MORE THAN JUST A SHABBAT REST
Notes
Transcript
I. Ever seen a situation where religious rules, or commandments were given priority over compassion.
a. It’s always sacred people, with sacred clothes, sacred spaces, and sacred books fighting to keep stuff sacred even if it means denying any place for love.
b. Maybe you have been there….church…small-group…friendship…family
c. Maybe you have known someone who has been there.
d. Unfortunately, I have been there on the receiving end and, I hate to admit it, on the giving end.
i. Been There: The Cheetos and Death of my Step-Father
ii. Done That: As a seminarian, know it all, I knew my Bible but I forgot the why it was written, I got so focused on the speck in their eye, I did not see my own.
iii. The Scriptures that once gave me life, that once served as a healing balm to give to others had become an artifact, a relic, a distant memory of the past.
iv. It was not until I started re-reading the Gospels that I realized that people who did this were not Jesus favorite people, I was not one of his favorite people.
v. Remember I told you last week that C.S. Lewis said, “The first step to humility is acknowledging you have a problem with pride.” So, “Hello, my name is Michael and I am recovering proud-hearted legalist.”
e. Review, we are in part 3 of this series called Eyewitness, the Signs of the Rabbi from Nazareth.
i. So far through this series I have emphasized that John had faith in what he saw and what he heard …
1 John 1:1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have touched…
What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands, concerning the Word of life—
1 John 1:2 that life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify
that life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us —
1 John 1:3 what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may have fellowship along with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son…
what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may have fellowship along with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
ii. And he wrote these things down so we could have the same life giving experience as he did.
John 20:31 But these are written so that you may believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and by believing you may have life in His name.
But these are written so that you may believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and by believing you may have life in His name.
iii. John is asking every generation after him to trust his Eyewitness testimony.
1. This is not an irrational act, to trust in eyewitness testimony.
2. Without seeing specific patients, hospital rooms…you trust the eyewitness testimony of Governor Como and the nurses and the doctors who are telling us about the horror of this pandemic in New York. That is not irrational.
3. Without ever going to the Auschwitz memorial or any of the other thousands of Holocaust memorials you trust the eyewitness testimony of the events that happened. That is not irrational.
4. Richard Bauckham a leading in scholar from St. Andrews University in Scotland and scholar at Cambridge said:
I suggest that we need to recover the sense in which the Gospels are testimony. It means that the kind of historiography they are is testimony. An irreducible feature of testimony as a form of human utterance is that it asks to be trusted.
Trusting testimony is not an irrational act of faith that leaves critical rationality aside; it is, on the contrary, the rationally appropriate way …of access to the historical reality of Jesus.
Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (p. 6). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
John 20:31 But these are written so that you may believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and by believing you may have life in His name.
But these are written so that you may believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and by believing you may have life in His name.
5. John has an agenda: I want my eyewitness testimony to give you faith in the Messiah, but that faith is not an end in itself, it is the means for you to have real life.
a. John is the last man standing.
i. His friends either executed officially or in a back alley.
ii. His synagogues banned them from being part of religious community.
iii. His temple destroyed.
iv. He was alone but not alone. He was bereft of so much but so were so many other people.
b. John knows that faith in Jesus produces real life, makes a real difference and his eyewitness testimony gives them access to the reality of Jesus.
c. John writes His gospel based on Seven Signs.
i. These are not miracles though they are miraculous. They are signs, they point to a greater reality that has been hidden.
ii. These signs pointed to the uniqueness of who Jesus is and claimed to be.
iii. Today’s sign, passage, launches us into some of the most intrepid waters ever. Let’s get ready.
Ha-foke-bah Ha-foke-bah De-cola-bah
Ha-foke-bah Ha-foke-bah Mashiach-bah
Turn it, and turn it, for everything you need is in it.
Reflect on it, grow old and gray with it. Do not turn from it.
The Messiah is in it.
II. Bible: When your version of religion gets in the way of loving people, you don’t have faith, you have legalism. Legalism puts a fence around love but faith simply says, “yes” to love.
a. Third Sign: Healing on the Shabbat
b. Previously on Eyewitness: Jesus is in Cana turns water into wine and after he returns from Passover he goes back to Cana and heals a dying boy without even seeing him. Then he heads south back to Jerusalem.
c. Why is Jesus ping-ponging back and forth from Galilee to Jerusalem. Jesus was a peasant rabbi. He did not have chariot nor a chariot crew for he and his posse. This was at least a three to four day walk. That is where we pick up the story.
John 5:1 After this, a Jewish festival took place, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
After this, a Jewish festival took place, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
1. Jesus is going to a Jewish festival that is why he is ping-ponging.
i. It was the festival of Purim: In the year ad 28, the feast of Purim fell on a Sabbath; and the only feast day to fall on a Sabbath between ad 25 and ad 35 was Purim of ad 28.[1]
ii. Why is this important to know?
· Hidden/Revealed: Because this miracle in John’s Gospel is unique because initially Jesus identity is hidden to the man he heals but then later on it is revealed much like Queen Esther.
· Testimony: And just like in the story of Esther the King’s Scroll that gave testimony to Mordechai’s righteous acts caused him to be celebrated so to here Jesus will say the Torah gives testimony to Him and he will also be praised.
· Saved from Death: And a third echo, is that just like the Jewish people were threatened with execution so too Jesus is being threatened with execution.
2. Jesus went up. These little details prove to be good measurements as a test to the validity of John’s Gospel.
John 5:2 By the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there is a pool, called Bethesda in Hebrew, which has five colonnades.
By the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there is a pool, called Bethesda in Hebrew, which has five colonnades.
1. John gives us amazing details that many people thought were false until the 1960s
2. when two archeologists discovered a pain of twin pools in the northeast section of Jerusalem that fed into one another and the pools were connected by steps and five colonnades, just like John said.
John 5:3-4 Within these lay a large number of the sick—blind, lame, and paralyzed —waiting for the moving of the water, because an angel would go down into the pool from time to time and stir up the water. Then the first one who got in after the water was stirred up recovered from whatever ailment he had.
Within these lay a large number of the sick—blind, lame, and paralyzed [—waiting for the moving of the water,
because an angel would go down into the pool from time to time and stir up the water. Then the first one who got in after the water was stirred up recovered from whatever ailment he had].
1. This is a disappointing pool.
a. Disappointing because of the idolatrous nature of this pool.
b. Disappointing because of the survival-of-the-fittest mentality at this pool.
c. Disappointing because of what we westerners don’t want to see about the Unseen Realm, the dark unseen realm.
d. Disappointing because this Jewish man, we learn he is Jewish because he goes to the Temple after being healed, would rather turn to idols then to his own faith. We have to ask, why?
John 5:5 Now a certain man had been an invalid there for thirty-eight years.
Now a certain man had been an invalid there for thirty-eight years.
1. This is a disheartening pool.
a. Dr. Dwigth Peterson spoke on this pool from his unique position as a fellow invalid, paraplegic.
i. Problem of mobility.
ii. Problem of money.
iii. Problem of personal hygiene.
iv. Problem of social standing.
b. This a picture of a life in agony and despair exasperated by the fact that he will never win the race to the pool.
2. This is an interesting number: 38 is an unlucky number.
a. The children of Israel wandered for forty years in the wilderness. It took them two years to go from Egypt to Kadesh-Barnea.
b. At Kadesh-Barnea, Moses sent twelve spies into the land of Canaan. When they came back, they all gave an accurate report of what the land of Canaan was like. However, ten of them said it was impossible to take the land. The other two, Joshua and Caleb, said in essence, “God has given this land to us, let’s go in and take it” (Num 12–13).
c. The Israelites listened to the majority report, and God said, by implication, “Because of your unbelief, you will wander for thirty-eight more years” (Num 14:29–30). They were to wander in the wilderness for a total of forty years, one year for each day the spies were in the land (Num 14:33–34). However, at this point in their wanderings, they had already been in the wilderness for two years (Num 10:11). They had thirty-eight more years to go.
d. Deuteronomy 2:14 The time we spent traveling from Kadesh-barnea until we crossed the Zered Valley was 38 years until the entire generation of fighting men had perished from the camp, as the Lord had sworn to them.
The time we spent traveling from Kadesh-barnea until we crossed the Zered Valley was 38 years until the entire generation of fighting men had perished from the camp, as the Lord had sworn to them.
e. After 38 years, the unbelieving generation was dead. You have to wonder with a person who is superstitious like this man must have been if this number 38 must have really meant something negative to him. You might think that is silly but it is no more silly than most people who reach close to the age of the death of their parent believe that, that year will also be their death.
f. You see the only people to survive year 38 in the wilderness and enter the land of promise was the generation that demonstrated faith in the promise of God. Maybe, the text is alluding to this same idea for this man. The only way 38 is going to roll over into a new year 1 in a life of full shalom is by faith in the promised Son of God.
g. For 38 years he has been at this idolatrous pool. He seems like a good candidate to just die in the wilderness. But, this is not Israel’s old story this is Israel’s new story.
John 5:6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew he had already been there a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to get well?”
When Jesus saw him lying there and knew he had already been there a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to get well?”
1. I love that Jesus selects a person who is a particularly difficult case in every single way.
2. He asks him a question that the answer seems so obvious but questions and answers are supposed to tell us something about the people in the conversation.
John 5:7 “Sir,” the sick man answered, “I don’t have a man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I’m coming, someone goes down ahead of me.”
“Sir,” the sick man answered, “I don’t have a man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I’m coming, someone goes down ahead of me.”
1. He says, I want this pool to heal me but this is a dog-eat-dog kind of a world. We are all fighting for the same resource and I am outmatched every single time.
2. Perhaps he thinks he has found his man to carry him.
John 5:8 “Get up,” Jesus told him, “pick up your mat and walk!”
“Get up,” Jesus told him, “pick up your mat and walk!”
1. Jesus uses a word that means more than what it means. Get up, to arise or to come back from the dead.[2]
2. The second word, the second and third verbs, those cause the real problem
John 5:9 Instantly the man got well, picked up his mat, and started to walk. Now that day was the Sabbath,
Instantly the man got well, picked up his mat, and started to walk. Now that day was the Sabbath,
John 5:10 so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “This is the Sabbath! It’s illegal for you to pick up your mat.”
so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “This is the Sabbath! It’s illegal for you to pick up your mat.”
1. Notice this group of religious leaders did not care about the healing they only cared about the picking up of the mat.
2. Now, initially you can’t be mad at these guys. Okay, they don’t know the man from Adam. They don’t know he was just healed. They probably think he is some renegade, apostate Jew trying to make deals in the Temple on the Shabbat. That is something even Jesus got upset about (remember the money changers) and Isaiah the prophet also warned about.
3. I also want to point out the Torah never made it illegal to carry a mat. That is one of the laws associated with the 39 prohibited items from the Rabbis.
John 5:11 He replied, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”
He replied, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”
1. The man now includes his healing as part of the information.
2. We expect that they will show compassion now.
John 5:12 “Who is this man who told you, ‘Pick up your mat and walk’?” they asked.
“Who is this man who told you, ‘Pick up your mat and walk’?” they asked.
1. We expect compassion but what we get is legalism.
2. Neither Jesus nor the man healed were actually violating the Sabbat.
3. They were violating a certain groups rules about the Shabbat.
Exodus 20:8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy:
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy:
1. The point of Shabbat: take a break from labor, not from love.
2. The point: take a break from your career not compassion.
When your version of religion restricts compassion, you don’t have faith, you have legalism. Legalism puts a fence around compassion while faith simply says, “yes” to it.
People who are legalist either forget or ignore the why behind the what.
1. Theological System
2. Ideology
3. Political Agenda
4. Party Loyalty
When these things take precedence over the people, we claim to care about you don’t have faith you have a religion, a creed but not faith. I can prove that we are all blind to how much each of us does this because right now you are thinking of other people who do it but you are not saying to yourself, “I do this.” You are probably saying to yourself but my theological system, my ideology, my political agenda, my party loyalties.
When what’s best for people is no longer what’s most important to you, you are at odds with God.
John 5:13 But the man who was cured did not know who it was, because Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
But the man who was cured did not know who it was, because Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
1. Christian scholars wonder how the man was unable to identify Jesus initially but we know, it was Purim. More than likely they were all wearing some kind of mask or disguise to hide their identity like Esther.
2. This is one of the best scenes ever.
John 5:14 After this, Jesus found him in the temple complex and said to him, “See, you are well. Do not sin anymore, so that something worse doesn’t happen to you.”
After this, Jesus found him in the temple complex and said to him, “See, you are well. Do not sin anymore, so that something worse doesn’t happen to you.”
1. Now Jesus finds him and reveals his identity to him.
2. I want you to listen to me hear. Jesus in the Gospel of John and in Matthew never supports the idea that sin leads to sickness. He says that sin leads to consequences and sometimes that consequences could be a sickness.
3. There is a bit of humor. Jesus knows he has been accused of sinning but he has not sinned. Here he is smiling saying, “stop sinning” stop sinning according to those guys who say that a healed man carrying his mat for the first time in his life is a bad thing. Stop sinning are those religious people will punish you.
There will always be those religious people who use fear to control people. When you put your faith in Jesus, religion will lose its grip on you.
1. For 38 years, many different religious leaders looked over at the idolatrous, desperate pool and scoffed, “pagan, reprobates, apostates, sinners, idolaters.”
2. Jesus looks over there and sees hurt, anguish, pain, loneliness and he says, “Do you want to be well.” It is even deeper than that.
3. Do you want to go into the promise land, return back to who you really are, leave this pagan pond and return to the God of Abraham, Isaac, an Jacob.
4. Jesus is restoring fully and totally this man to who God made him to be.
When you put your faith in Jesus, you become who God designed you to be uniquely.
John 5:15 The man went and reported to the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.
The man went and reported to the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.
1. This is not a bad thing.
2. This is a confessional thing.
3. Now Jesus goes on trial.
4. Refer to my outline at the start.
John 5:16 Therefore, the Jewish leaders began persecuting Jesus because He was doing these things on the Sabbath.
Therefore, the Jews began persecuting Jesus because He was doing these things on the Sabbath.
1. Διώκω – “persecuting” is a technical term for “legal prosecution.”
2. They are tired of Yeshua doing his “work” on the Shabbat.
John 5:17 But Jesus responded to them, “My Father is still working, and I am working also.”
But Jesus responded to them, “My Father is still working, and I am working also.”
1. God does not take a day off, neither do I.
2. Jewish religious thought always believed that God could and would save lives on the Shabbat.
3. Pull the donkey out of the ditch.
4. They were not mad that He was citing the rules back to them.
5. They just thought, “he would have been sick on Sunday, why not wait until Sunday to do your little circus trick.”
John 5:18 This is why the Jews began trying 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.
This is why the Jews began trying 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.
1. This is where the nature of the sign is important.
John 5:19 Then Jesus replied, “I assure you: The Son is not able to do anything on His own, but only what He sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son also does these things in the same way.
Then Jesus replied, “I assure you: The Son is not able to do anything on His own, but only what He sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son also does these things in the same way.
1. Yes, he was God in a bod.
Wanna know what God does on the Shabbat?
Watch Me!
Wanna know if God follows your rules?
Look at Him!
Wanna know what God would actually say to you?
Listen to Me.
Wanna know what God would really, really do?
Follow Me.
John 5:18 This is why the Jews began trying all the more to kill Him
This is why the Jews began trying 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.
At this point the conversation turns. It is like the theme of Esther. Jesus is revealing who He really is.
John 5:21 And just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to anyone He wants to.
And just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to anyone He wants to.
John 5:22 The Father, in fact, judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son,
The Father, in fact, judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son,
John 5:24 “I assure you: Anyone who hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not come under judgment but has passed from death to life.
“I assure you: Anyone who hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not come under judgment but has passed from death to life.
John 5:27 And He has granted Him the right to pass judgment, because He is the Son of Man.
And He has granted Him the right to pass judgment, because He is the Son of Man.
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. - Lewis, C. S.. Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis Signature Classics) (p. 52).
Jesus turns the table on the trial. Instead of being the accused he begins to accuse his opponents. He says there are witnesses against them. One they did not see coming.
John 5:44 How can you believe? While accepting glory from one another, you don’t seek the glory that comes from the only God.
How can you believe? While accepting glory from one another, you don’t seek the glory that comes from the only God.
John 5:45 Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom you have set your hope.
Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom you have set your hope.
John 5:46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, because he wrote about Me.
For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, because he wrote about Me.
The prophet greater than Moses is here, Deuteronomy 18. The Lion of the Tribe of Judah from Genesis 49:8-10 has been revealed. The seed that will triumph over the serpent has arrived.
Your love for your rules has blinded you to a relationship with God.
He essentially says, “you are more pagan than that guy was at that pagan pool.”
John 5:42 but I know you—that you have no love for God within you.
but I know you—that you have no love for God within you.
This last sign shows us
Jesus is God in a bod.
And what it tells us is
God in a bod prioritizes compassion over commandments.
III. Application: Does your version of religion or political loyalties get in the way of loving other people?
a. My neighbor wanted to know my political affiliations before she would talk to me about how she was doing as a widow. I just wanted her to know that we would go shop for her, get her food, so she would not have to be at risk. She wanted to know if I was republican or democrat.
b. More recently we have seen some versions of Christianity putting people in harm’s way because of their version of Christianity. Same is true with some sects of Judaism right now.
c. If your version of religion or politics hurts people and does not heal people you are at odds with God and you don’t have God’s love within you.
IV. John 3:16 “For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.
“For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.