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.I break the reading here to tell you that his next sentence isn’t included in most texts of the Bible. It isn’t found in the earliest manuscripts. So, it is quite certain that John didn’t write it. However, it does tell a bit about the context. It is believed to be a gloss to cover a question that comes up in the text. “Why was he waiting for the water to be stirred?” More on this later:
[waiting for the moving of the water; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and stirred the water: whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had.]The reading continues after the gloss.
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.” (John 5:1–9, ESV)Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The setting is important. It was a feast of the Jews. John doesn’t say which one, but a feast. On major feasts, Passover, Booths, etc., adult males were expected to make the trek to Jerusalem to make sacrifices. Jesus is in Jerusalem, near the temple doing what the law required. The Sheep Gate was a small doorway near the temple where the sheep for sacrifice were brought into the temple. The pool, called Bethesda (House of Mercy), was there to wash the sheep before they went in.
Around the pool, there we five colonnades, and the text tells us,
In these [colonnades] lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. waiting for the moving of the water.The gloss we read earlier was added by some later scribe, not too long after John wrote the Gospel. It explains what the blind, lame, and paralyzed where waiting for. It isn’t scripture, but it isn’t necessarily fiction either. The people in Jerusalem believed this was the case, that an angel stirred the water and the first one in it would be healed. That is why they were gathered there waiting. After all, the man Jesus talks to says as much.
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.” (John 5:7, ESV)Back to the account in John. Jesus approaches the lame, blind, and paralyzed who are among to colonnades at the Sheep Gate, near the washing pool, called Bethesda, House of Mercy. Lying there is this man who had been paralyzed a long time, 38 years, the text tells us. And Jesus knows how long it has been. He asks a question,
“Do you want to be healed?”In his answer you can hear that he has given up all hope. He has no one to lift him into the pool when it is stirred. He has been there for a very long time. Others are faster than he.
Jesus makes no comment on the healing properties of the pool. He simply tells the man,
Get up, take your bed, and walk.It seems simple enough. But the command is very specific. Get up, take your bed, and walk. Take your bed. Jesus has asked him to do the work of carrying the pallet, or the bed, he was lying on and walk around. At once the man did exactly what Jesus said. He was healed, he took up his bed, and he walked.
It seems just a simple case of Jesus doing another healing. At this point in the Gospel, he has already done a great many. He sees someone in need, and he acts in God’s gracious will and mercy, at the House of Mercy. Jesus, the Son of God, shows himself to be who he is by doing what only God can do. Then comes the most significant line in the text, the turning point. John has told the story, in all its detail, and then at the very end he adds the zinger. The thing that would make Jewish ears perk up. The reason everything is done.
Now that day was the Sabbath.Everything erupts. The Jews confront healed man. They hate Jesus and they want something to use against him. It was the Sabbath. On the Sabbath no work is to be done. Jesus commands the lame man to carry his bed in direct violation of the Sabbath. Well, it wasn’t the Sabbath as God had designed it. It was their own creation.
Among all their laws, the remembrance of the Sabbath day, is the most important. In their minds it was the least anyone could do. They made a bunch of rules specifying what you could and couldn’t do on the sabbath. Carrying things from one place to another was one of them. It wasn’t just nitpicking to them. They, the Jews, believed that if every Jew would only keep the Sabbath perfectly, two times in a row, the Messiah would come. It must have been exasperating. If only the people would listen, and do these few things, God would act. The Messiah would come and everything would be better. It was so close and yet so far away.
Jesus deliberately confronts these laws and their delusion. He doesn’t only heal the man (also a crime on the Sabbath), but he tells him to break the law by picking up his mat and walk around. Jesus knows exactly what he is doing. He is provoking the confrontation.
Why? Jesus is doing what he always does. He confronts sin. The Jews believed that that could force God’s hand, make him do what he promised. All they had to do was keep the Sabbath. They boiled down the God’s law to its simplest point. To keep the Sabbath, to do what God demanded, all they had to do was keep the law. They simplified it. They crafted it into simple rules. They made specific what they thought God had commanded. Don’t work. Don’t carry anything from one place to another. All their rules did the same sort of thing. Make God’s law, doable.
In another account, Mark’s Gospel, the disciples are accused of breaking one of these rules. They were walking though a grain field on the Sabbath. They were picking grain and eating it. The Pharisees accused them of breaking the Sabbath. They were working, harvesting. Jesus condemns their legalism.
The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. (Mark 2:27, ESV)God gave the Sabbath for the sake of his faithful people. Not as rules to follow but as a time of rest, renewal and most of all worship. Luther understood this very well. Listen to his explanation of the Third Commandment.
The Third Commandment
Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy.
What does this mean?
We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.The Sabbath day is kept holy, not by keeping rules and regulations, and not by resting alone, but by using the day to hear, meditate and discuss God’s Word. The Sabbath was made for man.
God’s Word is the true holy thing above all holy things. (LC I.91).
You must daily govern yourself according to the Word of God… that you may learn to know God rightly. (LC I.95–98).The purpose of the commandment, that was made for man, is that people should take part in Catechesis. That instruction in God’s Word.
Isn’t it ironic that Jesus uses their false belief, their own web of delusion, to tie them up, to convict them of their sin. They thought they could force God to action. The action they wanted was already among them. They refused to see him.
In verse 15, John writes,
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. (John 5:16–18, ESV)Not very far from here, to the west, in a few days our old church building will be coming down. It is sad in a way, and yet, not sad because God had made it possible for us to have a new church building. Soon the dirt will turn, and the timbers will go up. It is our church, but it is not ours. It is the place that God has set aside for us to keep his Word holy. A place where we will gather to hear over and over again of God’s Grace in Jesus Christ. God’s amazing forgiveness won for us by Jesus’ death on the cross. A place where we will hear that God forgives our sins, not because of anything we do but because of his mercy. God’s mouth house, as Luther said. God, in Jesus, is what makes the place special. His promise to gather us as people anxious to hear and discuss his Word and promises. It will be a Sabbath place. A Bethesda, a house of mercy.
And that is exactly what it will be, by God’s grace. A house of mercy. A place where we will gather to hear God’s Word of mercy. A place where we will strive to keep the primary thing primary. A place where the proclamation of God grace in Jesus Christ is foremost.
Just as the sheep were washed in the pool, just as the paralyzed man was healed, this is our pool for washing, cleansing, healing and the hearing of Jesus work to free us from our sin. That’s what Jesus was telling the Jews. You have missed the point. You can’t earn God’s favor; you can’t force God’s hand. Jesus the Messiah comes to you through God’s Mercy. He earns God’s favor for you. He cleanses you from sin and delusion by his death on the cross. His death is the It is Finished for sin, death and hell. It is the point of faith. He has done it all, and there is nothing left for us to do, but to be washed by him in the pool of the house of mercy. Amen.
The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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