We are on a journey with Jesus to His resurrection.  Are we taking this journey because Easter is coming?  I suppose, in part, that is true.  However, the most significant reason for this journey is that Jesus’ resurrection changes everything about your life.  You and I were born into this world at different times and places.  But Jesus’ resurrection erases all the differences between us because Jesus offers us a common second birth.  Our second birth is through the Spirit of God, making us children of God, meaning we become brothers and sisters of the same family.  That was what we learned last week when Nicodemus came out of the darkness of the night and into the light of Christ.  We must be born again.

          This week, we continue Jesus’ journey from the surrounds of Jerusalem back to the heart of Judaic practices: the Temple. Most scenes in the Gospel of John focus on Jesus in the Temple and surrounding areas. Those scenes often alternate between Jesus’ dialogue with people, some named and some unnamed, and a confrontation with the ruling council. Today will be no different.

          As we enter the scene, we find Jesus came to Jerusalem during one of the major feasts of the year.  Jerusalem was swollen with people.  The Temple complex was crowded.  Jesus approached the Temple from the east through what is known as the Sheep’s Gate, the gate through which shepherds brought sheep to be sacrificed.  A short distance from that gate within the Temple complex stood a water feature called the Pools of Bethesda.  John said when Jesus entered the pools that day, “3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. [4]  5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years” (John 5:3, 5).  Let’s address a couple of points with our opening Scripture. 

First, we notice the text omits verse number 4.  Bibles did not have verse numbers until the 1200s.  At that time, verse 4 read was included and read, “4 For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had” (KJV).  However, archeological discoveries in the 1800s and 1900s found early manuscripts of the Bible did not contain the words of verse 4.  Editors of modern Bible translations, such as the New International Version, concluded the words of verse 4 were not original to John’s writing, so the editors removed the words of verse 4 but retained the verse numbering.  There was no angel involved in the stirring of the waters.

Second, during that feast, when Jesus entered Jerusalem, there were many ill and disabled people present at the Pools of Bethesda.  The area was crowded, but Jesus’ eyes fell upon just one person, a man invalid for 38 years.  John offered no reason for Jesus’ focus on this man, except we discover that the man proved to be the perfect person to draw out the message of Christ.  We need to keep that latter point in mind because, at any given moment, each of us may be the perfect person to share the message of Christ with another person.  It is a sobering thought that at just the right moment, you may be the closest person to Christ your family, a friend, or a stranger has ever met and that Jesus wants you to make Him known at that moment.

On Jesus’ journey, He entered the Sheep’s Gate and went to the Pools of Bethesda and saw many disabled people, including one who was invalid for thirty-eight years. “6b Jesus asked him, ‘Do you want to get well?’” (John 5:6b). Jesus’ question seems strange because we would expect anyone who has been disabled for so long to want relief. For his part, the disabled man seemed confused by Jesus’ question, as evidenced by his response, “7 ‘Sir,’ the invalid replied, ‘I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me’” (John 5:7).  We learn two things.  First, we know the man believed, and as did others, that whenever the waters of the pool stirred, there was a chance for miraculous healing, but only for those who could get into the pool while the waters stirred.  The man believed he was in a cruel competition that favored healing only for the strongest or best supported of the disabled people.  Mercy was not a consideration.  Second, we learn that the man does not know Jesus or of Jesus’ reputation as a healer.

“8 Then Jesus said to him [the disabled man], ‘Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.’ 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked” (John 5:8-9a).  What just happened here?  We need to visualize this scene.  The area around the Pools of Bethesda was crowded with people who were blind, lame, and paralyzed.  They waited for some unpredictable moment for the pool water to stir so they could dash into the water to be made well.  Among all those people, this abled body stranger, Jesus, stopped to speak to just one man among them, a man known to be paralyzed for 38 years.  The stranger commanded the invalid to get up, take his mat, and walk, and the stranger’s words cured the man.  Jesus cured the man.  We know that if we are ill and lay in bed for a few days, our limbs, joints, and muscles become sore and hurt when we get up.  This man lay on a mat for 38 years and got up immediately.  That was a miracle.  Others present must have gasped in shock to see this man walk.  And then, before anyone could speak, this stranger who commanded a cure melded into the crowds and was gone.  Those around the pool must have wondered what happened and why it did not happen to them.  John’s first readers and we wonder what happened and its meaning.

The meaning began to show with John’s following words, “The day on which this [cure] took place was a Sabbath” (John 5:9b).  Meaning will be found in the combination of Jesus’ journey to the resurrection, his commands to the invalid at the Pool of Bethesda, and the Sabbath. We are beginning to understand something about Jesus’ journey to the resurrection.  We learned something about the invalid and the Pools of Bethesda. What must we know about the Sabbath?

In the Book of Exodus, God said of the Sabbath, “8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (Exodus 20:8-11).  God created the Sabbath so humanity could rest and keep the day holy to God.  By Jesus’ time, the Jewish ruling council had developed rules and regulations that defined what was work and what was permissible on the Sabbath.  These rules meant no plowing, reaping, grinding, baking, threshing, or binding sheaves.  There was to be no building, demolishing, trapping, shearing, slaughtering, or skinning. The rule prohibited physical activity like burning, writing, cooking, sewing, or carrying things.

To that final point, John wrote, “10 And so the Jewish leaders [ruling council] said to the man who had been healed, ‘It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.’ 11 But he [the healed man] replied, ‘The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’’  12 So they [Jewish leaders] asked him [the healed man], ‘Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?’” (John 5:10-12). Again, we learn two things. First, the man caught the ruling council’s attention because the man violated their Sabbath rules by carrying a mat. Who did this man think he was violating the ruling council’s Sabbath regulations?  Second, we learn the Council had no interest in the man’s cure. Telling the Council a stranger cured him and told him to carry his mat only shifted the Council’s inquiry into the stranger’s identity.  Who did this man who cured the invalid think he was telling people to violate their Sabbath regulations?  The miracle of healing was of no concern to the Jewish ruling council.  But the man did not know the stranger who healed him. We learn from this encounter that the Council was more interested in acts that violated their methods of following the Sabbath than mercy.  The Council took Jesus’ words to man not as a merciful rebuke of lifelong paralysis but as a challenge to the Council’s authority, and a challenge to authority must be defended.  In its rightful role of guiding the people's religious faith, the Council had forgotten God’s command, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6).  It appeared the story would end here.

But “14 Later Jesus found him [the healed man] at the temple and said to him, ‘See, you are well again. Stop sinning, or something worse may happen to you.’ 15 The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that Jesus had made him well” (John 5:14-15).  Here, we learn three things.  First, Jesus found the man in the Temple.  This was cause for celebration because the paralyzed and seriously ill were not allowed in the Temple, another Jewish ruling Council regulation.  Disabled people were not permitted to worship in the Temple.  Now healed, the man wanted everything that had been denied him. Second, Jesus said that continual sin brings something worse than 38 years of paralysis.  Continual sin brings hell.  And so, Jesus told the man, “Stop sinning.”  Finally, the healed man wanted people to know about Jesus and Jesus' authority to command healing, an authority known only to God.  Now, John’s readers and we might think this will be an excellent day for the Council.  They will meet someone whose spoken words can heal.

But alas, “16 Because Jesus was doing these things [healing] on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him” (John 5:16).  Persecute here means to harass, mistreat, to be hostile toward.  The ruling Council was only interested in Jesus submitting himself to their authority. John said, “17 In his defense Jesus said to them, ‘My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.’ 18 For this reason, they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God” (John 5:17-18).  Jesus had done it.  Jesus said even on the Sabbath, God was at work.  The ruling Council would have agreed.  But for Jesus to call God His Father and that He was working on the Sabbath as His Father worked on the Sabbath was Jesus making Himself equal to God. Suddenly, the violation of the Sabbath was pale in comparison to the blasphemy of Jesus making himself equal to God. Violating the Sabbath brought persecution.  Blasphemy required death.

We now can understand the combination of Jesus’ journey to the resurrection, his commands to the invalid at the Pool of Bethesda, and the Sabbath.  Jesus was deliberately going to the resurrection, where salvation would be offered.  Along the way to the resurrection, Jesus wanted people to know that salvation was not a cruel competition among people.  Salvation was not about who was most physically fit or able to help themselves to achieve perfection.  Salvation was not about the work you did, the clothing worn, or the position of authority held.  Salvation was not and is not a cruel competition.

   Instead, salvation is granted to us by mercy.  God’s mercy that gifts us salvation we call grace.  And our access to that grace is determined based upon our answer to just one question, “Do you want to be well?”

What is meant by that question?  We see the meaning through the man at the pool.  The man was bound to live a life of doing the same thing.  The man could not change his circumstances or find a friend strong enough to change the man’s life for him.  The man was without hope. 

The imagery of the man bound at the pool is the picture of a life, our life, bound by sin. We are confined to doing the same thing over and over.  We cannot break sin on our own and do not have friends strong enough to break our sin for us.  Sin is cruel.

Then along came a man, a stranger at first, who asked the man at the pool, “Do you want to be well?”  Then the stranger said to the man, “Get up and walk; you are no longer bound. But sin no more.”  Mercy had been given, and mercy received.  The man who had been bound was now free to share with everyone the identity of the man who freed him.  The imagery of the man freed to walk is the picture of a life saved by Jesus.  The scene at the pool showed us that the man who could make the lame walk had the power to cancel sin.  And the only one who can cancel sin is God.

But the message of grace is not readily accepted by those who live their life based upon cruel competition, nor is it readily accepted by those who want to remain in sin. The ruling council set the rules and procedures for the cruel competition over who could enjoy God’s grace. Anyone who challenged them must be opposed to God and be condemned.  Jesus’ journey to the resurrection would require the ruling council to condemn him. Why?  So that the power of the resurrection, the authority of Jesus, and the wrongness of the competition would be evident.

But to live in the power of the resurrection, we sinners must answer one question: “Do you want to be well?”  Let us pray.