Happy Father’s Day to you.
When I consider the privilege of my three children, the words of pastor John Drakeford toward his children are salient. “To [my children] have put gray hairs in my head, bills in my pocket, illustrations in my sermons, happiness in my home, and pride in my heart.” Be generous with dads on Father’s Day: tell your dad you are going to take him to Chick-fil-A directly after church today on a Sunday and tell him to order anything he wants.
Dads, we need you in our lives, and we thank God for your faithfulness. I hope you have a great time celebrating.
Invitation
At the conclusion of today’s message, you will be invited to respond to Jesus’ offer of a clean, fresh start. You can respond by going to the Encourager’s Room, a virtual room, or the altar.
Sermon
What if I told you about a man who was an invalid for thirty-eight years and was instantly healed? A man who was depressed could now do for himself. A man could walk for himself and leave the embarrassment of not caring for himself. And a man who was on welfare could work again? What if I told you that this man was gloriously healed, but the bigger controversy was that many people felt he was healed on the wrong day? Would such a thing shock you?
You might call this, “When a Miracle Makes You Mad.” Instead of celebrating and leaping, the miracle Jesus performs leaves people silent and fuming.
If you have a Bible, find John 5 with me. We turn a corner in the gospel of John, where Jesus’ ministry is more well-known.
In the first few chapters, people would not have recognized His name. Now, His ministry and name are more readily recognized. While Jesus’ fame increases so does His opposition.
Today’s Scripture
“After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 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?” 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.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.
Now that day was the Sabbath. 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.” But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?’ 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. 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.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”
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” (John 5:1-18).1
The gospel of John includes many stories and miracles inside its pages. This one is different. This is the miracle that marks the angry hostility coming toward Jesus that will eventually kill Him on a cross.
1. Everything Changes
“One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 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?’” (John 5:5-6).
1.1 The Pool at Bethesda
The pool is all likelihood the pool at Bethesda. Bethesda means in Hebrew the “house of outpouring.” The pool is actually twin pools, about as large as a football field and about twenty feet deep. The “five roofed colonnades” in verse 2 represent a porch on each of the four sides and one more column separating the two pools.2 Perhaps the two pools were to separate the men and the women. If you’ve been to Israel with our church, then you visited this sight. It’s near the St. Anne’s Church which many of you will remember for its stunning acoustics, and we always stop to hear and sing a beautiful hymn.
Now, public baths were a normal thing in the Roman Empire at the time. It wasn’t unusual to find public beggars near a public bath like Jesus does here. John says there were three kinds of people lying around there: “blind, lame, and paralyzed” in verse 3. Now, the Bible says the pool was next to the Sheep’s Gate in verse 2. This is a place where we were washed before entering the Temple area. With animals present and so many disabled people, those who wished to be ritually pure and the upper class would have avoided this area.3 Not Jesus.
Jesus intentionally went to seek this disabled man. Jesus did not go to the palace, but to the major place of need in the city.
1.2 Superstition
The pool at Bethesda would periodically ripple because a subterranean spring fed it. And no doubt, someone with a disease was in the pool when the water moved. The popular belief was that an angel had stirred the waters. And the first person in the waters would supposedly be healed. This was all superstition.
1.3 Thirty Eight Years
John tells us that the man had been an invalid for thirty eight years. While he may have been brought to the pool every day for all those years, it’s probable that he was brought there when the stirring of the water was expected. We are not told if he was born with some kind of disability, and he was thirty eight years old. Or is he sixty years old, and this happened when he was in his 20s? Thirty eight years is a really long time to be disabled at this day and time because the average person’s life expectancy barely exceeded forty years when Jesus was walking the earth.4 Thirty-eight years is 456 months, 13,880 days, and a little over 332,000 hours.
When you stop to think about it, this man has suffered not only physical sickness but human cruelty. Thirty-eight years of people taking advantage of him, pushing ahead of him, virtually ignoring him.5 This man was hopeless, and he was helpless. Some would call this place the “living dead” or the “half-dead.”
Jesus picked this guy from amongst the many other invalids. Jesus doesn’t offer a reason why He picked this person. Jesus notices hurting people. Jesus asks him a provocative question perhaps to get the conversation started at the end of verse 6: “Do you want to be healed?”
1.4 The Power of Jesus’ Words
Jesus asks him a question: “‘Get up, take up your bed, and walk.’ And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked” (John 5:8-9).
Jesus gives just three short orders: “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” The Bible is clear that God’s very word is power. When God says, “Let there be light,” light exists. Humans are not like this. If I said to you, “Let’s build you a house,” we would have to go there to build you a house. His word and his deed are the same thing. His word is a word of power.
The same Jesus who told the desperate father with his son near death, “Go; your son will live” (John 4:50b), now tells this disabled man, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk” (John 5:8b). There, Jesus healed a boy who was twenty-five miles away when every other had to be present to heal. Jesus heals by just His words. Jesus didn’t need a pool of water to heal this disabled man. He didn’t need angels, and He didn’t need magic formula. This man is instantly healed.
Jesus is showing that He is in a class by Himself.
1.5 Signs
John deliberately says near the end of the gospel of John, “Jesus did many, many miracles, but the ones I’ve chosen to recount to you are signs” (John 20:30-31).
These are not just miracles, but the miracles John chose were also signs. They symbolize who Jesus truly is and what He came to do. These are miracles with meaning, miracles with a message, and signs with significance.
Just a quick note before I move on: Miraculous healings like this one are the exception on this side of eternity. On the other side of eternity, this is the norm for all those in Christ.
1. Everything Changes
2. Hold Everything
“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” (John 5:18).
2.1 Looking for a Fight
Jesus was looking for a fight. Jesus healed a man and told this man to pick up his mat and walk on the Sabbath. It may surprise you this Sabbath thing caused such anger. Jesus didn’t just heal this man. Jesus was intentionally searching for an opportunity to upset the apple cart of the religious cartel.
John’s Gospel uses the “the Jews” seventy times!6 John knows that Jesus is Jewish, and some Jews are believers in John’s gospel. John’s gospel shows us the hatred and opposition of the group he simply calls “The Jews.” Remember that John himself is a Jew, and he tells us about a group he calls “The Jews,” who will oppose Christianity at nearly every turn.
How do I know Jesus went looking for a fight? Jesus commanded the disabled to do what the religious cartel prohibited on a Sabbath. Jesus deliberately told him to “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”
2.2 Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson
Have you ever gone looking for a fight? Most of you know the name, Jackie Robinson. Robinson was the first African American to break into Major League Baseball. Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier in 1947, when he donned a Brooklyn Dodgers uniform. He put on that now-iconic No. 42 across his back at the old Ebbets Field. Jack Roosevelt Robinson was, by any measure, a very special human being. In becoming the first black man to play in the major leagues, Robinson encountered racism in its vilest manifestations – racial taunts and slurs, insults on the playing field and off, character assassination, and death threats. But did you know the General Manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers sought out a person to break this color barrier? Did you know Branch Rickey sought a man who was a Christian believer with strong character in order to change race relations in the United States forever? He believed it was God's will that he integrate baseball, viewing it as an opportunity to intervene morally for the sake of the nation. Rickey specifically chose Robinson because of his faith and moral character. The general manager considered other players, but he knew integrating professional sports would take more than raw athletic ability. He knew the attacks would be ferocious, and the media would fuel the fire. And if the selected player sought retaliation or lashed out, the effort would be set back a decade. At the center of one of the most important civil rights stories in America [lies] two men of passionate Christian faith.7
Just as Branch Rickey, the GM of the Brooklyn Dodgers, went searching for a black man to integrate baseball, Jesus went searching for opportunities to peel back the onion on the crazy Sabbath regulations. Jesus was looking for an opportunity to fight against the evil practices of His day. This is not an isolated incident where Jesus met up with the “Sabbath police.” No, there are around five incidents where Jesus ran afoul of these people.
2.3 Looking for a Fight
Again, Jesus went looking for a fight.
The cartel asked: “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.” But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk’” (John 5:10-11).
Two facts were presented to these priests: 1) a man who was healed after laying around for 38 years and 2) a man who picked up his straw mat on the Sabbath. Which do you think they focused on? Here was a group that strained gnats but swallowed camels, as the old saying goes. Can you imagine an ER saying, “We cannot treat you right now. We are closed on Sundays.” Here was a religious cartel who demanded that a man who was healed after 38 years wait until it was Saturday night. The Bible says they were so mad they sought to kill Jesus. Can you imagine such a thing? Sometimes you just have to fight.
2.4 What is the Sabbath?
Let’s back up a minute. The Sabbath was a day of worship and rest. One day every week, God told His people to reserve a day for worship and rest.8
It was a special day set aside. Remember, the ancient Hebrew people did this from Friday at sundown to Saturday at sundown. The Bible teaches us that God Himself rested during the seven days of Creation (Genesis 2:2-3). God included the Sabbath in the Ten Commandments, so we know it’s a big deal. God promised tremendous blessing to those who kept the Sabbath (Isaiah 56:2, 6; 58:13-14). Breaking the Sabbath was a big deal for the people of ancient Israel.9
The Old Testament specifically mentions four types of work that you weren’t allowed to do on the Sabbath:
WORK PROHIBITED ON THE SABBATH
Kindling a fire Exodus 35:3
Gathering manna Exodus 16:23–29
Selling goods Nehemiah 10:31; 13:15–22
Bearing burdens Jeremiah 17:19–27
It’s important to note that when this man picked up his mat on the Sabbath, he didn’t break the Bible’s commands. He broke the cartel’s extra commands that grew up around the Bible like barnacles on a ship’s hull.
2.5 Jesus and the Sabbath
Jesus made sure He kept the Bible’s commands for a day of rest and a day set aside for worship.
Here are three facts of how Jesus treated the Sabbath:
1. The Gospel of Luke tells us it was Jesus’ custom to be in the synagogue on the Sabbath (Luke 4:16, 31; 13:10).
2. Remember, the female followers of Jesus even broke off preparing Jesus’ dead body after the crucifixion until after the Sabbath was over (Luke 23:54, 56).
3. The Bible tells us that the people didn’t come to Jesus for healing until the sun went down on the Sabbath (Luke 4:40-41; Mark 1:32-34).
Everyone religiously observed the Sabbath in Jesus’ day, so much so that people knew not to bother Jesus no matter how bad they hurt until the Sabbath was over.
2.6 Sounds Simple… What Is the Controversy?
Someone has counted up the commands of the Old Testament and discovered they were 613 commandments in total. By the time these preachers of Jesus’ day were finished, they had expanded this to approximately 6,000 rules.10 So, for every one command God issued in the Old Testament, religious people offered ten in response. For every rule God laid down in the Old Testament, the religious leaders of Israel had essentially added nine more. They made the Old Testament read more like the IRS code. By the time Jesus came along, the ordinary person couldn’t tell what was from God and what was manmade. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day regulated how far you could walk on the Sabbath – no more than 1,640 feet. Things had gotten out of hand.
2.7 My Father and Me
Jesus says, “My Father is working until now, and I am working” (John 5:17). Take careful note that Jesus says, “My” instead of “our.” If Jesus isn’t super clear here, everyone understands what Jesus later tells the religious cartel: “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires” (John 8:44a). Everyone knew what Jesus meant. This is one of the first salvos in the fight that was to come.
2.8 My Father is Always Working
Jesus tells us that God indeed worked on the Sabbath. When the Bible says God “rested” in Genesis, God merely rested from His creative work. God did not rest from His acts of kindness and mercy. If He had, the universe would have collapsed.
Now Jesus says the Father doesn’t stop compassionate work on the Sabbath, and neither do I. Jesus and the Father are in sync. The Sabbath arguments became so heated that this is one of the leading causes of why they sought to kill Jesus. Jesus says, in effect, “If you boys were in charge of a Christmas parade, you’d make it into an IRS audit.”
2.9 Who Is That Man?
Find verse 10 with me: “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.’ But he answered them, ‘The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’ They asked him, ‘Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk?’” (John 5:10-12).
That is the question, isn’t it? Who is the Man?
2.9.1 I Am the Sabbath
Over in Mark 2, Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath. Well, the leaders come together and say, “You shouldn’t be working on the Sabbath.” What does Jesus say? He doesn’t say, “I don’t point to the Sabbath.” Instead, He says, “I’m the Lord of the Sabbath.” “I am the source and author of the eternal Sabbath rest.”
2.9.2 I am the Truth
“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’” (John 14:6). Jesus says, “I am truth.” He didn’t say, “I point to the truth.”
2.9.3 I am the Resurrection
Do you remember the story of Lazarus and his death? Martha’s brother says to Jesus, “You know, if you were here, he wouldn’t have died, but he’ll be raised in the resurrection of the dead in the last day.” What does Jesus say in return? He doesn’t say … “I don’t point to the resurrection,” instead, hear Him say, “I’m the resurrection.”
Jesus is in a class by Himself.
1. Everything Changes
2. Hold Everything
3. Everything I’m Not
“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. 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’” (John 5:13-14).
3.1 Circling Back
It’s fascinating that Jesus turns around and finds this man a second time. Jesus didn’t stick around to claim credit for the healing in the first instance. Now that Jesus has provoked the religious cartel, He circles back.
3.2 Healed for Holiness
Jesus says to this man, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you” (John 5:14b).
Jesus says, “I healed you to make you holy. Turn from sin to Me.” To be holy means you cling to Jesus and His grace. You run to Him. Be honest now: if God came to you and said, “I can make your life heaven on earth without Me or with Me. Which would you prefer?”
3.3 Don’t Blame Me
Do you see what Jesus did here? Jesus didn’t pick out a man who was holy and reward him with healing. Jesus went to someone like you. “The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him” (John 5:15). The religious cartel comes to this man and asks, “Why are you carrying this mat?” This guy says, “Don’t look at me. This guy over here did it.” “What guy?” “I don’t know.” Now, Jesus finds him and he runs back to the authorities to try to get in good with the powers that be, and says, “There’s the guy. Don’t prosecute me. There’s the guy.” The man doesn’t believe. The man doesn’t appreciate what Jesus has done.
I know there are a lot of people who say, “Wait. That’s not how it’s supposed to end. What do you mean? Jesus heals him, and he’s supposed to come back and say, ‘My Lord and My God.’” There are a lot of people who are healed and believe. This guy probably isn’t one of them.
3.4 The Mercy and Grace of God
The Bible doesn’t teach that God says the good people. Or that God seeks out the worthy people. No, God’s grace aims for needy people, sinful people who don’t deserve Him. This guy is just like you. He doesn’t deserve the grace of Jesus any more than I do. God saves us by His mercy.
EndNotes
1 Omitted in the interest of time: Jesus has left the area of Galilee and moved south to the famous city of Jerusalem. It’s around this time of a religious feast that He arrives. This is likely the only event from the second year of Jesus’ 3 years of public ministry that John highlights. It could be about 1-1.5 years have passed since Jesus encountered Nicodemus in John 3, and He cleansed the Temple in John 2. The 3 chapters of this section, John 5–7, record the shift in the gospel of John. Before John 5, you witness reservation and hesitation about Jesus. But in these three chapters, you’ll witness outright opposition and sometimes official hostility to Jesus.
Andreas J. Köstenberger, John, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 177. See also, D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary. (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans, 1991), 240.
2 Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary & 2. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2012), 636-637.
3 Köstenberger, 178.
4 Ibid., 179.
5 Frederick Dale Bruner, The Gospel of John: A Commentary. (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: Eerdmans, 2012), 298.
6 George R. Beasley-Murray, John, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1999), 20.
7 Eric Metaxas Seven Men: And the Secret of Their Greatness (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2013), 109
8 The ancient Hebrew people did this from Friday at sundown to Saturday at sundown.
9 Omitted in the interest of time: Anyone intentionally breaking the Sabbath was to be put to death (Exodus 31:14-15; 35:2; Numbers 15:32-36). An example of this was when God’s miracle of giving manna and quail to the people of Israel. They had left Egypt and were on their way to their permanent home. They were traveling in the desert when God literally dropped manna and quail down from skies to feed them (Exodus 16; Numbers 11). God told them not to collect manna or quail on the Sabbath but to collect enough the day before to last them for two days.
10 R. Kent Hughes, Luke, Volume 2: That you May Know the Truth, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1998), 30.
