John 5:1-17

HIGHLIGHTED PASSAGE John 5:1-17 1 After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 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. 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?” 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. 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.” 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said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” 13 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. 14 Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well!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.”   COMMENTARY Just like all of the things we do to worship God in our culture, the Jews in Jesus' day attempted to honor God with a system of rules about what one was and was not supposed to do on the Sabbath.  One of the things one was not suppose to do on the Sabbath was to carry a mat. Again, the goal was to honor the fourth commandment: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates," (Exodus 20:8-9). The issue Jesus exposes in this passage is not resting on the Sabbath. Jesus exposes the fact that in their zeal to honor God by keeping the Sabbath, they fail to see that God Himself stands right in front of them. When Jesus says, in verse 17, "My Father is working until now, and I am working," He bases His authority to heal on the Sabbath in the fact that God Himself never ceases to work. The Jews readily acknowledge God has been at work since the beginning, sustaining the universe, bringing about redemption for His people, answering their prayers, ordaining and executing human history, and so forth. One can imagine a scenario in which a man rejoices for a healing granted in answer to the prayer that he prays on the Sabbath. This shows that the command to rest on the Sabbath is intended to lead us to trust in the One who works on our behalf all the time. God's people can rest because they believe God is at work all the time to fulfill His promises to them. Jesus says in effect, "You should recognize that the healing which I have just done is from God, for only God could do this. Thus, you yourselves should recognize through this that I am God, and this should lead you to celebrate this man's healing and praise the One who healed him." The miraculous sign thus points people to the truth that Jesus is Yahweh who has come to deliver His people.   QUESTIONS 1. Water is rich with meaning in John's gospel: A person must be born of water and the Spirit to enter the Kingdom of God, and Jesus turns water into wine. What should we learn from the invalid man sitting by a pool of water, whom Jesus heals instantly?    2. What does Jesus mean when he responds to the Jews in verse 17?    3. Theologian Herman Ridderbos interprets Jesus words in John 5:14 in the following manner:  "The 'worse thing' that would then befall [the invalid Jesus healed] would be not just a worse illness or accident but nothing less than the judgment of God," (Ridderbos, The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary). In light of this insight, how do you understand Jesus' warning to the man?