April 22, 2021 John 5: 8-13
54Now this was the second sign that Jesus did
after coming from Judea to Galilee.
After this there was a
festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a
pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. 3In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and
paralyzed. 5One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6When 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?” 7The 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 making my
way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” 8Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” 9At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and
began to walk. Now that day was a sabbath. 10So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, “It is the
sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.” 11But he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me,
‘Take up your mat and walk.’” 12They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you,
‘Take it up and walk’?” 13Now the man who had been healed did not know who
it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. 14Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See,
you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to
you.” 15The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had
made him well. 16Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was
doing such things on the sabbath.
Jesus
told him to take up his mat and walk.
The man has just finished describing the deficiencies of the medical
delivery system of Roman Judea and Jesus just cuts through all the red
tape. This story is in contrast to the
one that sticks in my head. I had to
look up the exact reference, Luke 17:19, where there is another man whom Jesus
tells to “Rise and walk”, but in this instance, Jesus adds the qualifier, “Your
faith has made you well.” There is no such
qualifier here. Immediately, the man was
able to do as Jesus commanded, he got up, took up his mat, and walked out of
there. I wonder if he looked down at the
pool, realizing he’d never get cut off trying to be cured again.
But
there is a qualifier to this healing. It
is the Sabbath. But before we consider
that, I am reminded of a small segment named for a Canadian televised news magazine show, “What
bugs me?” The promo for that had somebody
in a cheesy bee costume.
Bethesda
is a holding area for a large number of ‘invalids’. It is another conversation to talk about what
makes someone valid and someone invalid in the culture of Jesus’ time and the
culture of today. Jesus did not clear
the place out. John specifies that there
this is only this one guy from among the crowd.
If Jesus wanted to make a bigger statement, he certainly could
have. But he does not. In the logic of the gospel, this single
healing (instead of a mass healing), seems to track back to what he said in
Galilee, about people coming to see him only for the signs, only for the
carnival. And while that makes sense in
the gospel’s structure, it still provides me with an edge to work on for better
acceptance.
Because
from what comes next, it appears that Jesus is not so much healing a man as
picking a fight with the Jewish leadership.
Because He heals the man on the Sabbath.
And as the man walks home, he is challenged by the “Jews”, read, the Jewish
leadership. “Why are you carrying your
bed? It is illegal to carry your bed on
the Sabbath!” The man’s response is
consistent with what he told Jesus when Jesus asked if he wanted to be made
well. He does not so much answer the
question as tell the story of his circumstances.
A guy
healed me and told me to pick up my mat and walk. The implication is that if a man has the
power to heal him and then tells him to pick up his mat and walk, the man is going to obey,
Sabbath or no Sabbath. So the
Leadership, they want names. Who is this
man who defies the Sabbath? That’s a
hanging offense…sorry, that is the influence of watching too many
westerns. It is a stoning offense. But the guy does not know who healed him. Jesus did not self-identify and then apparently
faded away into the crowd. It seems as
though the man put his mat down, or took it home, or something, because the
leadership does not stay on his case.
We
will wind up the story next time.
Peace, Pastor Peter
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