Scripture Introduction
When people picture Jesus, few imagine a man intentionally offending others. Yet that is exactly what he does in John 5. Jewish teachers had strict guidelines for keeping the Sabbath. Jesus knew them and he flaunts his disregard for their rules. It seems so reasonable to us to add guidelines to protect people from sinning. Yet God is offended by our efforts to guard his law by adding our own. Jesus breaks our rules, because our rules keep us from the Gospel. Follow along, please, as I read in John 5, verses 1-18. [Pray.]
Introduction
Early on the morning of February 22, 1901, the great, passenger steam ship, City of Rio de Janeiro approached San Francisco in a dense fog and behind schedule. Though sailing totally blind, the captain and pilot risked entering the harbor, and at 5:18 am, the ship ran aground. Arthur O’Neill said it was “like an earthquake intensified many times.” Most of the passengers were Chinese or Japanese immigrants seeking America. The language barrier prevented lifeboats from being deployed correctly and boarded. 131 people died.
One survivor was a young American journalist. In the wreck, both of his legs were broken, and he lost consciousness (either from the shock or blood loss or both). Somehow he fell into the water, where he regained his senses, but all he could do was float. Several hours later, rescuers found him nearly drowned and completely helpless, and pulled him to safety.
Harry Ironside, the famous pastor of the Moody Bible Church in Chicago happened to be on the beach that morning. He later heard the story of the rescued journalist and observed that his story was similar to the healing of the man at Bethesda. Both legs of the young journalist were broken; he was nearly drowned; and he could do nothing to help himself.
And so it was at the pool. The “multitude of invalids” were helpless; they could not see; they were weak and withered. It was a pitiful collection of broken humanity. It is a “proverb” that “God helps those who help themselves.” But that cliché is not in the Bible; instead, texts of this sort insist that Jesus rescues those who cannot help themselves.
1. We Worship Jesus as Messiah Because He Alone Gives Life (John 5.1-9a)
One way studying John has surprised me is discovering the frequency in which Jesus “enacts” his teaching through what we might call, “living parables.” Jesus rarely gives systematic theology lectures.
The Apostle Paul does. For example, concerning the total inability of mankind to please God by good works, Paul clearly articulates a doctrine of spiritual deadness apart from salvation.
Romans 3.10-11: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God…. [N]o one does good….”
Romans 7.18: “I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.” And then he goes on to explain that this is why “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” Romans 8.8. Any good in us must come from God.
And when explaining the same idea in Ephesians, Paul describes us as spiritually dead apart from God’s giving new life. Ephesians 2.1-2: “You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked….”
All of these truths are incorporated into the ministry of Jesus, but rather than state them as doctrines, he more often acts them out as dramas. In today’s text, upon entering Jerusalem, Jesus goes to the pool called Bethesda, near the Sheep Gate. This was not the normal place for a Rabbi to be seen. Apparently here the sheep were washed before being taken into the temple for slaughter. And this is where the destitute, the invalids, the desperately sick and poor gathered.
Some of you have a New King James translation and you may have noticed an additional sentence in your version that I did not read. Where my text ends verse three after saying, that the people were “blind, lame, and paralyzed,” some versions add: “waiting for the moving of the water; 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.”
Sunday morning is not the best time to untangle the riddle of textual variations. But I feel I ought to give some explanation. After John wrote this book (by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit), men made copies for reading in local churches. Though John wrote without error, mistakes occasionally appeared in these hand-written copies. We have hundreds of these copies preserved in monasteries and discovered in archeological finds flung wide and far over the then civilized world. The copies agree in virtually every detail. There are, however, instances of differences where we do not know what John wrote in the original. This is one.
Did John himself write the verse explaining why the blind, the lame, and the paralyzed gathered at this pool – they were hoping for an angelic miracle? If so, did a copyist overlook that sentence, or did he think it inappropriate for the Bible to include such fables, and omitted it on purpose?
Alternatively, maybe John did not offer an explanation, since everyone knew of the healing powers associated with the pool and the angel coming from heaven. But later, after Jerusalem was destroyed, those copying John’s book added this sentence to explain what was happening. I do not know the answer (though in my studies I did find writers on both sides who are certain their view is correct).
What I can tell you is this: archeologists have discovered these colonnades, exactly as John describes them, and we know from non-biblical sources that the story of the stirred water was well known. We also know that Jesus chose to perform this miracle during a feast, when Jerusalem was packed, and at the Sheep Gate, among those who were the most needy. Whatever you think of verse 4, the main point is that Jesus is acting out the doctrine of God’s grace in salvation.
This is not just any collection of sick people, nor a random man disabled for 38 years. These are people, “blind,” who cannot see Messiah walking among them. They are “lame,” they cannot stand to hail the entering King. They are “paralyzed,” they cannot reach the garment of the great physician. They are enslaved to a hope of finally being in the right place at the right time. These are the people in Jerusalem least able to help themselves.
But what if they are you and me?
What is the condition of these invalids? They are blind; but Jesus says, “No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” What is the condition of these invalids? They are lame; but Jesus says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” What is the condition of these invalids? They are paralyzed; but Jesus says, “An hour is coming, when the dead will hear [my] voice, and those who hear will live.”
And what does Jesus ask the blind, lame and paralyzed? “Do you want to be healed?” It seems a cruel, sarcastic question; and we can easily imagine a sarcastic answer. “Yeah, [sigh], what do you think I’m doing here?”
Yet if we listen carefully the question may be more relevant than we thought. Crippled people might make a good living from begging. Jobs were scarce in Jesus’ day, and having been sick for 38 years, the man knew nothing else. Perhaps fear hindered his rush into the healing waters, or dread of responsibility. “Do you want to be healed?” may be the essential question.
I believe Jesus is asking us that question today. Of course, we want to escape hell, but so does everyone. Even the Muslim who flies a plane into the Twin Towers wants to escape hell, but does he want to be healed of the blinding hatred he feels toward those who are free? Or, for us, of course we want to escape hell;…
• Do I want to be healed of the covetousness I feel toward the wealth of everyone around you?
• Do you want to be healed of the bitterness you feel toward your husband for not providing everything you hoped?
• Do you want to be healed of your anger toward those who do not respect you the way you deserve?
• Do you want to be healed of the selfishness which so often controls thoughts, imaginations and actions?
• Do you want to be healed of the telling of “white” lies which make life so much easier?
• Do you want to be forgiven, if it makes you forgiving?
Now we begin to hear the parable, and we sense the power in Jesus’ choice of this paralytic. Jesus is showing us that we cannot heal ourselves. All of our self-help books, power of positive thinking lectures, and efforts to boost our self-esteem leave us short of the water. Jesus alone gives life to the dead. Jesus alone heals the heart; he alone makes all things new.
Jesus enters Jerusalem, searches out the most desperate man, and says, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” Now you know he is the Messiah. Will you trust him to heal?
2. We Worship Jesus as Messiah Because He Alone Changes Lives (John 5.9b-15)
The key to this paragraph is verse 14: “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” At first glance, it appears Jesus attributes the earlier sickness to a sin which he is still committing. It sounds like Jesus is saying, “Hey, I fixed you once, but you better straighten up or God will zap you again and then I’m not going to help you.”
But that would only make sense if healing were the effect today of faith in Christ. This a living parable, and Jesus heals physically so that everyone will know he is the Messiah. The miracle is a sign pointing to Jesus, “Here is God’s solution to sin and separation.” The healing is not the solution.
And so the question remains – does this man want to be healed? Not from his physical pain. Do you want to be healed of sin? Do you want to enter the Kingdom? Do you want to know God? Yes you can walk, but something must be done about your sin. Everyone welcomes a Messiah doing miracles; do we want Jesus to change our lives?
This miracle has much in common with the one in Capernaum, where friends lowered a paralytic through the roof of a house. Jesus sees their faith and says, “My son, your sins are forgiven.” When some in the crowd accused him of blasphemy, he said to them, “That you may know the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” – and then to the paralytic, “Rise, pick up your bed, and go home.” The miracle was proof of forgiveness.
So with this man, only reversed. He healed and now says, “You know my power. Will you believe and be forgiven?”
Dr. Herman Ridderbos (Professor of New Testament, Theological School of the Reformed Churches, Netherlands): “Jesus’ works of healing do not occur outside the circle of forgiveness of sin. Rather, they are the outflow of it, proof that in Jesus God reaches out to humankind in its totality, which means, above all, in its estrangement from God. That which Jesus gives is more than healing and relief from suffering. Accordingly, the warning addressed to the healed man (‘Sin no more…’) does not relate to a specific sin by which the man might bring a worse illness or handicap upon his head but to the threatening danger of being content with the cure he has received without becoming conscious of his much deeper lostness as a sinner before God and rising from it. The ‘worse thing’ that would then befall him would be not just a worse illness or accident but nothing less than the judgment of God.”
Of course we want relief from sickness. But that is a result of salvation. In heaven there is no more sickness, no more death, no more sorrow. God wipes away every tear. Let’s work backwards from that end.
We end up with God in heaven only because the Spirit unite us to Christ giving us new life. The result is relief from sickness and sorrow; the cause is the Holy Spirit. And the effect today is sanctification. The Holy Spirit who saves God’s people from hell and delivers them to heaven with him who presence is everlasting joy, is the same Holy Spirit who produces a changed life today.
Jesus is not telling this man to quit sinning lest he end up a quadriplegic instead of a mere paralytic; he is telling him to think about his sin and separation from God rather than his health and separation from earthly pleasure.
On Sunday evenings, we have a time of questions. A couple of weeks ago, after I said in a sermon, “Duty without delight is dead,” someone asked: “If we lack delight, do we ignore duty?” I really appreciated the chance that gave me to address the same issue this text does.
There are biblical answers for a lack of delight. But when I suggest those, often people turn their nose up. To sinful people, a lack of delight is a convenient excuse for failing in duty; to God it is a call to come to him in faith.
The same is true here. The physical healing proves Jesus is the Messiah; now, as Messiah, he offers eternal joy with its present effect, healing of sin and self.
There is one last thing to show you in this text, and while it is not central to the man who is healed, it is the reason Jesus performs this miracle, in this way, and at this time.
3. We Worship Jesus as Messiah Because He Alone Frees Lives (John 5.16-18)
This paragraph introduces Jesus’ speech on authority. As such, we will explore it next week, Lord willing. Today simply note this. Jewish leaders accused him of breaking the Sabbath. Jesus knows this will happen, and intentionally chooses a time and place where everyone will see his disregard for their rules.
John Calvin (pastor of Geneva in the 1500s) writes: “Christ was well aware how great offense would immediately arise when they saw a man walk along laden with burdens.”
The principle is critical – adding our rules to God’s law always enslaves.
James Boice: “All this was abhorrent to the Lord Jesus Christ. So he determined to rescue Israel from her enslavement to these man-made Sabbath regulations and to restore a proper balance by showing that the Sabbath was made for man rather than man for the Sabbath.”
In Jesus’ day everything about religion translated into bondage. Instead of freedom from sin, they found fear of the law. Instead of trust in God, they felt terrified of wrath. Instead of pastors who loved and cared and showered them with grace and forgiveness, they had self-righteous Pharisees who could show them every failure to measure up to the standards which they required. Everything they knew about God drove them away.
Then Jesus came near. And he determined to show that our rules can be very wrong.
4. Conclusion
A special learning counselor met with Billy, a child who could not get what his brain knew written down on a test. Once she discovered the disconnect between the knowledge in Billy’s mind and his ability to express it, she suggested forms of oral testing that enabled Billy to show what he really knew.
There was still much learning and catching up for Billy. But once he knew that he was not an academic washout and that he had the ability to improve, his despair and resignation about his schoolwork disappeared. His transformation was evident when he explained, in front of his teachers, what he had discovered about himself.
The counselor asked, “Billy, what did you think about yourself before we found ways for you to show your progress?" Billy replied simply, "I thought I was stupid." "What do you think now?" Billy again replied simply, but with tears rolling down his face, "Now I know that I am not stupid."
Commenting on that event, Bryan Chapell writes, "Billy had never been stupid; he just did not know his real status, nor his real power to improve…. Some of us—because of our sin, lack of progress, or comparison with others—have determined ourselves to be spiritually stupid, or even hated by God. But in the Bible God tells us our true status and ability. Because of our union with Christ, we are not hated. Weakness, wrongdoing, and failings cling to us, yes. But they do not establish who we are. We are the beloved of God. Though sin still exists in our lives, we have the status of the One who gave his life for us and to us—God’s own Son. And because of the love of that Child who now indwells us, we have the ability to change and progress in our Christian walk. Yes, there is still work to do, but as we seek to obey our God we must remember that we can obey him because of who we are. We are God’s beloved children for whom he gave his Son, and to whom he has given his Spirit. As the Bible says, ’How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!’ (1John 3.1)" (Chapell, Holiness by Grace, 64-65).
“Sin no more” is not a demand to keep a standard you cannot reach; it is a challenge to believe in the Messiah who alone can make us change. You think about that.
