said, ‘This is my body, it is for you’.

Taking the cup of wine

And later he took the cup of wine and said, ‘This is the new relationship with God, made possible because of my death. Take this – all of you – to remember me’.

Look, here is your Lord coming to you in bread and wine. These are the gifts of God for the people of God.

[call up servers & worship team at the same time]

Instructions: today, we will be invited to make our way up to the table and to receive the elements here. etc.

SERVING

Take this bread in remembrance that Christ died for you and feed on him in your heart by faith with thanksgiving.

Drink this cup; remember that Christ’s blood was shed for you and be thankful.

The gifts of God for the people of God.

SONG: Lord You Have My Heart

PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION

God of grace, you have called us to be your disciple people and gathered us to your table.

Here, we have seen Your heart revealed once more - love come down.

Here we have tasted the bread of heaven and shared the new wine of your kingdom.

You have our hearts. Empower us by your Spirit that we may be a gospel people: good news for all the world, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.