Gracious God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, giver of the Holy Spirit who spoke by the apostles and the prophets, pour out now that same spirit upon us as we read the pages that they have written. Open to us Your Word. Give us light. Grant us understanding. Give us wisdom. Help us to enjoy and obey all that we see in this Word, and not only to see it, but to savor it. Not only to be stirred, but to be changed from one degree of glory to the next. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Our text this morning comes from John’s Gospel, chapter 5. I invite you to turn there, to John, chapter 5. I’ll be reading from the first 18 verses. John, chapter 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 had been an invalid for thirty-eight 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 am going, another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up 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 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in that place. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” 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.”
One of the things I hope you are learning as we move slowly through the Gospel of John is that you may not know Jesus as well as you think that you know Jesus. Many of us are extremely familiar with Jesus. We sing songs about Jesus, we read things about Jesus, we have studies about Jesus. Many of us have been around Jesus since we were young. One famous author generations ago even described the South as that “Christ-haunted place.” So we think we know all about Jesus.
But if you listen to Jesus, I mean really pay attention to Him, He is going to surprise you. He certainly surprised, and you could go further and say shocked, and you could go even further and say scandalized, those around Him in first century Palestine. And if you will set aside the sanitized, “Precious Moments” Jesus; nothing against Precious Moments you may have in your house, but you know the little figurines and they have little, soft pastels and you collect them and maybe have Jesus in a manger or you have a little shepherd Jesus or just a little rosy-cheeked, cute Jesus… Set that aside for a moment and you pay attention to this Jesus. He will surprise you, and He may even shock you, and He may even leave you feeling scandalized. He did it in first century Israel and if you pay attention, He will do it in 21st century Charlotte.
I want you to notice four things Jesus said in this passage,
