Religious Authority

Religious Authority

John 5:1-18

Rev. Dr. Michael H. Koplitz

John 5:1 After these things there was aa feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

John 5:2 Now there is in Jerusalem by athe sheep gate a pool, which is called bin 1Hebrew 2Bethesda, having five porticoes. 3 In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, [1waiting for the moving of the waters; 4 for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted.] 5 A man was there who had been 1ill for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, He *said to him, “Do you wish to get well?” 7 The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when athe water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” 8 Jesus *said to him, “aGet up, pick up your pallet and walk.” 9 Immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk.

aNow it was the Sabbath on that day. 10 So athe Jews were saying to the man who was cured, “It is the Sabbath, and bit is not permissible for you to carry your pallet.” 11 But he answered them, “He who made me well was the one who said to me, ‘Pick up your pallet and walk.’” 12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Pick up your pallet and walk’?” 13 But the man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away while there was a crowd in that place. 14 Afterward Jesus *found him in the temple and said to him, “Behold, you have become well; do not asin anymore, bso that nothing worse happens to you.” 15 The man went away, and told athe Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. 16 For this reason athe Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath. 17 But He answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.” 18 For this reason therefore athe Jews bwere seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, cmaking Himself equal with God.

This narrative is another one of Jesus’ healing signs. We have several of them in the Gospel of John, and each one has a special message for us. Each of these messages was important for the people in Jesus’ day but also vital to us. So why don’t we look at one of the messages you can get from this story? Quickly, I say one of the messages because all of the Gospels were written by Semitic writers. They always put nuances in the narratives so that you would be driven in different directions; however, the main point would always be the same. I know that sounds a little odd, but that’s because we learned the Greek method of learning and the Greek manner of writing.

So what Jesus was trying to say about the Sabbath. The book of Genesis tells us that God created the universe in six days. It could be debatable because some people say creation was seven days. That is true if you count the seventh day of rest as part of the creation. The number seven in the Scripture usually symbolizes the completion of something. Therefore, considering creation to be seven days, including the Sabbath, works well. However, the Hebrew people did not have the seventh day of rest until they were in the wilderness of Sinai. While they were captive in Egypt, Egyptians worked the people to death. They did not have a Sabbath.

When Israel traveled through the Sinai, Moses instituted the seventh day of rest. Over the centuries, the Sabbath had become a day to worship the Lord. According to the Hebrew calendar, the Sabbath day is Saturday. The early Jewish Christians worship Jesus and God on the Hebrew calendar’s seventh day. So you might ask why we are not worshiping God on Saturday instead of Sunday? The simple answer is that the Roman religion, the Mithras cult, celebrated the rising of Mithras from the grave on Sundays, the seventh day of the Greek calendar. This led to a lot of confusion at the beginning of Christianity until Emperor Constantine declared that church worship for Jesus would now be on Sunday. There are actually groups of Christians that worship on Saturday. One that comes to mind is the Christian Adventist church.