Hey, everybody.
Yeah.
Sorry about all that front stuff. Oh.
Thanks for being with us as we start another week and start another chapter.
The gospel of John.
We're in chapter five today, and,
coming off the story of Jesus healing
an official son, another healing today and a kind of an interesting transition,
I think, in that we go from a healing story
to what looks like another healing story.
But this one introduces a layer of tension,
and that will increasingly be true throughout much of the rest of the book.
So we'll look at this today.
Start reading in verse one will go for a while,
and then we'll come back and talk it through.
After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went to Jerusalem.
Now in Jerusalem
by the Sheep Gate there is a pool in Hebrew called Masada.
It has five porticos.
In it lay many invalids, blind, lame, and paralyzed.
One man who was there had been ill for 38 years.
When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had been there
a long time, he said to him, do you want to be made well?
The sick man answered him, sir, I have no one to put me in the pool
when the water is stirred, and while I'm making my way,
someone else steps down ahead of me.
Jesus said, stand up, take your mat and walk.
At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.
Let's stop there, Michael, and just talk about the miracle story itself here.
So, we have this pool,
based off the.
And the idea is the waters are stirred, whether this is a natural spring
or some kind of hot springs.
The legend has grown up around this pool that if you can be
the first one in the water, that it has healing properties.
And so, this is kind of a backstory that John takes for granted.
There's a little bit of reference here, but,
we know some of these things from other sources and from other commentaries.
And we meet here, this man, we don't get his name, but he's been there.
What looks to be his whole life, 38 years.
Doesn't necessarily say that, but certainly that's been his experience.
And we are told that this man is lying there and he had been there a long time.
He says, do you want to be made?
Well, which seems like an interesting question.
There are lots of ways to interpret this.
Some have suggested that that if Jesus heals this man, he's
taking away the potential income of
getting alms or getting donations.
Not maybe begging, but not necessarily
others have suggested that Jesus is not forcing
the man into something that he he is checking with him.
And you can read this
a couple of different ways, and the church has read it different ways.
But the man,
interestingly enough, Michael doesn't respond really with a yes or no,
but with a reason or a kind of explanation of his struggle.
In other words, he wants seems to want Jesus to know
that not only is he in difficulty because of his health,
his health makes it difficult for him to pursue getting better.
So one of the temptations in reading the Bible is to just start kind of reading
forward and sort of start speeding up, get on, fast forward a little bit.
And I think that this section of John here, this particular grouping of stories,
would be really easy to get on the freeway here, just to give it a metaphor.
And I think we just have a healing story.
You mentioned that, Clint.
I just want to make sure that we all go back and we make sure that we remember.
So this is the the healing story we had last.
The royal official's son who lays ill.
Okay.
So we have a healing story that precedes it's the royal official.
Now let's skip ahead here, friends.
Chapter five, verse one,
there's a festival of the Jews and Jesus goes up.
Where to?
Jerusalem, the capital city.
The center of Jewish life.
It's striking that we just have a woman at the well.
Right. Go.
Jesus goes.
Lives in Samaria two days, then he goes and heals an official son.
Now Jesus comes to the heart of the Jewish religion.
So the heart of Jewish identity.
And it's at this place where Jesus encounters this man.
And I do think that question
is somewhat haunting, and scholars certainly don't give us a hard and fast
answer as to what's happening.
I just want to add another possibility here that when Jesus asked,
do you want to be made?
Well, there's a foreshadowing of some of the implications
of what being made well might mean for this man's religious life.
It's not just the fact that this man
has now sort of got a pattern for living, right?
He he's been able to make it by this pool, though.
He's not been able to be healed.
He has food, he has drink. He has what he's needed.
He's lived there for 38 years. That's a long, long time.
And he has a way and pattern of of living in that place.
The disruption to being healed
would not just simply be that those things would go away.
It would radically transform his life and and it would
radically transform his place in the community.
John is always showing us what happens
when Jesus reveals himself to people,
and then what they do in response to that.
Some become witnesses.
Some see Jesus for who he is.
That revelation makes a deep impact in their spirit,
and then they go out and become witnesses and they testify to what they've seen.
There are others for whom the revelation of Christ
is almost like throwing a rock at a beehive.
It creates tumult and struggle, and there's almost a violent response.
And for this man, this question that comes, do you want to be made?
Well?
When he replies and says, well,
you see, the problem is I have no one to put me in the water.
He's clearly not understanding what Jesus is offering.
He's thinking that maybe Jesus is a bystander
offering to get him into the water, but it's when Jesus
then gives him this command stand up, take your mat and walk that that.
Now the rising action of this story is going to begin,
because Jesus has used his authority to give this man instruction.
And what is going to follow from this healing
is only going to increase the complexity and difficulty of the story.
So I'm not going to rush ahead or point out what's happening there.
But Clint,
I just want to sort of make note of the fact that we we're transitioning.
We have this healing story.
It may seem like a duplicate. Why is there another healing?
Well, now we're in a different place,
and now this healing is going to have a different impact.
So let's be careful, readers.
And what we're going to discover is John is showing us
that not every healing results in the same response or the same outcome.
And this is part of the complexity of the story that John's going to tell us.
Yeah, I want be careful, Michael, because it's it's probably easy to,
psychologist this question, you know, do you want to be made well.
But what is interesting is the inference that
sometimes there is a cost to be, well, right to
to move on to something new means to let go of something old.
And whether that's what Jesus has in mind, telling this man, once
I heal you, you're you're going to have to come up with a new life.
Maybe that's it, but there is a certain letting go that has to be
done, has to be accomplished in order to move forward.
And I think there's a lot of power in that question, though.
As you said, even Bible scholars don't know exactly
what it's how it's meant to function in the text.
But regardless, we get to that moment that
Jesus says, stand up, take your mat and walk.
And, this is often the case in the gospel at once.
The Bible always has a little bit of an urgency as it tells Jesus stories at once.
The man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.
And the Bible wants us to be amazed by that.
That's an incredible moment.
And so really,
that completes the front part of this story, which is the healing.
Jesus has been confronted by a man with the need.
Jesus has inquired about the need.
The man misunderstanding him has said something else, and Jesus has given him
wholeness, has given him healing.
Now, from there, things get complicated.
The next thing we read in the story is now
that day was a Sabbath, and
when we get a Sabbath detail in the Gospels, it's
almost always more than just calendar stuff.
It's a kind.
Flicked is coming.
And so that's what happens here.
We jump back in,
at, at that verse, verse ten.
So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, it's the Sabbath.
It is not lawful for you to carry your mat.
But he answered them,
the man who made me well said to me, take your mat up and walk.
They asked, who is this man that said this to you?
Take it up and walk.
Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was,
for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there.
Later, Jesus found him in the temple,
and he said to him, see, you've been made well.
Do not sin any longer, that nothing worse happens to you.
The man went away and told the Jews it was Jesus who made him well.
Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus because he was doing
such things on the Sabbath.
But Jesus answered them, My Father is still working, and I am also working.
For this reason, the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him,
because he was not only breaking the Sabbath, but was also calling
God his own father, thereby making himself equal to God.
So, just a reminder, if this is new information to you,
that the Jewish religion of Jesus day and still in this day in many contexts,
take the Sabbath, which is Saturday, Friday sundown
to Saturday sundown as their holy day, and on it they are forbidden to do work.
So the idea that this man is carrying something that is not of necessity,
it's not for life saving, it's not demanded.
He doesn't need to do it,
and therefore it constitutes him doing work on the Sabbath.
So the Jews in it, as John's terms
them, sees this happening, and they confront the man.
Why are you carrying this?
This man defending himself said, well, the guy who healed me told me
to carry it.
And notice what's fascinating, I think, Michael,
is that they don't they don't say, what do you mean healed?
They don't they don't seem intrigued at all by the healing.
They said, who is it?
Who told you you could do this?
And then we get. Well, I don't know.
And, we'll get into some of the later part of the story in a moment.
But, it's a fascinating moment where, again, we're going to see this over
and over and over in John, what John calls the people, John calls the Jews,
which he specifically means those religious leaders who are misguided
miss the Christ
because they're looking through the filter of their own interpretation of law.
And, they don't see the forest for the trees.
And here we have this example as they try to pin this man down.
Is there a better example of someone who's expressed intention
is to Revere and honor
God through the Sabbath in verse ten,
and then in the face of God himself
doing miraculous work
is literally hostile to God, right?
I mean, that sort of the contrast here is not to be lost on us, that
the the expressed purpose is that we keep the Sabbath law,
because the Sabbath law is God's law,
that God calls us to this, that God didn't work on the Sabbath.
Who are you that you imagine doing work on the Sabbath?
And now this man, freed from 38 years of captivity
to his illness, takes his mat and walks home.
I think, Clint, Westerners and, you know, maybe
exclusively Americans mostly who listen to this study.
I what's the big deal, man?
You just carry this mat.
We don't get it.
We don't have the same kind of cultural understanding of the gravity,
of the reverence that's intended by keeping this command.
But even still, the idea that your goal is
we're going to honor this day because it's God's day.
And then when a person's life is restored to them in God's name,
that that that's completely passed over without a second,
question.
I mean, the way that John tells this story
makes it abundantly clear here with the transition in verse nine.
Now, that day was a Sabbath.
We now we're clued in. Why is there another healing story?
Because this story is a disruption of what people think should be
that it's not just about a person who's restored,
but it's about what the implications of that restoration are for that man
and how this plays out, in
contrast to what we've seen before,
is essential to why John is telling us this story.
Well, and then we go from something relatively clear to a couple of verses
that are very confusing and not clear at all.
Later, Jesus finds the man in the temple.
He says to him, see, you've been made well.
Don't sin anymore that nothing worse might happen to you.
And there are all kinds of ways this has been interpreted,
that maybe this man is, some kind of a,
not entirely moral.
I've heard people make the case that this guy is
is not a very upright man, is not a very moral person.
Others simply say Jesus is telling him, look, follow the laws.
Now, don't you know, don't carry your mat.
Whatever.
You don't want to get in trouble with the Jews.
I don't know of anybody who can confirm and at least say what John has in mind
here telling this, and it's complicated again by the next verse.
So the man went away and told the Jews it was Jesus who made him.
Well, it is that out of spite is he trying to get Jesus?
I don't think
if there is a
very good explanation of these two verses in what they mean
in the context of the story, I don't know it.
I these are the kind of things that New Testament scholars love
because they're confusing.
And so because that's the case, you have hundreds
of kinds of interpretations and people trying to take guesses
at what this means, but there's not a lot of consensus.
Whatever John has in mind, I think is a little cloudy to us now,
but it moves the story along so that ultimately
the confrontation is now Jesus and the Jews.
And that's where it was always headed.
Yes, we get a couple of question marks along the way, but at the end of the
story, at the end of the day, Jesus has done something that has offended
the religious sensitivity of the people who should know better.
And when they look at him, they don't see the one who calls God Father.
That healed a lame man who has been infirm 38 years.
They see a troublemaker
telling other people to do to break the rules on the Sabbath.
And John doesn't really nice job of setting up that conflict.
And if we don't get too bogged down, these other questions are interesting.
But even if we don't have good answers to them.
But ultimately, this is where the story was always trying to take us there.
Don't don't try to oversimplify a story like this, please.
Because there are other New Testament references where Jesus directly rebuts
that idea.
That's a person's sinfulness that's responsible for their sickness.
And then ultimately, in those stories, it's often their faith or their response
to Jesus that that, precedes their healing.
I think, Clint, what we may miss for our struggle
to understand some of these things is the clarity of the ending.
And John goes out of John's way to make this clear for us.
So let let's just see it.
But Jesus was calling God his own father.
And as if we don't, in case we miss it therefore, or thereby
making himself equal to God.
Clint, I mean, this in there's no mark in secret here.
There's no like Jesus saying, I don't go tell anybody.
No, John, the writer is explicitly
telling us with narrator privilege
they're angry because Jesus is claiming equality to God.
This is thoroughgoing, John.
And it is something for us.
The point of this story,
that there's a beautiful kind of concluding force of this,
that the thing that makes the Jews angry, the Jews being those religious leaders.
This is the way that John speaks a bit like you said, Clint,
the thing that makes the Jews angry in this moment is the fact
that they are understanding Jesus's claim
rightly, that they are hearing
what Jesus is saying, and they are not pleased with it.
They are angry.
So while they may not understand the background, they may not understand
the complexities and subtleties of the
the theological point that Jesus was making here.
Granted, what they do understand is the simple point that Jesus is claiming
God as Father and that it is
God's power that makes it possible for this man to be healed.
That is an unacceptable outcome for these individuals,
and they are rightly responding from their vantage to that heresy.
And Jesus, who we are being intended, being led, we are.
We're walking alongside John as he wants us to see Jesus
as John sees Jesus, we are to know that Jesus,
he is the revealed God and that Jesus has the right authority.
But unfortunately for this man who finds himself
caught in the crosshairs between misunderstanding
and also maybe on the other side, that maybe even ill will or intention
in all disbelief, wherever that is on the spectrum, this man is caught
in the crosshairs of this this new and growing tension.
And, John wants us to be clear.
Jesus claims a thing.
It's the thing that Jesus claims that that they're angry about.
We will have a story in a few chapters that is similar to this.
It's a little bit more expanded and and it will cover some of these themes again.
But I do want to point out, as we get ready to wrap up here,
that in regard to what has offended
that the Jews here, the religious leaders, we have to be careful with that word.
The way John uses that is is very specific is not general.
What John has in mind here
is that the thing that has offended them
is the perception of legal code,
the perception of legalism, of laws,
of barriers, things that, keep people in boxes
when Jesus has just set a man free from his infirmity.
And I think the way that John,
one of the ways that John very subtly
says this or points this out to us, notice at no point
do these religious leaders
ever mention the work that Jesus has done.
Yeah, all they care about is there's a guy carrying a mat.
They miss what the power of God has done,
just as they miss who it is standing before them calling God Father.
That that's, I think,
the way this is written in which
he stands up and is made well, and then it's never mentioned.
Nobody seems to care or be amazed
that Jesus has done this thing.
Instead, you have this little nit picky stuff about,
well, yeah, but when did he do it?
And did he tell him to take the mat?
Because you're not supposed to take the mat.
That's the epitome of of misunderstanding for John. And,
I don't want to say this.
I don't want to say this wrong, but.
But John relishes
telling us in those moments because it's so clearly,
portrays for him the disconnect between Jesus
and the world, particularly the Jewish religious world.
I think it's well said. It's a great summary.
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Subscribe if you want to stick with us and certainly join us as we continue along
this study.
We're going to be quick, to the study tomorrow.
So I hope you'll join us right on the beginning of the hour,
and we'll see you then. Thanks, everybody.