Sermon Tone Analysis

11.14.21

[John 5:16-29] River of Life Lutheran Church

Which Jesus would have the highest public approval rating?

Jesus the Miracle-Worker has to be way up there, right?

Someone who can treat blindness, paralysis, palsied limbs, and leprosy with a 100% cure rate surely would rate high among just about everyone.

But Jesus the Teacher was pretty popular in his own right.

Jesus was such a sought after teacher that time and again when he begins to teach, we hear of people crowding around him.

Even when he tried to keep his classroom small—hoping to spend some time with his 12 disciples—large crowds followed him on foot to the other side of the Sea of Galilee to a remote place to spend the day listening to him teach.

Those two would probably be neck and neck, if there were to have been a Galilean Gallup poll in 30 A.D. But there were other versions of Jesus that people adore today.

There is Jesus the Tender-Hearted.

Always taking time for children.

Esteeming the marginalized in society.

There is Jesus the Truth-Champion.

He was never afraid to say what needed to be said.

He rebuked the holier-than-thou religious leaders of his day and brought comfort to the downtrodden.

As you read through the Gospels, the historical record of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, there are many versions of Jesus that are engaging, compelling and wonderful.

Jesus is admirable.

Jesus is quotable.

Jesus is a role model without equal.

But the Jesus who speaks to us in John 5, is not one who would likely do very well in a Galilean Gallup Poll—Jesus the Judge.

Jesus tells us that God (Jn.

5:22) the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son.

He goes on to tell us that (Jn.

5:29) Those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned.

Judgment Day is coming and Jesus will preside over the courtroom.

His decision will be final.

His sentencing will be swift.

Nothing warm and fuzzy about that, right?

Jesus as Judge isn’t quite so likable, for most of us.

But, as we are going to see, this is by design.

Jesus as Judge gives each of us reason to pause and repent so that ultimately Jesus as Judge gives us reason to praise God and reorient our lives.

As I said, it is by design that Jesus speaks of himself as Judge.

And we confess that, too, in the Apostles’ Creed.

We believe in Jesus Christ who will come to judge the living and the dead.

By why does Jesus speak of himself as Judge here?

Jesus was in (Jn.

5:1) Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals.

In Jerusalem, there was this pool called Bethesda there that people believed had healing powers.

Whenever the water was stirred up, disabled people rushed to get in to get better.

Jesus saw this one man lying there and learned that he had been (Jn.

5:5) an invalid for 38 years.

(Jn.

5:6) So Jesus asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

(Which from anyone else seems like a silly question.)

The man explained everyone else always beat him to the pool.

Jesus was moved to help, though.

He told the man to (Jn.

5:8) Get up! Pick up your mat and walk! (And again, from anyone else, this would have been silly—even insulting.)

But (Jn.

5:9) at once, the man was cured.

He picked up his mat and walked.

It was wonderful.

This is the Jesus everyone adores.

Or almost everyone.

When some of the Jewish leaders saw the man walking around with his mat, they rebuked him.

(Jn.

5:10) The law forbids you to carry your mat.

But the now healed man (Jn.

5:11) replied, ‘The man who made me well told me to pick up my mat and walk.’

So the Jewish leaders focused on Jesus.

They (Jn.

5:16) began to persecute him, accusing him of breaking God’s law.

Did you notice how Jesus responds?

He said, (Jn.

5:17) My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working…(Jn.

5:19) whatever the Father does the Son also does.

The religious leaders understood what Jesus was claiming.

By calling God his Father and calling himself the Son of God he was (Jn.

5:18) making himself equal with God.

And this whole scene demonstrates something fascinating about the one, true God.

The One True God, is at work at healing the sick, bringing life to the dead, and will ultimately judge every soul.

Gives Us Reason To Pause & Repent

That’s hard for us to understand, together.

The healing the sick and bringing life to the dead fit, fine enough.

But the judging the world seems like it doesn’t belong.

But it does.

And deep down you know it.

When someone is sick and suffering—like this man was for 38 years—we look at it and we wonder, How can God allow that to happen?

It’s not right!

When someone we love is suddenly taken from us in death, our thoughts are much the same.

How can God let this kind of thing happen?

It’s not right!

Instinctively, we know that suffering and death are not the way things are supposed to be.

Now many times, when someone gets sick, or someone dies the culprit is genetics, disease, or some unfortunate event.

But imagine for a moment that there was a culprit.

Someone made a choice and it paralyzed a young athlete.

Someone willfully took the life of another human being you loved.

Whom would you turn to, to begin to set things right?

A judge, right?

And what kind of judge would you want?

Someone who didn’t play favorites.

Someone who could not be bribed.

Someone who was honest & fair, impartial & upright.

Now a human judge can’t make everything right.

They can’t give the young athlete their mobility back.

They can’t bring your loved one back from the dead.

And you know that.

But you still want them to do something.

It wouldn’t be right, if they didn’t.

Because the wrongdoer deserves to be punished.

Do you see how Jesus the Healer, Jesus the Teacher, and Jesus the Judge are all consistent?