Transcript
I think one of the tasks that all of us have as speakers, and those who attend this
institute, and I certainly take it seriously, one of the tasks I have is to keep the staff
of Princeton Seminary off guard and a little bit off balance.
Yesterday, I came very informally addressed to this occasion, and I was humiliated by
Ron wearing a coat and a tie on that horrible day yesterday.
I think New Jersey should be ashamed about the weather that we had yesterday, and so today
I come trying to look like Ron looked yesterday, and I think this is a scandal, I want you
to report it to Dr. McCord, no, never do that.
We're studying the Gospel of John, and yesterday we considered the prologue and then made
some introductory observations about this book in our study of the book.
Now, begin with me on verse 24 of the first chapter.
I want to take you on a tour of the book, and then again today take one passage and
look at it in some detail.
But it seems to me to do the kind of study we want to do of the whole book of John, we
have to get some feeling for the whole sweep of the book.
The book of John begins with this song, and I interpreted it yesterday as an overture,
which hints at themes that are going to later be developed in greater detail.
I really think the book of John was written starting probably with verse 19, and then
after the book was completed, just as a composer, then writes the overture to his work, then
John writes this opening song.
There's a real possibility this opening song could have been used in Christian worship
all by itself, too, as a hymn in the church too.
Now verse 24, remember the book of John then opens, just like the book of Mark does with
John the Baptist.
Now they had been, these who were, I read you that paragraph 19 to 23 yesterday, where
John introduces himself, John the Baptist.
They asked him, then why are you baptizing if you're not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor
the prophet?
John answered them, I baptize with water, but among you stands one whom you do not know.
Even he who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.
It's interesting, John does not repeat the other gospels, as I observed yesterday, but
one exception is this interesting sentence, which appears in four different ways, in four
different versions, and all four gospels also appears in the book of Acts.
So here, John, this sentence by John the Baptist was so unforgettable that it now appears
again in the gospel of John.
This took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan where John was baptizing.
So there's a problem here with this Bethany beyond Jordan, we can't find any Bethany beyond
Jordan.
And of course Bethany is up on the hill, overlooking Jerusalem, but trust John.
Someday, as Raymond Brown in his commentary points out, this is probably meant to be
Betharba, and Raymond Brown makes a speculation on the basis of how accurate John proves in
the rest of the gospel, that someday we're going to find out that the people in that area
had a colloquial expression in referred to Bethabara as Bethany beyond Jordan.
Very good, just like New York is named after York.
And there's a possibility that John, once again, will get a high mark.
So if you're an archaeologist and have a bent in that direction, please go and excavate
over there at Betharba.
And I'll bet you'll find an old putzer that's going to describe this as the other Bethany,
the Bethany beyond Jordan.
John is accurate.
He really knows the place names.
Just an example again of his interest in detail.
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world.
I was intrigued in Raymond Brown's commentary that Raymond Brown does not think that John
the Baptist here is referring to Isaiah 53 passage, the Lamb of God upon whose sins, the sins
of the world have been laid.
But in view of the whole context of John the Baptist's preaching, Raymond Brown makes
the suggestion that probably John the Baptist has in mind the calf of Malachi who tramples
down the evil doers.
It's that sense of taking away the sin of the world.
That's what John really expected.
You know the Jews by the time of the first century thought of themselves as the Lamb of
Isaiah 53 who are bearing the sins of the earth and who suffered.
They were looking for a Messiah who would trample the evil doers and would be a triumphant
Messiah in the image of Elijah, in the image of the prophet, in the image of this calf
of Malachi.
And so I just suggest that to you for your consideration.
And then John says, this is he of whom I said, he who comes after me ranks before me,
for he was before me.
Notice that theme now has been appearing several times.
I myself did not know him.
But for this I came baptizing with water that he might be revealed to Israel.
John bore a witness.
I saw the spirit descend as a dove from heaven and it remained on him.
Here's John's now reference, the gospel of John's reference to the baptism of Christ.
When as you know the other gospels tell of that account, I myself did not know him.
But he who sent me to baptize his water said to me, he on whom you see the spirit descend
and remain.
This is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.
And I have seen and have born witness that this is the Son of God.
Jesus never calls himself the Son of God in the New Testament.
It's always said about him.
And now here we have one more of those passages.
This is the Son of God.
Our Lord uses the Messianic phrase from Daniel, Son of Man as the way of referring to himself.
He uses indirect phrases to refer to his Messiah.
But now John pointing to him calls in the Son of God.
The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples and he looked at Jesus as
he walked and said, behold the Lamb of God and the two disciples heard him say this and
they followed Jesus.
Now what's interesting about this passage is that now we're going to meet the disciples.
All the gospels have narratives of Jesus meeting the disciples.
But once again John gives us something that we don't get in the other disciples and the
other Matthew, Mark and Luke passages.
John gives us a piece of evidence that is vital to our understanding how Peter could have
faith in the book of Luke for instance.
Let me give you an example.
You take Luke's gospel and you read about the calling of Peter.
Let's just take Peter for example.
If you read Luke's gospel, it looks like Jesus came down to the sea.
He saw Peter there and he said, Peter follow me, Peter drops his nets and follows Jesus.
It doesn't make sense.
It almost makes, it's almost spooky as if Christ mesmerizes Peter, overwhelms him with
his majesty.
It's almost like eros, not agape.
It's not the God who sets Peter free but the God who overwhelms Peter and Peter just drops
his nets and follows.
It doesn't make sense.
But when we come to John's gospel, we get some understanding that Peter, because you will
discover here that Peter and Andrew and John, the three fishermen from the north, were
disciples of John the Baptist before they were disciples of Christ.
It's John's gospel that gives us that evidence and they met Jesus at Jordan before they decided
to follow him at Galilee.
So that we discover now that John and Peter and Andrew, actually as Andrew who meets
him first and then gets his brother, Andrew, John, Peter and James, these four rather
than often the three, have met Jesus before at Jordan.
They thought about it, they thought about what Jesus is up to and his ministry, then at
Galilee he calls them and they follow him.
So now we can make sense of Matthew, Mark, Luke's portrayal of the following.
Instead of it being sort of a magical event, it now you can see an insight through John
into the dynamics of faith that took place so that Peter could believe.
Well in this opening first chapter then, we have the call of the disciples.
I'll just read this and then we're going to do a little surveying.
John was there, we're starting with 35, behold the Lamb of God and the two disciples heard
him say this, they followed Jesus.
Notice they're unnamed at this point.
Jesus turns, saw them following and says, what do you seek?
They said rabbi which means teacher, by the way this is another mark of John's writing,
he makes lots of a sides to his Greek readers.
More than the other writers, John is sensitive to non-Jewish readers, rabbi which means teacher.
You would have to say that to a Jewish reader, but John is, he writes from Ephesus, he's
aware that a lot of Greeks don't understand all Aramaic or Hebrew words.
And where are you staying?
He said to them, come and see.
And they came and saw where he was staying and they stayed within that day for it was about
the 10th hour.
Again, notice John's attention to little details, apparently to us seems so humdrum, but that's
typical of John's writing.
He likes to notice these sorts of details.
One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.
He first found Simon and said to him, we have found the Messiah, which means Christ.
He once again, he interprets that word.
And he brought him to Jesus, Jesus looked at him and said, so, you're Simon.
Son of John, you should be called Cephas, which means Peter.
So there he had that account at Jordan, John first met Peter, but Peter, according to
the other gospels, doesn't really follow Christ telegalilee.
The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee.
And there he found Philip and said to him, follow me, Philip was from Bethesda, city of Andrew
and Peter, Philip found Nathaniel.
This is probably the Bartholomew that appears in Matthew and the other gospel.
By the way, in John's gospel, we're getting more information about the lesser known apostles
than we get in the other three gospels.
The other three gospels are primarily preoccupied with the big four, but in John's gospel, we
get some insight into the other apostles.
For instance, this marvelous little vignette about Nathaniel, who really appears nowhere
else in the other gospels.
We have found him of whom Moses and the law and the prophet's wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, son
of Joseph.
Nathaniel said to him, can anything good come out of Nazareth?
His big line in the whole New Testament.
And I like that.
And Philip said to him, "come and see."
They're getting used to saying that now because Jesus said it earlier.
And Jesus saw Nathaniel coming to him and said, ah, behold and Israelite, indeed in whom
there is no guile.
In other words, he calls him the way he sees them.
And Nathaniel says to him, how is it that you know me?
You know, I love this theophany because Nathaniel is converted, not so much of what because
he discovers Christ or something about Christ, but he discovers the Christ who knows him.
You see that in this incident?
It's the fact that Christ knows him so well that converts Nathaniel, really.
I found that true in a lot of people's conversions.
And you discover that God knows you and knows what makes you tick.
It has a profoundly drawing effect in your life.
So Jesus saw Nathaniel, said, behold and Israelite, indeed in whom is no guile, Nathaniel
said to him, how do you know me?
And Jesus says before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.
And Nathaniel answered him, rabbi, you are the son of God.
You're the king of Israel.
Gee, that's all the evidence you need.
Boy, evangelism is going to be easy, isn't it?
If that's all it takes.
You see, it gets a little harder.
In fact, our Lord Himself is impressed.
He says, because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe?
You shall see greater things than these.
And then He said to him, amen, amen.
I'm sorry, the RSV translates that truly, truly, and the King James, Verily, Verily.
It's literally, amen, amen.
Whenever you read it to your people, say that.
It's amen, amen, rock, rock.
You can count on this.
You can count on this.
I say to you, you will see heaven open.
The angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.
And they are John, just like the other gospel writers, notes that Jesus uses this phrase
to refer to Himself.
Okay, now let's take a little bit of this tour for a while to bring you up to a passage
I want to look at in more detail.
We now have met the John's portrayal of the calling of some of the disciples.
Then chapter 2, we go to Galilee.
Remember I told you yesterday, John's gospel is not particularly interested in Galilee,
whereas Matthew, Mark, and Luke are preoccupied with the Galilee and ministry of our Lord.
So we need both sets of documents to get that total picture.
But John does give us this, you might say, excursion into Galilee.
In the second chapter, we have the marriage at Cana incident.
If you want a fascinating treatment of the marriage of Cana incident, read Raymond Brown's
marvelous commentary on that passage, where he gives us a great deal of insight into
Jewish wedding customs.
And I'm not going to have the time now to go into all that, but it's remarkable.
I'll just say one comment, Raymond Brown helped me to understand that when the mother
of our Lord comes to Jesus and scolds Him about the wine, Raymond Brown said, is probably
because in Jewish wedding tradition, when a wedding would last for six days and people
would come to the wedding feast, it was expected that you brought gifts of wine to the
wedding couple.
And what had probably happened is our Lord and His disciples think of that invasion into
a wedding party, Jesus and now a whole band of disciples come into the wedding party and
they have not brought, they have not fulfilled protocol.
And protocol is very important in provinces, especially.
And so Raymond Brown suggested probably the Lord's mother is scolding Jesus for having
not fulfilled protocol.
And then our Lord says that little phrase, what to me to you, which looks like He's being
impudent to His mother, but evident that was a very common phrase in the first century.
Woman, what have you to do with me?
It's actually a little cliche, what to me to you.
And then this amazing miracle where Jesus turns the water to wine.
And John calls it the first of the signs.
There's a linguistic problem.
We don't know what the John means is the very first sign Jesus ever did, or the first
sign He did in Cana.
You can have your pick on that one.
The text is not clear.
But anyway, John calls it the first sign.
As soon as the answer that signs over, John says this sign showed the glory of Christ.
It showed Christ glory.
And that's something for you to ponder and think.
What is there about that sign that shows His glory?
You can think that one through for yourself.
Following that, we're told in John 2 that immediately he decided to go to Jerusalem.
And now John is breaking with the other writers.
The other writers would lead you to believe that John said that our Lord spends all his
time in Galilee.
But John now tells of a quick trip to Jerusalem.
And we have now in the rest of chapter 2, the incredible invasion of the temple where
Jesus comes in and chases the money changers out.
This poses a technical problem with Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke lead you to believe if you just read those documents by themselves
that the cleansing of the temple occurred on Palm Sunday.
John now tells us the cleansing of the temple occurs early in our Lord's ministry.
What do you do with it?
Is John right?
Is he correcting Matthew, Mark, and Luke?
Or are Matthew, Mark, and Luke correct?
I'll give you my interpretation.
I think there are two cleansings of the temple.
And I think that that's what makes sense out of the second cleansing of the temple.
Jesus comes into the temple, he kicks out the money changers, and of course they all come
right back in the next day.
You don't think that Jesus kicking sin out of your life is going to keep out of your life
to you.
Any more than keeping it out of Jerusalem.
He kicked them out, they came right back in, and when he came in on Palm Sunday, he did
it again.
It's interesting.
The cleansing of the temple, notice the Jews do not say, stop doing it.
Maybe they remember Judas Macabees.
That's what he did, you know, it's the cleanse of the temple.
Instead they say, what sign do you have for it?
And now we get the beginning of a series of apocalyptic statements by Christ.
Hidden statements that make no sense at all until they're later fulfilled.
He said, destroy this temple, and in three days I'll raise it up.
And everybody misunderstood that.
We're very grateful that John puts that in because otherwise we could not make sense of
a scene that appears in the synoptic gospels at the cross of Christ.
Do you remember in the synoptic gospels, I think it's Luke, Luke tells us that when the
Christ was on the cross, the people hollered at him, you who would destroy the temple and
raise it in three days, save yourself.
If it were not for John's gospel, we would not know the background of that charge that
was made against Christ at the cross.
And now we see the background for it.
Jesus had said that.
This mysterious sign, in fact, is part of the charge against Christ at his trial.
They said he said he would destroy the temple.
That's not what he said.
He said, destroy the temple three days I'll raise it.
This mysterious sign that Christ gives in the second chapter.
Now the third chapter, still in Jerusalem, Jesus meets Nicodemus.
This is a great encounter.
It's again typical of John.
He spends a great deal of time on one single encounter.
We are not sure textually where the text ends.
If you have an RSV, you will notice they end the quotation marks at verse 15, and that
famous verse, the most famous verse in the Bible for God's love of the world he gave
his only begotten son, the RSV feels is a comment made by John, the writer of the book.
If you have on the other hand a Jerusalem Bible, or if you have Raymond Brown's commentary,
he maintains the quotations go right straight through the end.
That that's all part of Nicodemus' speech.
It doesn't make any difference really.
There are no quotation marks as you know in Greek manuscripts.
All the quotation marks are all the work of translators.
But you can see that is a linguistic problem with the text.
But nevertheless in this great encounter with Nicodemus, Jesus has a relationship with
a Pharisee and all of that is recorded for us in which the most famous verse in the Bible
appeared.
Then the end of the fourth chapter, or the end of the third chapter, we once again meet
up with John the Baptist.
This will be the last meet up with John the Baptist.
We have in the book of John, and John the Baptist at the end of the third chapter plays
the role of theologian, tells about how Christ must increase and I must decrease.
Then the fourth chapter, Jesus decides to leave Jerusalem, and we have again a very famous
encounter where our Lord meets a woman at the well, and read Raymond Brown's fascinating
comment about Psycar there, again John's accuracy, probably the name should be Shechem, but
again John has perfectly described Shechem and gives us a lot of details there about that
Samaritan city, and there's lots of fascinating insights into the Samaritan culture and the
fact that our Lord now breaks through all these cultural and racial, even sexist barriers
that surrounded the encounter of people in the first century.
He breaks virtually every rule of social encounter in the fourth chapter, and he does it because
of the good news that he is.
He offers living water to this woman.
After this amazing encounter goes up to the city and great crowds of people come down.
The whole fourth chapter, up to verse 45, is devoted to the woman at the well.
Now we're back up again in Cana at the end of the fourth chapter, and we meet another
person.
Again, another, you might say, foreign person.
If the woman at the well is a Samaritan, then we meet now a man from Capernaum, an official
from Capernaum, and that basilikas, that term is used either to refer to Herod's officers
or to Roman officers.
So he could have either been an official in Herod's palace, or he could have been an official
in the Roman government.
And that person now, the official at Capernaum, comes to Christ and asks for help.
With that, the fourth chapter ends, and now we go back to Jerusalem again.
Notice, just these very brief forays into Galilee, and now John takes us back to Jerusalem.
He tells us there's a feast in Jerusalem.
He doesn't tell us what feast it is, and it's this text I've decided to do our exposition
on today.
Chapter 5, John.
Tomorrow we'll continue our journey through John, and we'll do an exposition tomorrow
in the Feast of Tabernacles discourse.
But now today, chapter 5.
After this, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
This is the one place where John does not give us the detail on what feces he's talking
about.
Most scholars feel it probably was a feast of weeks by trying to put dates together as
best they can, some sort of sequence to what's been happening.
But you'll see later, he's going to, in chapter 7, he's going to definitely describe
that as the Feast of Tabernacles.
But this one he doesn't describe, he just says there was a feast.
Now there is in Jerusalem, by the Sheep Gate, notice this attention to detail, a pool in
Hebrew called Bethesda, which has five porticos, and I already gave you a little comment
on that yesterday.
If you read old commentators, especially the skeptical ones, they'll make fun of John
and say, this is one more example, the writer of this book couldn't possibly be acquainted
with Jerusalem, because there, in fact, Bultmann and his commentary makes this comment in
this passage.
He wrote the commentary in 1941, before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
And he said, look at, here John calls this pool, Bethesda Pool, and we have no record of
any pool called Bethesda Pool, and so that shows that it was written by somebody who doesn't
really have access to local lore.
Well then, as you know, the copper scroll was discovered.
And in the copper scroll, as plain as can be, the Sheep Gate pool is called Bethesda Pool.
That's 100 BC, so you can see it was called that, John was right.
And archaeologists, Roman Catholic archaeologists, have excavated the Sheep Gate's pool and have
found the five porches.
So John really gets high marks for his accuracy here.
If you go to Jerusalem, I think it's the most impressive site in all Jerusalem, in my
opinion, is the excavations done at the Sheep Gate Pool, because the five porches are right
there.
Okay?
Now, there isn't Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate Pool, a pool in Hebrew called Bethesda, which
has five porches.
In these, lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed.
Now you'll notice, if you have a King James version, you have a text here, which the RSV
is relegated to the footnotes.
Because here we do have an example of a gloss in the text.
It doesn't belong in the text, because most of the ancient manuscripts do not contain
this next sentence.
But if you have a King James Bible, you have this sentence, for an angel of the Lord went
down in certain seasons into the pool and trouble the water, whoever stepped in first
after the troubling of the water was healed of whatever disease he had.
This little narrative of that, of the magic or curative properties of that pool, is obviously
an insertion that a later monk probably put into the text to try to clear up and make
sure that we understood what was going on in this incident.
But we don't even need that, because it becomes clear in the dialogue between Jesus and
the man what the curative properties of the pool were.
So we have to omit that little sentence, because the great manuscripts do not have
that sentence.
And the RSV, using the tradition or the rule, the rubric they use, that a text in order
to get into the main text had to be in the majority of the great manuscripts.
So the RSV correctly put that sentence into the footnote, all right, back to the text
then, which had five porticos in these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed.
And now we have to omit verse four and go to verse five.
One man was there who had been ill for 38 years.
When Jesus saw him and knew that he had been lying there a long time, he said to him,
do you want to be healed?
The sick man answered him, sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is
troubled, and while I'm going another steps down before me.
I want to stop and make just a couple of comments about this text.
Here we're going to meet a person, and I wanted to do an exposition of this text, so rather
than just to run to the text, we can really take a close look at one of these encounters
that are such a mark of John's gospel.
Here is a lonely man.
As a result of John tells us the man was there 38 years, not necessarily at that pool 38
years, but even sick for 38 years, maybe at that pool for many of those 38 years.
He's a man who sort of has parked himself at a shrine hoping that something might happen
to help him and nothing ever does.
He is so discouraged and so depressed, in fact, I think this text gives a tremendous insight
into the nature, the debilitating nature of depression.
This man is so depressed that he cannot hear a new question.
In fact, the interesting thing in this narrative is that Jesus asked him a simple question
that only has to be answered, yes or no, do you want to be healed?
And the man answers another question.
He answers the question he thinks is being asked him.
This will be now my own interpretation of the passage, but I think the man is answering
the question, why are you still here?
Because Jesus is there with his disciples, and I'm sure the man thinks, well, here comes
another one of those committees from the park department, wondering about how they can
fix up this pool for the tourists.
And they're trying to get rid of all of us guys that are sitting around here.
And they're saying, why are you still here?
And then comes the answer, well, sir, every time the water is troubled, I have no one to
help me get.
Notice a little bit of low-grade paranoia here.
I have no one to help me get in front of all those other guys that get in in front of
me.
And when the water is troubled, I don't get in first.
I don't have, that's why I'm still here.
He probably is going to go on with the next sentence, but you'll see Jesus interrupts
him, and going to say, if you guys want to do something right when you're report, when
you go back, or maybe Jesus is a professor with his students from University of Jerusalem
doing a study on those who are down and out at a Sheep Gate pool.
And when you go back and write your term paper, would you tell them that they should have
a number system, like they have it some bakeries, or you pull the number down, and you get
your number, and then when the pool is troubled, you come up with your number, and that would
be fair, then, and then you can put us in the pool.
I tell you, it's just disgusting the way things of deteriorate.
That's the way it is.
That's why I'm still here.
That's the speech he has.
Now that's a speech of sheer depression, of sheer paranoia, really, of neurosis.
But it's not the answer to the question Christ asked him.
He just said, do you want to be healed?
And now we get this long tirade, no one helps me.
Everybody's against me.
Everybody else is in front of me.
I have no chance.
And that's the downward spiral of depression in this text, our Lord interrupts.
And of course, that interruption is the exciting part of the text.
Listen to it.
One is, puts it simply and directly.
The sick man said, sir, I have no man to put me in the pool, and the water is troubled,
and when I go down, somebody else goes down in front of me.
And then he's, opens his mouth, take a little breath, give his next speech about the numbering
system, the bakery, and then Jesus said to him, rise, take up your palate, walk.
Actually the Greek is, walk around, is the Greek text.
And listen to John.
And at once, the man was healed, and he took up his palate, and he walked.
Now, there's an incident.
Typical of the way John writes, but he's not finished, again, typical of John, he has
lots to say more about what happens.
I want you to notice two things about this incident before I complete reading the reading
of the text.
In any incident you read in John's Gospel, because of the clue John gave us at the end
of the Gospel, I think you always should ask two questions of every incident, and that
is first of all, what does the incident show you about Jesus Christ?
And then I think because of what John says in that little sentence at the end of the
book that I read yesterday, where John says, these things are written that you might
have faith.
I think the second question you should always ask of every incident, it is what does the
incident show about us, and our response, and what happens to us when we have faith,
or when God acts in our lives?
So let's ask that first question of this text.
What does this text show us about Jesus Christ?
Because John calls all of these events signs, he says they're signs that point, they point
to Christ.
First I just want to make a couple of observations about what this text shows about Jesus
Christ.
It seems to me this text simply and directly shows us the freedom that Christ has to act.
To use a Barthian phrase, the Barth says in the New Testament, in the New Testament never
does any harm either to the freedom of God or the freedom of man, and this text is certainly
text that shows the freedom of God.
This is a freedom of God text.
Jesus Christ acts.
This is act of sheer grace.
There is no request of faith.
In fact, if you are going to build up a, you're going to get a series of sermons on faith
healing, you're going to say now what you have to have to be healed is you've got to have
faith, you've got to have, I've heard sermons on this, you've got to have believing faith,
you've got to reach out and trust Christ to be healed, and then you come to this text
and it fowls up your sermons.
This man doesn't reach out, he doesn't do anything, he just sits there and gripes.
And Jesus Christ intervenes and heals him.
You simply cannot put Christ in a box and say that he heals in a certain way.
You do certain, you fulfill certain seven conditions of the spirit and you get healed nonsense.
This text, here's where always biblical theology is a good corrective for systematic theology.
Systematic theologian is always saying you fulfill these seven conditions, you get this.
No, no.
Jesus here is sheer freedom.
That contrast to the man from Capernaum, which was the text just before this, the man from
Capernaum who had so much faith and pressed in with Christ into Christ with faith.
And now we come to the fifth chapter and read a man with no faith at all, just despair.
And our Lord intervenes.
He's free to act.
This is not the quest of faith, as you saw in chapter four, this is the quest of grace.
Shear grace.
This incident shows the authority and the love of Jesus Christ.
And notice that the love and authority of Christ is an event that happens.
It's something that happens.
Brothers and sisters, let me make that point very clear in the New Testament.
In the New Testament and in the Old Testament, love is not a theory.
Love is not something abstract.
Love in the Bible is an event that happens.
The Ten Commandments begins with the love of God, but notice the word love isn't even
used in the Ten Commandments.
But it starts with the love of God.
Here in Israel, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.
That's an event.
That's love.
And once again, here is the authority, the mixture of omnipotence and grace coming together
in Jesus Christ.
And it's an event that happens in one single man's life.
And you notice in this event also that Jesus Christ breaks through barriers as he's been
doing all the way through the gospel up to this point.
He's broken through the barrier with Nathaniel.
He breaks through the barrier with the woman at the well, racial, sexist barriers, all kinds
of barriers there.
He breaks through the barrier with the man at the Capernian official, a foreigner, not even
in the House of Israel, and helps that man.
He breaks through the intellectual and you might say intellectual barriers of Nicodemus in
the third chapter.
And now he breaks through perhaps the hardest of all barrier, the barrier of depression,
the barrier of despair.
And this is what Jesus Christ does.
One other thing, he breaks through the barriers, not to destroy, but also to set free.
And that brings me to the second observation we want to raise.
What happens to the life of the man by the pool of Bethesda?
And now we have to go back to our text and see what happens to him.
And you'll see how Christ does not act in grace to turn this man into an automaton or to
turn him into something less than human.
But the mighty act of Christ is an act that sets this man free.
Watch it in the text.
Okay?
Jesus said, get up and walk around and once he got up and walk around.
Now notice the text.
Now that day was the Sabbath, so the Jews said to the man who was cured.
It is the Sabbath.
It is not lawful for you to carry your pallet.
You know the one thing, the guy may have been guilty of offending the park, but one thing
he has never been guilty of is breaking the Sabbath.
He has just been sitting there for 38 years and now immediately he gets his freedom and
he is breaking the law with his freedom.
And I just love this text.
It is not lawful for you to carry your pallet.
Jesus was told to do it.
But he answered them.
The man who healed me, notice he doesn't even know who Jesus is.
The man who healed me said to me, take up your pallet and walk.
By the way, here is a marvelous example of Christian witness.
Just like you have in the woman of the well, she goes and tells, see a man who told me everything
I ever did.
Now here he says, the man who healed me told me to carry my pallet.
And they said, who is the man who told you to take up your pallet 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 that place.
You were Jesus found him in the temple and said, see your well, you are well, sin no more
that nothing worse before you.
Don't misunderstand that text.
I think what Jesus is doing there is to show the totality of that man's life.
You can walk now, but there is even more than being able to walk.
And there is something far worse than being at a pool for 48 years and that has to do with
your total being, your moral spiritual self.
And the man went away, I love this, he is still witnessing, he is kind of interesting witness.
His witness creates a public uproar and gets Jesus in more trouble than he was before,
which maybe is something that our witness should do too.
And the man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.
And this was why, remember I told you that John, more than any of the other gospel writers,
helps us to understand the feelings and helps us to understand why opposition built against
Jesus.
As Micklem puts it, helps us to understand the strain that Christ caused in the life of
Israel.
And now we can see John is doing that for us in this text.
So the man that had been by the pool went and told the people it was Jesus who healed
him.
And this is why, now John is speaking, this is why the Jews persecuted Jesus because
he did this on the Sabbath.
And Jesus answered that my father is working still and I am working.
And this is why the Jews saw all the more to kill him because he not only broke the
Sabbath, but he also called God his own father, making himself equal to God.
You see how John is sensitive to the arguments that are being made against Jesus.
John sees the issue and he says they were offended because Jesus was making himself equal
to God.
Okay, now I want to just make a couple of observations about what happens in the life of this man.
What happens in the life of this man is he is unable to walk, he is set free and he is
also given responsibility.
Notice this man who was before just begging, you might say by the pool, is now running
errands back and forth between these people who say, why are you walking, finding out who
Jesus is, running back and telling him as Jesus.
Now of course it is getting Jesus in a lot of trouble.
He is busy, he is doing things, he is responsible, he is responsible to find out who this man was
who healed him and then to go back and tell the people who are one and who this man is.
He stirs up the crowd, he stirs up opposition, he has to carry now responsibility himself
because they are asking him, he never had to worry about breaking the Sabbath law, he
is now breaking it so he has to take care of that issue too.
The result is something more of the secret of who Jesus Christ is is out.
I have got to draw this part of the exposition to a close by making two discipleship comments
about this passage.
I believe that in every text that we study, we always want to raise the discipleship
question.
What does it mean for my own life too?
Now I want to make an obvious discipleship observation and then I want to make a whimsical
one if you will permit me.
First the obvious one.
Has it occurred to you in a text like this, I think it makes it occurs, it makes this
face up to the fact, has it occurred to you that in some ways it is really harder being
well and whole than to stay sick and hurting.
Because when you are well then you cannot evade your own inescapable responsibilities as
a disciple and you see this in this text.
When this man is sick then he is Johnny the chronic and nobody bothers him, oh there is Johnny
the chronic, then there are 38 years, poor guy, since there is no numbering system he never
gets in.
All he needs is a wedge, maybe that would be the third suggestion he would make, hey listen
Jesus you want to really help me out, get your disciples and the next time the water is
bubbling you would make a human wedge and we will wedge our way right into that water
and I will get well.
But he does not have anybody like that, he is Johnny the chronic and now he has been healed
and he is a new person and I can see him walking along the street and somebody say hey Johnny
remember that money I loaned you last week, it looks like you are pretty well and now
I want you to pay me back, see now he can work, now he can carry his pallet, he can break
the Sabbath, man he can do it with their best of them, so he can go out and get a job.
He has responsibility now, he has got to do something, he has got to figure out who
was who healed him and go back and tell the people, he has got a job to do, he has a post,
he has responsibility now because Jesus Christ has touched his life.
In other words when Christ touches our life it does not immobilize us, it sets us free
and when it sets us free it gives us more responsibility, it has never occurred to you
that in some ways it is hard to be that way than to stay sick, I see people like this
all the time in the Christian church, as long as you can keep telling yourself that you
were hurt as a youngster in the church by people forcing religion down your throat or
that you were in a lousy church where they drove the pastor out maybe you because of
some unjust reason or maybe it was your dad, I have met so many young people whose parents
were in the church and they were badly hurt by some church crisis and then because of
that hurt as long as you can nourish that hurt and that wound and it may be a genuine wound
then you never have to face your own discipleship responsibility because you are wounded and
as long as you can stay wounded you do not have to be well and you do not have to carry
weight but the moment you get well then you have to bear responsibility for the church,
for the body, for Christ, it is easier to stay sick, it is easier to stay hurting, it
is easier to nourish a feeling of wounds and a feeling of injustice that has happened
to you, somebody who ran religion down my throat gave me some terrible scary sermons when
I was a kid and then the pastor ran off for the choir master and so they are all a bunch
of phonies, I am not going to take the church seriously and I meet people like this all the
time and they are staying sick deliberately and then suddenly thank God it happens, somehow
they get into a Bible study group and they start reading some books they never expected,
maybe they are reading Screwtape Letters like Newsweek said there is a many a snare for
an unwary atheist in C.S. Lewis and they are reading the Chronicles of Narnia or something
and suddenly Jesus Christ breaks through into their life and sets them free and the wounds
are gone and the cost of discipleship is there but has it occurred to you sometimes
it is easier to stay sick, harder to be well, okay I have one last final discipleship observation
and this is a whimsical one please permit me it, I am saying a little bit tongue in cheek
but could it be that this man is disappointed by the way in which Christ made him whole,
could it be that after 38 years he has fantasized for years about what it would like to be put
into the bubbles of that troubled water, for years he has heard stories about this pool
and about how wonderful it is to be healed in the pool of Bethesda, they are going to name
a naval hospital after it in Washington and for years he has thought oh I just watched
those people get layered they have of course a lot of friends to help him ram their way
through when it is bubbling but I watch them lowered into the water in their stretcher
and those bubbles are just marvelous and then I come up well and whole with robes and
go on out into the world and that is the way I want to be healed, that is all for 38 years
he has been thinking about that, the bubbles, the joy, the thrill of what God is going to
do in my life and then Jesus comes along and says get up, get up and the fella says
well I swear I hope for something more, I mean is this all I get, I just have to get
up, I mean is that all redemption is, you know Lewis has a great line in the silver
chair that when Jill drank that cold water she thought she was so thirsty and when she
drank it Lewis says she drank it and immediately her thirst was quenched and it didn't take
much drinking, she didn't have to keep drinking and drinking and drinking and drinking and
drinking and drinking and when you are in the presence of God you don't have to keep telling
I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, just say it once, it is all you have to do
and sometimes Jill you fantasize what worship is going to be, you fantasize what is going
to be like to be redeemed, you fantasize what is going to be like to be set free and
then when Christ actually does it you are disappointed.
You know something I have observed in New Testament that Jesus always disappoints us.
I think one of the most eloquent proofs of his Messiah is how he so marvelously succeeds
in disappointing everybody in terms of what they thought the Messiah should be like.
He disappoints John the Baptist, he disappoints the disciples and now the poor guy at the
pool of Bethesda, he disappoints him too but he makes him well.
Now this is not a parable folks, this is not an illustration of God's love, this is
the very thing itself.
Heavenly Father we thank you for this text.
We thank you for the Jesus Christ who met this lonely man and broke through all of the
38 years of despair and set him free.
We thank you that that is the Christ we know today.
Amen.