Poolside Healing

John 5:1-30

Election BS Meter

Watching the debate with fact checker thread open. People scrambling to research and understand what each person said. Really racing to prove that Trump or Hilary wrong in any way possible for imaginary internet points.

And each of them said… a lot of things. Of various degrees of truth. Sometimes debates got started among the fact checkers. Sometimes a candidate would say something so obviously false that within a few seconds someone had posted proof, cited and documented, that they were lying.

We are judging the candidate by who they are. And we understand who they are by their actions and what they say and have said about themselves. Why? Because we are deciding who we are going to trust with the power of the Presidency of the United States… and that is quite a lot of power.

We don’t, unfortunately, get to design our own candidates.

Trump is who Trump is… and it is about discovering who he is and deciding whether to trust him.

Hilary is who Hilary is. You watch and listen to discover as best you can who that is… and decide if you will trust her.

And yet… people have been doing this with Jesus for centuries.

Take a bit of Jesus, he had some good things to say. He was a great teacher? And I bet he was a great humanitarian too. Really someone to respect… as long as we don’t take it too far.

Jesus’ Poolside Healing

After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

What feast? We don’t know. Maybe Tabernacles, maybe Passover, but from John we get this idea that Jesus is going back and forth from Galilee in the North to down “South” in Jerusalem. So significant time may have passed while Jesus is ministering in Galilee. And while the other gospels, the Synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke spend most of their attention on the ministry in Galilee, John spends most of his attention on Jesus’ activity in Jerusalem.

And there have been many many miracles up in Galilee and many in Jerusalem, but we recall that John is relating a very few miracles of Jesus for a very particular purpose: that we might know and believe Jesus as the Son of God.

#1 was the water into wine, forecasting his own wedding feast in glory.

Last week we read sign #2, contrasting the shallow miracle-based faith of Jesus’ people as opposed to the worship in spirit and in truth, the miraculous faith of the woman at the well and the Samaritans in that town.

Here comes miracle #3.

2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. 3 In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed.

The tradition was that an angel would sweep in and stir the waters and the first in the waters were healed. Was this true? We don’t know and it doesn’t matter. What matters is that they believed it and so it was filled with desperate people trying to be healed by any means possible.

Note: verse 4 is missing :D

for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and stirred the water: whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had

5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?”

Kind of a silly question.

7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” 9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.

This is a bit bizarre… because there were tons of people there. Multitudes. Did Jesus heal the rest of them? No hint of it. In fact, given how low key Jesus exits the stage, it seems he didn’t. He heals one of many, and says nothing about that man being special, that man’s faith having healed him, nothing. It comes across as pretty arbitrary… except that it sets up the following encounter.

Now that day was the Sabbath. 10 So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.”

Jerks!

11 But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’” 12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” 13 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. 14 Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. 16 And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. 17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

Elsewhere, Jesus defends himself according to the law by pointing out that it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath… but he brings up a different argument here: one of authority. Nobody questions God acting on the Sabbath, God can do what he wants. Of course is still acting and working on the Sabbath or the cosmos would evaporate. Jesus puts himself in that category, speaking of himself and God the Father in the same breath.

And they knew it…

18 This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

The religious leaders were onto Jesus. They understood exactly what it was that Jesus was claiming. He was claiming equality with God. He was speaking of God’s actions and his own in the same breath, at the same level.

And Jesus launches into a profound teaching on his nature, how the Son of God relates to God the Father.

19 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.

20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. 21 For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.

22 For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.

24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

25 “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

The Insane Claims of Jesus

The Son does whatever the Father does

The Son gives resurrection life like the Father

All judgment is given to the Son

Honor (Worship) the Son as the Father

Resurrection is coming…

Now if either Trump or Hilary were claiming these things we would call them insane crazy people. And this is indeed what happened with Jesus.

But just as we are judging Trump and Hilary by what they do and say, so are all the people around Jesus.. and so should we be.

Jesus doesn’t leave open the option of being a good teacher. He was either a narcissistic crazy person with delusions of grandeur… or he was dropping a truth bomb.

He made it all about himself. Personally. He made it about his authority.

You don’t get to choose the Jesus you like… you don’t get to design your own Jesus, your own God, your own heaven, just as you don’t get to write your own Bible. Jesus is who He is. He said what he said.

And we have overwhelming, incredible ancient evidence, really, of what Jesus said by people who were there when he said it. Affirmed by other people who were there when he said it. Echoed and repeated and copied by others who were there when he said it.

And they were unanimous in this: this guy said some crazy things. He claimed some crazy things. And when confronted with how crazy, how arrogant, how blasphemous the things he is saying sound… he doubled down and clarified how crazy he actually was.

… or how right he actually was.

Jesus is either off-his-rocker… or he is God.

Who is Jesus

This is the fundamental question every human being has to answer. Who is Jesus? Who is Jesus claiming to be?

Well, here is claiming to be worthy of honor, of worship as God. To have power over life as God… to be the one who judges humanity, either to destruction or to eternal life.

He claims to be Son of Man and Son of God. And we now understand that to mean fully man and fully God, Emmanuel, God with us.

Hear is word and believe him:

24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

Not Jesus as we imagine, but Jesus as he is, as he tells us that he is, as he shows us that he is.

Who is Jesus? Is he who he says he is? Because he is claiming to be our God, our judge, and our salvation. This is his third sign, his third miracle that John includes in his gospel, his testimony of walking and talking and following Jesus Christ.