John 5:1-18 • Leaping for Joy
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
Would you turn with me in your Bibles this morning to John chapter 5?
John chapter 5 as we will be looking at the first 18 verses.
In previous weeks, as we've been looking at the life of Jesus unfolding by His meeting various persons, there's been a common pattern.
While the circle keeps expanding of the people that He will deal with, remember family, friends, faith leaders, half race-related persons, and finally an enemy, the common denominator of all of those persons is they have asked for help.
In every case, they have come to Jesus saying, "Can you tell us something more? Can you help us in some way?"
The question today is, is that all?
Are those the only people that Jesus will help those who in some measure come seeking Him?
Is that all?
John 5, verses 1 through 18.
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'd been an invalid for 38 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'm going another steps down before Me."
Jesus said to Him, "Get up.
Take 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Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn as there was a crowd in the place.
Afterwards, Jesus found Him in the temple and said to Him, "See, you are well.
Then 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.
Let's pray together.
Finally Father, the blessing of seeing Your Son in the Word inspired by the Holy Spirit is understanding how broad is His reach, how wide the door that He throws to those who would seek after Him.
But now we even begin to understand that He would be seeking those who do not seek Him nor even recognize Him. So great is His grace.
There may be even such persons here this day, Father, who are not seeking Him, but by His Spirit He is seeking them this day.
Would You so work with Your Spirit and Word to open hearts to You?
We pray in Jesus' name, amen.
Do You want to be healed?
Now, it seems superfluous. I mean, who wouldn't want to be healed?
It's not superfluous.
If you have dealt with the complexities of the world and the real tragedies of life, it may be no incidental question at all. Do You want to get well?
Some years ago in St. Louis, there was a firefighter terribly injured and burned in fighting a fire.
He lay in the hospital with the prognosis of only a 10 percent chance of surviving.
And despite that prognosis, and maybe because of it, he got a visit from Jack Buck, the legendary sportscaster.
And Jack Buck asked him a question according to those who were there at the time, critical question, simple.
Do You want to get well?
He was a firefighter, a professional.
He knew what he was facing.
After all, his face was disfigured, the skin melting off his limbs, lungs scorched, fingers charred stubs. If he survived at all, the therapies that would get him back to some semblance of normality would be excruciating.
And for the rest of his life, he would cause gasps as he walked down the streets and people saw what had happened to him reflected in his current countenance.
Do You want to get well?
There was a long pause into which Jack Buck inserted, "If you get well, I'll let you in the broadcaster's booth at a Cardinals baseball game."
The fireman nodded, "Yes, he wanted to get well."
But you must recognize that the question about whether or not you want to get well is not always easily answered.
After all, if we are stuck in a marriage pattern, an addictive pattern, a sin pattern where it is so much now part of our lives and existence that we cannot imagine the pain of change,
we may very well wonder if someone were to ask us, "Do you really want to get better? Do you want a different path or do you just want to settle in or even give up? Do you want to get well?"
And it may be no easy answer at all.
Perhaps that is why in this particular passage when the question comes in verse 6, "Do you want to be healed? I hope you recognize there is no direct answer ever given."
Maybe that's the most important thing is as much as the sermon will unfold. Maybe that's the most important thing to note right here at the beginning. Jesus says, "Do you want to get healed?" And there is no answer.
And still Jesus helps.
That's a good beginning.
After all, if we kind of begin to walk through the passage and say, "What are we to recognize here?" We are to recognize how long is the reach of Jesus to all kinds of people, including in this particular case a man who's first totally incapable of reaching back. I mean, that's just in first a physical expression. You and I recognize, verse 5, "One man was there at the pool of Bethesda who had been an invalid for 38 years in the ancient world that is as long as many people live at all."
Virtually his entire life and the lifespan of many, he's been an invalid. And he's there at the pool of Bethesda. We don't have to wonder, by the way, where that is. You can still visit it. You can go. Very center of Jerusalem and some shallow pools with some steps leading down to it. Obviously been rebuilt over the centuries, but it's still there. And to imagine, here is this man who's, we don't understand why lame or invalid, but paralyzed in some way, not able to actually get to the pool where there are healing waters, and he's been there, who knows how many years of the 38, and he can't get well.
It's not just that he's incapable of reaching back to the hand that reaches to him.
We also as we read the account recognize there's no one to help him reach out to the hand that reaches to him.
After all, if you just kind of go into the account, you recognize he's not the only invalid by the pool. In verse 3, "In this area called Bethesda lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, and paralyzed." You think, well, surely somebody would help him out of that multitude, but here's the problem. According to the myth of the time, the first one who got to the pool when it stirred was the one who would get magically, miraculously healed.
Nobody wants to help someone else, not just because you're cruel, but because they're your competition.
If you get them to the pool before you, they get the healing and you don't.
But it's not just the invalids who are all around and not helping. We so readily skip by the first verse. After this time of Jesus dealing with the official Son, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
A feast day of the Jews.
Tens, maybe hundreds of thousands crushed into Jerusalem. And you get some sense of the crowd by the fact that when the Jewish authorities later begin to ask the man who healed you and he can't answer, the reason he can't answer is because Jesus has melted into the crowd. It's so thick, there's so many people pressing in that even at this pool of Bethesda, which is kind of like right downtown central of Jerusalem, there are just so many people.
But no one helping.
He is clearly disabled and alone.
That's his condition.
More than that, he is a man who apparently does not have the understanding to reach up for what actually could help him. Now we have to deal with it. In many of your Bibles, there's a missing verse 4. Did you notice that? It goes 1, 2, 3, 5.
Why is that?
Well, the earliest manuscripts that we have of the Bible do not include verse 4. But it all likely would happen is some later copyist copying manuscripts of the Bible wanted to explain why the pool was stirring and adopted the local myth. There was an angel that stirred the waters. Now there's enough of geological study of this part of the world right now that we know that there were surges in the water because there's very porous rock formations around these pools. So if the rain has fallen recently and the water table picks up, you get surges of water that come into these pools. And the mythology that had developed was that there was an angel stirring the waters. And whether or not the other people believed it, we do know that this man believed it. After all, he's trusting the superstition to make him well. How many years has he been there? We don't know, but verse 7 clearly tells you what he was thinking. The 6, verse 7, "The man answers Jesus, do you want to be healed by saying to him, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred, and while I'm going, another steps down before me."
It's a myth, but he's following the superstition. That's his understanding of what will make him better.
But the final thing that's so clear is that he does not have the faith that is necessary to heal him. Not just he doesn't have the understanding.
Every case to this point when somebody has come to Jesus, they have recognized him for his works, for his signs. Some ask, but may not have full understanding.
But they come to him seeking help.
Yet when this man is asked later by the Jewish authorities, "Who healed you?" Do you remember verse 13?
Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was.
He has not said, "My Lord and my God, please help me."
He's just an invalid by the pool, trusting in his superstition with no one to help him.
And Jesus helps him.
It's interesting how the help occurs.
If you look at that verse 6 again, just the very end, Jesus asked him, "Do you want to be healed?" Instead of answering the question, the sick man said to him, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I'm going, another steps down before me." This is not an answer, it's a complaint.
This is pouting.
Now if you can think of it this way, you're supposed to be doing something, you're trying to get better, and when somebody catches you not doing what you're supposed to be doing, you blame someone else. Now that's a little more obvious in the way that Jesus addresses him. Again, verse 8, "Jesus said to this man who had just said, "Other people won't help me," Jesus says, "Get up, take your bed, and walk."
Now forgive me, there's no expression of sympathy here.
This is, "Get up" is just one Greek word in the imperative, strongly stated, "Egare, get up."
You might be compared, just imagine, that you get caught by your dad coming home, you're supposed to be writing a book report, but when he gets there, you're on the sofa watching TV.
What are you doing?
Well, my friends did not call me with the right page numbers for the chapter that we're supposed to read to do the book report.
Your friends did not call you with the… Get up.
It's kind of what Jesus is saying here. You're blaming other people. I'm just telling you, get up. Now you must recognize there's no request for this, that there is no recognition of the sovereign grace of God in Christ Jesus, none of that. Jesus just says to him, "Get up."
And he gets up and walks.
Two things that John is doing. First he is telling us of the power of the Word of Jesus. It's been expressed from the very beginning, remember, John 1, 1, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Here is the very creative power of the universe, present in Jesus Himself. And the evidence of it is this could be tested. This man has been an invalid for 38 years. And Jesus just says to him, "Get up." And he gets up, he speaks, and it is so. It's the creative power of God on display in Jesus speaking to this man.
But it's not raw power.
It is raw power expressed in grace.
Talk about not able to make any contribution to your own help and salvation. I mean, he does absolutely nothing here. He does not ask for help. He does not deserve help. He's not able to get help. And yet Jesus helps him. Why is that so important to us? Because so many people come thinking, "God will accept me through Christ when I get my life straightened out, when I've set things right, when I've learned the customs, when I've learned all the things that I'm supposed to do, then I'll come and commit my life to Christ." And the Bible is simply saying, "That's not the right order."
Here is somebody totally undeserving and incapable of the grace of God, and it reaches to him. Now the fact that grace reaches to him does not mean there's no expected response.
It is important however that you know. Grace comes first.
What's the response that's being expected? You know, we almost have to say that we see what's expected by what's absent in this passage. And by that I say, you know and are expecting certain things to occur that don't in this passage. And it's your own heart that's leading you to say, "What does God expect us to do in response to this grace that's so unconditional and unqualified?"
The first response that's expected to those who've been touched by the grace of God is growth.
I mean, I suppose it's obvious, but just consider it for a moment. Verse 8, Jesus says to this man, "Get up, take your bed, and walk." Do you hear the little stages? First just get up.
Second, you pick up the bed that you've just been lying here on for so long, and now make some progress.
You walk, but it's more than physical expression. Look at verse 14.
"Afterwards, Jesus found this man of the temple and said to him," see, you are well.
"Sin no more."
Grace leads to godliness.
There's been a progression.
There is an expectation that this grace that has been so overwhelming, so unqualified, so unconditional, so strikes the heart of a man that he will now grow, not just in his physical walk, but in his spiritual walk with God.
See that you sin no more. Why is that important for us? It's important for us because sometimes, because we talk so much, rightly so, about the nature of unqualified grace that gets us into the kingdom of God, that we begin to think there's no expectations once we're in the kingdom of God.
And now what is being said clearly is, "No, listen, having been so wonderfully saved, healed, redeemed, not by anything in you, but by the goodness that's in Christ Jesus, now that you have received that, live it, respond to it." Sometimes we talk this way. If we say, "Listen, grace is totally unqualified. I didn't do anything to get it," then what that means is I don't have to do anything now.
Listen, there's a math of the mind that can abuse the gospel that way that says, "Hey, if God doesn't love me because of what I do, then there's no obligation upon me."
But listen, while there is a math of the mind that may abuse the grace of God that way, there is a chemistry of the heart that is far stronger.
And the chemistry of the heart says, "If He loves me so much, I want to walk with Him. I want to honor Him. I want my life to reflect more and more of my gratitude for what He has done."
When Jack Buck was dealing with that firefighter and he got past the critical time of his life and death situation, there was still a lot of growth that had to occur.
And so Jack Buck returned in later days to the firefighter and brought with him a signed baseball signed autographed by Stan Musial.
Here's more grace.
Here's a baseball.
Said Jack Buck to the firefighter, "Now I expect you to write a letter of thank you.
I want you to think of the firefighter. What are his hands like?
What stubs?
Any change of that condition is going to be excruciating, the therapy is required. But it now becomes gratitude that drives him as he in thankfulness for the baseball wants to write a letter. And you know how Jack Buck kept the growth occurring? After the letter was written to Stan Musial, he brought him another baseball signed by Ozzy Smith and then another baseball and another baseball. And it became the therapy of writing the thank you letters as gratitude became the driving force of a new life of new health.
Listen, grace gets us into the kingdom. It's gratitude that keeps us moving forward as we know we're not earning anything, but our hearts are resonating with the goodness of God. What should we be grateful for?
The order of mercy first. I hope you recognize just as you look at the count kind of in back up view that grace comes before growth.
Jesus is not waiting for this young man to get everything straightened out first. In fact, it seems that there is still much that's a mess.
Growth will come later if it comes at all, but grace comes first.
That's different than what people would expect in that day and age. I hope you recognize that what's happening here is we basically have two religious systems on view.
One religious system is that which Christ is expressing, which says that a relationship with God is a gift. It's not something you earn. It's not something you deserve. It's not something you qualify for. Here is God simply extending you life that He would give out of His own heart.
There's another system on display. Do you recognize what it is? It's represented by the Jews pattern of the Sabbath. Here is a man who has been wonderfully healed. Thirty-eight years invalid. Now he gets up. It's a miracle. What are you doing carrying that bed?
I mean they're saying, "Right, it's the Sabbath. You're not supposed to be bearing anything on the Sabbath day." Now, we don't perceive why this was such a deal. But recognize there are Jewish people everywhere, and they know according to Jewish law you're not supposed to be carrying burdens on the Sabbath. The fact that this man is carrying his little pallet, whatever it was, is as obvious as a kid going down the hallway in school with water balloons under his arm. I mean, do you know something not good is about to happen?
And the Jews seeing this man carrying his pallet when nobody else is carrying a burden
say, "It doesn't matter.
We would rather you follow our customs than have compassion."
Religion can just be a burden, you know? It really can. If it's not understanding the life of freedom and goodness that God intends by His grace. So much of it's just being expressed in what we know about Jewish customs at the time. It's right, you know, that you could not carry a burden.
Everyone else could carry it for you though.
You could gain by their loss.
You could not borrow money on the Sabbath. Oh, excuse me. You could borrow money on the Sabbath.
But you could not ask for it. That was a work.
You could not put vinegar on your teeth if they were hurting.
But you could eat food with vinegar in it.
Rule upon rule upon rule, just ritual and custom that supposedly was qualifying, qualifying for the goodness of God.
And here is Jesus operating with a totally different system saying, "It's not you qualifying for me that makes you right with God.
You're not made right by the rules. You're made right by relationship with me." And that relationship driven religion, if we call it religion at all, that relationship of life with God is what Jesus is saying is established by grace. It's lived out with gratitude. But the gratitude first is with the order by which we are made right with God, not by our works but by His goodness. And works flow out of a heart of gratitude then.
What other reason for gratitude do we have other than kind of a merciful order?
A merciful rest that's being indicated. You're well aware that there's a debate going on and verse 16 talks about it. The Jews were persecuting Jesus because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But verse 17, "Jesus answered them, "My Father is working until now and I am working." There were all these rules for the Sabbath observance. And yet Jesus is saying, "No, listen. These things that you are establishing are actually hurting my Father's purposes. He has been working up until now and I am going to keep working as He was." In which case He is saying He is Lord of the Sabbath. It doesn't rule over Him. He rules over it. But what was the purpose of the Sabbath? The name itself means, do you know what?
Rest.
He came to give people rest.
What did He give this man in the account rest from?
Thirty-eight years of racing to the pool.
Get there, get there, get there.
It's absolute futility.
And He is serving a religion that is futility as well. Telling Him if you just keep certain rules that everything will be okay with God. And He's saying, "How many rules?
When is that going to end?" It's all futility. And Jesus says instead, "I come to give you rest.
I am Lord of the Sabbath."
It is not meant to rule you. You are to be at rest.
If you have a life in which you are experiencing futility, you know the wonder of that mercy.
I have a friend, a pastor who has recently written a letter by a couple in his church. And they talked about some of the futility that they were experiencing.
They said this, "Pastor, this year marked a decade of hard work and perseverance that has culminated in the fulfillment of lifelong dreams and goals.
However, this year also marked our individual struggles over issues of health and mortality and heartache and loss.
We have reflected on the past not with exuberance, but with an all-encompassing weariness from the seemingly voracious, chronic problems of life that daily eat away at our heart and soul. At the very depth of what we have experienced, we woke up one day and said, "It's too much,
too much heartache, too much sadness. We have to make a change. We can't keep going down this futile path."
And that is what Jesus is saying, "I have come to give you rest. Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
If there is a day that we should feel the weight of that, it ought to be this day in which we are celebrating veterans who have given life and service for the sake of this nation, and 22 of whom will give not that, will take their lives today and every day if the pattern completes itself for what's happened this last year. Twenty-two veterans a day in this nation will take their lives.
Divided by demons of the past, difficulties of the present, frustrations about the future. I don't know it all. I've not lived a life to in any way complain or point finger. I will just tell you, there is no greater evidence of people who know absolute futility and are saying, "Can't I find some relief from this?" And when Jesus says, "I am Lord of the Sabbath," He is saying, "Will you come and get some rest?" I cannot tell you how it shakes me to recognize I know there are people listening to me right now who are questioning whether their lives should continue, who are facing such a degree of futility that they are questioning right now whether anything I'm saying is true or anything in this world is worth holding onto. And I say to you, what Jesus is saying with a heart that is so big that even if you're not reaching out to Him, He is speaking to you, is He is saying, "I am coming to give you rest."
It's not you're making yourself right with me. It's not qualifying. It's now somehow getting the approval of the world. You can have the love of God eternal and forgiveness and acceptance regardless of the past or the present, and you can have some rest because He's Lord of the Sabbath and He came to give you rest.
It may be hard to understand. It may be hard to understand, and so that is why the apostle presses on to new territory he's not been in yet in this passage to tell us that we should be grateful not just because of a wonderful merciful order of grace, not even because of a merciful rest from the difficulties of this world.
We begin to understand the degree and the power of that when we recognize he also talks about a merciful warning.
What if you don't have this rest?
Then what?
Interesting words that Jesus says in verse 14.
"Afterwards, when Jesus finds this invalid man in the temple, He said to him, "See you're well.
Find no more that nothing worse may happen to you."
Well, goodness, he's been an invalid for 38 years. How much worse can it get?
Verse 25 tells you how much worse it can get. Jesus is speaking, and later after He has been persecuted by Jewish authorities, He says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, and hours coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son also to have life in Himself, and He has given Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and come out, those who have done good to resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. There will be another day when Jesus will say, "Get up."
He will say it to the entire world, and He will say it to those who are alive and those who are already in their graves.
There is coming a day of resurrection, and Jesus has the power of life in Himself. He's proven it here to say, "Get up."
But He will even speak to people like this man who is evidenced in this particular account.
Because He's an invalid, we give Him lots of sympathy.
But there is a path He is going down for which we should take deep warning.
We got just a little sense of His character in verse 7. Remember, after Jesus asked the question, "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 stirred."
No, that wasn't the question.
Do you want to be healed? And what He does is He begins to blame other people for His condition.
The blame will continue.
Verse 10, "The Jews said to the man who had been healed." It's the Sabbath. It's 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." Hey, it's not my fault.
I'm just doing what I was told.
Now the Jewish authorities say, "Who told you?"
Well, when it's asked the first time, He says what?
I don't know.
But He knows whoever is breaking the Sabbath is in trouble, right?
Because He's in trouble.
And so He pushes the trouble away by saying, "I don't know who it was."
Then what happens? Verse 14, He's in the temple.
Jesus says, "Go and sin no more." And at that point, the man who has been healed learns who Jesus is.
What does He do in verse 15?
He goes and tattles.
No, it's not tattling.
It's betrayal.
It's that Jesus.
He's the one.
Which Jesus is that?
Verse 18, "Jesus, remember, was breaking the Sabbath. 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.
The betrayal of this man is not just against His healer, not even just against the Lord of the Sabbath.
Ultimately, this betrayal is against the Lord."
John has not said this yet in his gospel. "Thus far, He has made every transgression, every expression of the wrath of God, basically dealing as one's sin against oneself. You keep yourself in darkness. You keep yourself in pain. You do this against yourself if you maintain this pattern of living apart from God."
Now he says something different.
It is a just universe created by a righteous God.
And when you turn against Him in sin, you betray God.
And God says He will judge such sin.
You know what you and I say?
We see this man healed and then betraying Jesus and we say, "How dare He?"
Really?
How dare we?
That's the point. That His betrayal resulted in Jesus being pursued to death, but my sin and your sin put Him upon the cross as well.
It's our sin, and that is why Jesus calls every man everywhere to repent. It's what Paul said years later. "God has declared a day by which He will judge the world in righteousness, and He has appointed a man to make the judgment. And He is assured us who that man is by raising him from the dead. And because of this, He calls all men everywhere to repent that they would not face the judgment." What is the final thing that is our great reason for gratitude to understand that God loved us enough to warn us? Listen, if He did not love you, He would not warn you. And so what God has done is He has told you, "Here is a path. Is a path of grace. It is a path of rest. But to turn apart from that is not just to do damage to you. It is ultimately to transgress a holy God. His standards and the righteousness of God must be satisfied. Therefore, we are called to repent, to look at lives that are not right before God and recognize that awareness is God Himself reaching into our hearts and saying, "You must turn to Me."
It's what I call you to now. God Himself puts before you the awareness of what you must know.
He is not saying you have to be capable, but He is saying you must respond to the reach. You must get up.
You must understand there are consequences of judgment that God has put before people in great integrity as well as love for you. And having put the consequences out there, He says to you and to me, "Don't go there.
Repent and seek the one who loves you by acknowledging your need of Him.
I call you to it now.
Get up."
Do you want to be healthy? Do you want to be healed? Don't say no.
Let the Holy Spirit work in your heart even right now. What are you pursuing that is apart from Him?
Turn away from it.
Repent of your sin and rest in Jesus knowing that He will take your sin upon Him on the cross and you will be able to get up from this place, healed of your sin forever. And never facing the judgment, never, because He has made you whole.
Father, when I say these words, I recognize it's in a world in which talking about judgment and repentance can just be put in front of us as a joke and a caricature.
But I do not fear to put it in front of your people.
For Father, where you are working, there is no convincing needed that you are a just God and that people are deserving of your judgment. There are hearts right now here that know that. They need no convincing because your Holy Spirit is working in them right now. And for those people, Father, I now pray that you who by your Holy Spirit are reaching into their hearts to make them aware of their need of you would have them respond with joy.
I recognize even when they could not respond to you rightly, you have offered your grace to them.
So lift our eyes, we pray, in the awareness of a God who lifts us to Himself when we could not rise up so that we rising would know the joy even of the lame, even of the lame made right by the work of Jesus Christ.
Do this work in us, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen.