Initiative and Authority

From Kingdom to King

A kingdom framework revealed

Orientation and Reach

Authority of the King demonstrated

Jesus takes initiative to show equality with the Father

John 5:1–18 NIV

1 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 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. 4 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 defense 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.

The Pool of Bethesda

North of the Temple Mount

Fed by an intermittent natural spring

Believed to be a place of heeling

For both pagans and Jews

Jesus Encounters an Invalid

Afflicted for 38 years

Not born an invalid

“Do you want to get well?”

Never the first to the pool when it was stirred up

Ironic Healing

38 years of waiting on superstition

Not fast enough and no luck

Along comes Jesus on the Sabbath

“Pick up your mat and walk”

“Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”

Sabbath Laws Broken!

Man questioned for carrying his mat

The man who made me well told me to...

Jesus questioned for healing on the Sabbath

“My Father is always at his work, and so am I.”

A Legal Showdown

Jesus asserted his authority through direct relationship to the Father

Jewish leaders wanted to kill him

Jesus doubled down with trinitarian assertions for the rest of the chapter

Authority to give life and to judge

Unrequested Healing Had A Purpose

Chose the foolish to shame the wise

Surely, there others who needed healing?

Did they think they were more deserving?

Did they miss the point like the Jewish leaders did?

At Risk For Missing The Point

What do we miss when God’s work doesn’t look like we want it to?

Maybe sometimes “good” things happen to “bad” people to awaken those of us who think we’re “good”