The Seven Signs in John: Lord of the Sabbath, Equal with the Father

Text: John 5:1-9; 16-18

Theme: Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, and Equal with the Father.

The Multitude, the Myth, the Man, the Miracle, the Meaning

I. THE MULTITUDE

“Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. 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.” (John 5:1–3, NIV84)

1. we find Jesus, once again, back in Jerusalem

a. vs. 1 literally tells us after this, i.e. after meeting the woman and the well, after the healing of the royal official’s son, after those events Jesus has made his way back to Jerusalem

b. another feast of the Jews is taking place

1) it must be one of the three Pilgrimage Feasts, i.e., Passover, Pentecost or Tabernacles

2. upon his arrival in the city, Jesus apparently makes a beeline to the Pool of Bethesda, which means house of grace

a. the pool is described for us in vs. 2

ILLUS. As a side note, for most of the 19th century skeptical scholars (particularly in Europe) pointed to this story as “proof” that the Gospel of John could not have been written by an eye-witness. There was no “Pool of Bethesda” anywhere to be found in Jerusalem. The bible was wrong. Then, low-and-behold, in 1888 archaeologists discovered it ... right where John’s gospel said it would be. But it had four porches, not five, so the bible is mostly right, but not completely right. 100 years later when the pool was more carefully excavated, archeologists discovered that there were two pools—a northern one and a southern one. The pools are separated by a colonnaded wall and this is what gives us the five covered porches. This matches the Gospel of John’s description. The lower pool was used as the mikveh while the upper pool was a reservoir that supplied the lower pool with clean water. OK, this is free ... I just can’t resist telling you stories that prove the skeptics of any age wrong.

3. what Jesus finds there was sad, common, but sad

a. in what surely must have been a pathetic scene, we find a huddled mass of humanity gathered in a collective agony of hurt, injury, affliction, and misery

4. they represent a macrocosm of the world we live in

a. it’s a world full of lost and hurting people in need of healing

A. THE WORLD LIES SICK AT THE FEET OF GOD

1. John refers to the blind, the lame, the paralyzed ... and the list could go on

a. the physically disabled are clearly mentioned

2. but there are others in our society who need healing ...

a. the wife who is abused by her husband

b. the handicapped who are shunned by society

c. the elderly who are abandoned by their families

d. the child who is sexually molested by an uncle

e. the spouse of an alcoholic

f. the loneliness and pain of the divorcee

g. the sinner without Christ

3. the Pool of Bethesda represented a microcosm of the hurting people of Jesus’ day and ours

II. THE MYTH

1. vs. 7 raises an interesting issue that begs for an explanation for which we don’t have a really good answer

a. the invalid tells Jesus, “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.”

b. if you have a more recent translation of the bible, you’ll notice that the passage goes from vs. 3 to vs. 5

1) vs. 4 is missing and probably footnoted in your bible, and says, “For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had”

ILLUS. Why is it missing? The answer is that it’s not there in the oldest and best manuscripts. There are thousands of Greek manuscripts or fragments of Greek manuscripts and the way we arrive at our amazingly reliable Greek and Hebrew and English versions is that these texts are compared with each other in painstaking and complex ways so that when some manuscripts have different wording, we can tell almost all the time which is original. Verse four simply does not seem to be original to the original text. Here it seems that somewhere along the way, a copyist drew a marginal note of explanation into the actual text. Verse 7 begs for an explanation, and so someone supplied one.

2) of course, this explanation may be exactly right

a) but since it’s missing from the earliest manuscripts and has other marks of being added later, the more recent versions omit it so that we have a version that is as close to the original as possible

2. regardless of why people thought the Pool of Bethesda had healing properties, they believed that it did have healing properties

ILLUS. It was common throughout the 1st century world to build “healing baths” next to natural springs, enclosed by columns. The sick would drink and bathe in the waters and then sleep within the temple, much like John described in the Gospel.

a. we live in a world where hurting people seek sporadic healing in the myths, legends and unrealities of the day

3. legend had it that at certain times, an angel would stir or ‘trouble’ the waters of the Pool of Bethesda

a. the first person to step into the pool after that would be healed of whatever problem they had

4. we still have our pools of hope today that the world attempts to find security and healing in

a. There Is the Pool of Hedonistic Philosophy

1) many cannot deal with the guilt of their sinfulness and immorality and so they cope by adopting a philosophy that says: If it feels good must be all right

b. There Is the Pool of Humanistic Reason

1) we live in a culture where the autonomy of man reigns supreme—it’s all about me!

c. There Is the Pool of Scientific and Technological Advancement

1) there are those who believe that technology is the cure-all for what ails men

a) if everyone could just have access to the right technology, they could be whole

d. There Is the Pool of Religious Ritual

1) religion often leaves us powerless and nursing an impotent faith

2) we see in our text that there were some who were more concerned about religious rules and regulations than the fact that a man who had been lame for 38 years was now walking

“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 Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.” (John 5:9-10, NIV)

3) religious rules and regulations are usually ineffective and often produce more hurt than healing

5. the pseudo-pools of healing of our day appear to offer hope for the masses of humanity and yet the individual is never quite able to avail themself of their supposed healing powers

a. like the central character of our story, most men lie in an agony of fear, devoid of any inward hope that life will ever be any better than what they now know

b. life had beat up on this man all of his days

1) he had become resigned to his fate and had accepted the inevitable

III. THE MAN

“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?”” (John 5:5–6, NIV84)

1. this is the marvelous thing about God—He loves the world, but He does it one person at a time

2. God is big enough to give me the personalized treatment whenever I need it

A. JESUS KNOWS OUR NEEDS BETTER THEN WE KNOW THEM OURSELVES

1. Jesus knew this man’s situation without having to be told

a. thirty-eight years he had been paralyzed and unable to walk, and perhaps all of that time he had been brought here to the pool to wait—ever-hoping for some kind of miracle

b. Jesus knew his situation.

2. the person on whom Jesus zeros in on was a fractured man

a. he was fractured of health

b. he was fractured of mind

c. he was fractured of spirit

3. he would not know joy again until his life was restored to wholeness

a. when you know Jesus, this is the kind of person you know

1) a person who knows you perfectly—knows everything about you, inside and out, and all you have ever felt or thought or done

2) that’s a blessing and a little disconcerting at the same time!

B. JESUS CONFRONTS US IN OUR HURT WITH HIS COMPASSION

1. the narrative of our text transports us to the Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem

a. here is a place where thousands of hurting people have gathered in the hope of being healed

2. Jesus chooses to go to this pool

a. he did not have to. It didn’t sneak up on him. He didn’t stumble by

b. he knew what he was doing

1) he was going to this pool the same way he went to Samaria to find the woman at the well, and the same way he went to sign-seeking, prophet-dishonoring Galilee to find a kingly official who had a sick son

c. Jesus moves toward need, not comfort

1) he moves toward brokenhearted sinners, not the self-righteous

3. Jesus stands and focuses on one individual who has been and invalid for thirty-eight years – in a few moments his life is going to change forever

IV. THE MIRACLE

v. 6b “ ... he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

1. what a strange question on Jesus’ part

a. literally Jesus asks, Do you want to be made sound?

b. the man needs more than merely physical healing ... he needs to be made whole of mind, and spirit and soul

2. the approach at first appears foolish

a. no sick person would choose to remain sick—would they?

b. don’t assume that all sick people really want to get well

1) there are some people who do not want to give up their anger and bitterness, because that would mean forgiving an antagonist ... which they don’t want to do

2) there are some people who don’t want to give up their addiction, because doing so would suddenly make them responsible for their own life and behavior

3) there are some people who don’t want to give up their hate because they’d have to give up their status as a victim

4) there are some people who don’t want to give up their illness because they’d loose the attention that everyone gives them

A. HURTING PEOPLE TODAY ARE FACED WITH THE SAME QUESTION – DO YOU WANT TO BE WHOLE?

1. many in our society are sick of body because they have not taken care of it or they have abused it

a. Jesus wants them to be whole

2. many in our society are sick of mind because they have filled their mind with the garbage of the world rather than seeking the mind of Christ

a. Jesus wants them to be whole

3. many in our society are sick of spirit because they’re in sinful rebellion and need Jesus Christ

a. God wants them to be whole

4. for most people who need to be made whole, it’s not a matter of desire, but a matter of their will

a. and when confronted with the reality of our condition what do we frequently do ... we make excuses?

“On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:12-13, NIV)

1) sometimes our excuses may be valid ... most times they are not

B. JESUS WANTS TO MAKE YOU WHOLE AND CHANGE YOUR LIFE

“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, (John 5:8-9, NIV)

1. when we are touched by Christ, restored to wholeness, we are restored also to God – which is the most important part of being made whole

a. surely this man whom Jesus healed could have sung with joy Bill Gaither’s song,

“He touched me. Oh, He touched me! And—oh!—the joy that floods my soul! Something happened, and now I know—He touched me and made me whole!”

b. what’s interesting about this story is that the guy doesn’t even know “who touched him”!

“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.”” (John 5:12–14, NIV84)

2. how does this wholeness come to us?

a. you must take your eyes off any worldly pool of hope and focus on God’s desire for your life

b. Jesus is calling you away from your pools of false hope and despair

1) what is the pool of false hope and despair you are lying beside in hopes of getting well?

2) what is your pool that you believe has offered you so much and delivered so little?

c. we all become stuck in these false hopes, but Jesus calls us away from them

d. He knows we only get well when we leave those false hopes and follow him

3. God is in pursuit of your life

a. He wants to make you whole

b. Jesus is the one pursuing the man at the pool – the man was not pursuing Jesus

4. faith is not a matter of overcoming every doubt

a. it is not a matter of having all the right answers

b. the better part of faith knows something is wrong inside and wants to get better

c. it is a willingness to look to Jesus Christ for wholeness

5. do you believe there is someone out there with the ability to get you unstuck from your rut?

a. do you believe there is someone out there who can make you whole?

V. THE MEANING

“The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. 16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. 17 Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” 18 For this reason the Jews tried all 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 5:15–18, NIV84)

1. and then John says: “It happened on the Sabbath” and we pause and say, “Uh oh”

A. JESUS IS LORD OF THE SABBATH

1. this little controversy here at the end is more than you think

a. when they find out who has performed this miracle, they come after him and say, “You are healing and doing things on the Sabbath”

2. how does Jesus respond? “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working”

a. here’s what’s going on ... the rabbis all taught that the only person who could work on the Sabbath without sinning was God.

b. Jesus is saying, “Okay. What? My Father and I are doing our work. You have a problem with that?”

3. the Jewish religious leaders immediately knew what he was saying

a. vs. 18 makes it very clear ... they immediately knew he was saying he was God

b. he says, “I’m only doing the work God does”

4. Jesus is saying that healing this man was part of his work ... he’s telling the Jews that

“My redemptive work, my restoring work is what the Sabbath is really all about.”

a. in a not-so-subtle way he’s saying, “Look, I’m Lord of the Sabbath”

b. but he’s actually saying way more then that

B. JESUS IS EQUAL WITH THE FATHER

vv. 19-24

1. the most amazing thing of all is that in verse 23, Jesus Christ claims (not just claims; he demands) worship

a. now you have to realize how these words were falling on the ears of the listeners.

“You have to honor me just as, as much as … I deserve equal worship, equal honor, with the Father.”

b. the Bible is absolutely clear that nothing with a beginning can ever be worshiped … nothing with a beginning point, nothing created can be worshiped

c. yet Jesus Christ doesn’t just accept worship; he demands it

1) he doesn’t just demand some kind of worship; he demands worship just as the Father