THE NEW TESTAMENT!

Day 281 – Reading – John 5

Read and believe in Jesus!

John 5,

Jesus heals the invalid by the Pool of Bethesda, which is just north of the Temple.

Around this pool lay “a multitude of invalids – blind, lame, and paralyzed” – waiting for the the water to “stir” so they could go in and be healed. (Just south of it, between the Antonia Fort and Pool of Israel is where the small Sheep Gate is located. Jesus went out this gate from the Temple to find the paralyzed man.)

A MIRACLE PERFORMED:

Among the crowds of ailing men lay one who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.  Had he no friends or family to help or care for him? Had he been injured, or was he born a cripple?

He waited with many others for the water in the pool to “stir.” Some believed that it was an angel that stirred up the water, and that the first one in was healed of their ailment.  Today, it’s believed that a surge from an underground spring caused the water to ripple. Was there a healing?  When you have been sick for so long ANY belief is welcome.

But that day, Jesus approached this man, knowing he’d been there a long time. 

“Do you want to be healed?”  

That seems like an odd question. OF COURSE the man wanted healing, right?  Or… had he gotten so used to being there, collecting alms, perhaps commiserating with other “friends” who’d been there a while, napping, watching for the elusive stir in the pool…   

Jesus knew his mind and heart, and asked him the question.  He may ask it to us today, not for physical healing, but for deep heart issues.  Do we want to be “healed” from a life of sin?  Do we want to be saved?

The man started in on a long explanation about him having no help, the water stirring, someone else getting there first….

“Get up, take up your bed, an walk.” 

Not an instant lapsed. The man was healed instantly. He took up his mat and walked away. Jesus faded into the crowd.  And the day was the Sabbath.

THE MASTER PERSECUTED

The walking man, no longer “unclean” by disease, headed for the Temple.  He hadn’t been inside the sacred courts for almost 40 years. He wanted to thank the Almighty God! He hardly remembered the mat under his arm.

“Hey! It’s the Sabbath. It’s not lawful for you to take up your mat,” accused the ever eagle-eyed religious leaders.

The ex-cripple stopped. “The man who healed me said, ‘Take up your bed and walk.'”

“Who was THAT MAN?”

The healed man looked around and shrugged. 

Later, Jesus found him in the Temple. “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”  (Hmmm, had his ailment been caused by some specific sin?)

The man went away and found those Jews who had quizzed him earlier. “It was Jesus who healed me.” 

Was he simply being a good citizen?  Or was he scared he’d get into trouble and maybe excommunicated?  Or was he a bit miffed at Jesus’s command and warning?

MURDER PLANNED.

And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.

“IT’S NOT LAWFUL TO HEAL ON THE SABBATH!  YOU BROKE THE LAW”  They shouted at Him.

But healing was NOT against the Sabbath Law that God gave to Israel for their benefit.  Often, Jesus explained that helping even an animal on the Sabbath, who was injured, was not breaking the law. Kindness and mercy are traits from God.  That day, however, Jesus answered differently. He spoke clearly and with authority.

• “MY FATHER is working until now, and I am working.” 
• The Son can do nothing of His own accord, but only what He sees the Father doing.
• Whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.
• For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all that He himself is doing.
• And greater works that THESE will He show Him, so that you may marvel.
• As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom He will.
• The Father judges no one, but has give all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son as they honor the Father,

• Whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and does NOT come into judgment bust has passed from death to life.
• An hour is coming and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

• The works that the Father has give me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me, that the Father has sent me.
• YOU search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
• How can you believe, when YOU receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

 

• If YOU believed Moses … you would believe Me; for he wrote of Me.”

And so the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because he was even calling God his own Father, making Himself equal with God.