“Two strikes against him?”

By Rev. Michael Stonhouse

Meditation – Wednesday, March 8, 2023

John 5:1-18 (Forward, p. 38) CEV p. 1105

Some people can’t win for trying. Here Jesus incurs the wrath of the Jewish authorities in two ways. First of all, He does a ‘good turn’ to a man who had been crippled for some thirty-eight years, healing him from his terrible and lengthy affliction. Probably was, Jesus did this on the Sabbath, which was considered a violation of the Sabbath rules which forbid all work—and all medical intervention except in serious cases, those that were a matter of life and death. And seeing as this man had suffered this malady for thirty-eight years, it certainly could not be considered a matter of life and death. Certainly, as far as they were concerned, it could have waited one day. However, that was not how Jesus thought: restoration to health and wholeness was more important than a bunch of human rules!

And then there was a matter of Jesus referring to God as His Father and suggesting that just as God had never quit working in this world, it was permissible for Him to work as well. In other words, the same rules as apply to God, also apply to Him. As for His referring to God as His Father, I, for one, do not see any problem with this, as we Christians routinely refer to the first person of the Trinity as ‘our Father’. Indeed, this was common practice even among the Jews of Jesus’ day. And could not Jesus have merely been referring to the intimacy, the closeness, the special relationship, that He had with God? But, no, His critics took His words as meaning more than that, namely that He was claiming to be equal with God—in other words, God Himself. To them, that blurred the fundamental distinction, the separation, between God and the creation, between, as Carson puts it, ‘the holy, infinite God and finite, fallen human beings’. To them, this claim by Jesus amounted to blasphemy, and so, for this reason, they wanted all the more to kill Him.

So what are we, in the here and now, to make of this first century AD Judean encounter? What are we to ‘take away’ from it? Two things, I would suggest. First is that Jesus, as God’s unique and only Son, takes His cue from God and does only, and completely what God desires. And furthermore, He is privy to God’s purpose and plan, God’s will as no one else has ever been. And means that He alone is fully able to convey that plan to us. And so, Jesus is absolutely alone in this regard. And secondly, that God in Christ Jesus continues His work in our world and continues to work on our behalf. He is not bound by any human rules or regulations, or by any adverse presuppositions on our parts. God, in Christ Jesus, is sovereign! And so, this means that we can always go to Him in prayer, go to Him with our questions and issues, knowing that no only can He direct us aright but can also intervene and help us with those issues. Amen.

Forward notes: “[Jesus] said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ 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 making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me’” (verses 6b-7)

“I once worked for a prominent politician who would answer an audience’s questions by chuckling, then quipping, “Ask me whatever you like. If I don’t like your question, I’ll answer the one I think you should have asked!”

“The sick man does not answer Jesus’s question. He answers the one he thought Jesus should have asked: ‘Why can’t you make it to the pool before the other sick people?’ The man’s answer is self-judgment, as though Jesus is judging the man for being sick, just as others have judged the man his whole life.

“We often pass judgment on others: the chronically sick, people from other cultures, socioeconomic, or education levels. Try harder and you’ll make it, we think. There is some truth in the admonition. Sometimes people need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. But Jesus doesn’t ask, ‘Have you tried hard enough?’ His question is different. He asks, ‘Do you want to be made well?’”

MOVING FORWARD: “What question is Jesus asking you today?”

A concluding note: I’m not sure that I fully agree with our author’s supposition today. I think that the paralyzed man was trying to cast the blame away from himself, namely, to suggest that it was because he didn’t have anyone around to help him, that he suffered this malady. It was someone else’s fault, not his.