Knock, knock. Who’s there? … I don’t have a
joke, I just wanted to illustrate that whenever anyone knocks at the door we
instinctively want to know who’s there. I love those apartment doors with
the peep hole. It allows you to see who’s there before opening the door.
Well, we have been discovering throughout our
study of John’s gospel that Jesus is one who knocks at the door of our
heart. He is one who deserves to have authority over our lives and He
brings with Him full and rich life, everlasting life.
But before you open the door of your life to
Him, you may want to know who’s there. You may want to know who Jesus is.
So John seeks to give us a portrait of Jesus, he seeks to show us who Jesus
is.
Certainly we have learned that the purpose of
the gospel of John is found in 20:30, 31, “Jesus did many other
miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in
this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
We have to keep that in mind because every
picture, every snapshot of Jesus, every encounter we read about, every
miracle that is recorded in this gospel is there for that purpose - that we
may see that “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing
you may have life in his name.”
The snapshot we are given this morning of
Jesus is given to us for that reason. So that we would see Jesus, that we
would have a new understanding of who He is – that we may understand fully
and believe in our hearts that truly Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
And I can think of no greater achievement for
us. If we are able to go out of worship this morning saying, “I have seen
Jesus the Christ the Son of God and in believing I have tasted newness of
life,” we will have spent our morning wisely.
John sets the scene for us in verse 1 by
telling us that it is a busy time in Jerusalem. There is a feast going on.
We don’t know for sure what feast it is. Leviticus 23 lists the feasts and
the festivals that God commanded His people to keep. Three times each year
Jewish families were expected to travel to Jerusalem for worship – the
Passover in the spring, Pentecost seven weeks later, and the feast of
Tabernacles in autumn. John doesn’t tell us which feast it is and we have
no clues outside this text.
But we do know that the city would have been busy, and
it was busy around a particular pool in the city where the disabled would
lie with the hope of finding healing in it’s restorative waters.
We are told of one who was there – a man who had been
an invalid for 38 years. When Jesus sees him and learned that he had been
in this condition for a long time He asked him, “Do you want to get
well?”
Now just allow your mind to take a snapshot of
that scene for a moment. Because it gives us a clearer picture of who Jesus
is. Jesus is the one who constantly breaks in on us.
The interesting thing about the start of this encounter
in our passage today is that Jesus initiates the whole thing. The paralyzed
man doesn’t call out to Jesus. He doesn’t beg for Jesus’ help – it is all
Jesus’ initiative. Jesus sees the man and finds out about his condition.
Jesus begins the conversation. Jesus breaks in on the man.
Do you know there are times in life when we
are simply living? We are doing our thing, wake up in the morning, have our
breakfast, get the kids off to school, go to work. We have our meetings, do
our work and drive home. We have dinner, get the kids to their activities,
help them with their home work, do some work for the church, watch the
evening news and go to bed. The next day is the same. The next day is the
same. And if we aren’t careful, there is the danger that we don’t spend too
much time thinking about Jesus and His claim on our lives. There is a
danger of just going through life.
But it’s not that Jesus is hiding Himself or
keeping Himself away from us. On the contrary – I would suggest that our
Lord is constantly breaking in on us. He is constantly giving us
experiences and sending events into our lives that remind us of Him, events,
experiences and people that call us to Himself.
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and He
deserves first place in our lives, and if He doesn’t get it He will often,
gently and carefully nudge us to pay attention to Him.
It is the way God has always acted. In the
book of Amos we read words of God’s judgment – they can be seen has harsh
and unrelenting. He says to His people who have turned their backs on him,
(Amos 4:6-11) “I gave you empty stomachs in every city and lack of bread
in every town, yet you have not returned to me, declares the Lord. I also
withheld rain from you when the harvest was still three months away. I sent
rain on one town, but withheld it from another. One filed had rain; another
had n one and dried up. People staggered from town to town for water but
did not get enough to drink, yet you have not returned to me declares the
Lord.”
We can read those words and say, “How terrible
of God – He is full of judgment and wrath.” But I read those words and I
see a God of grace. He loves us so much that He will break in on us. He
loves us so much that He will not leave us alone, He is constantly trying to
get our attention. Not because He has some psychological problems, but that
He knows that we need Him and cannot have life without Him. So He
constantly breaks in on us.
A poet by the name of Francis Thompson called
God the “hound of heaven” and depicted God to be one who was constantly
after Him. Wherever He fled, down the nights and down the days, down the
arches of the years, “I hid from him,” says Francis Thompson, “but all the
while I could hear the constant beat of the Lord’s feet coming after.”
Do you know that Jesus is the Christ the Son
of God, and as the Christ the Son of God, He has a deep love for you that
will not let you go, so He breaks in on you, through the words of a friend,
through a sermon, through a song, through an experience at work to tell you
that He loves you and longs for you to trust in Him, depend on Him and serve
Him.
And it’s important for us who do know Him to
look for the ways that He breaks in on us. To look for Him through our day
and recognize Him when He does break in.
There is an old hymn that the ancient church
has sung for thousands of years before it celebrates communion and it begins
with the words, ”Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts, Heaven and earth are
full of Thy glory.” We are used to thinking that heaven is full of God’s
glory. But earth? Yes earth, our lives and experiences are lives and
experiences in which our Lord is able to come and reveal Himself to us.
Our text continues Jesus asks the man, “Do
you want to get well?” And the man says, “Sir, 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.”
Apparently it was believed that the pool held
some sort of healing properties. We don’t know where these healing
properties came from – whether it was from the minerals in the water, or if
it was some angelic power as some less reliable manuscripts suggest. What
is clear from the man’s answer that the pool was occasionally stirred and it
was at that time that people were healed.
The man seems to reply to Jesus question with
indignation, as if to say, “Why ask me a question like that? Of course I
want to be made whole, but what chance do I have?” And Jesus says to him, “Get
up! Pick up your mat and walk. At once the man was cured; he picked up his
mat and walked.”
Stop there for a moment, for is a second
snapshot we are given of Jesus. I had difficulty with this next point – we
can say quite simply Jesus is the one who is heals. And it’s true – in Him
is life and because of that He stands against everything that debilitates
and destroys life including sickness and disease. Our Lord is one who
heals.
But that seems almost too low, for He is
demonstrating so much more than that. If that wasn’t enough, He is the Lord
who transforms and brings newness of life. He brings a whole new quality of
life to that which is torn apart and broken by this fallen, sin sick world.
He actually reverses this man’s situation where before he could not move on
his own, he is able to walk. He could not carry his own mat. He is able to
pick it up. His whole life has been turned up side down.
But maybe I’m trying to get too much from this
text. Why not simply say that Jesus is the one who heals. That’s amazing.
Of course the next question may be – does our
Lord heal today? And the answer yes He does. Very often He heals through
medicine and therapy and surgery. Sometimes He does the equally miraculous
and heals without the use of any of those things.
I was visiting with Glen and Lucille this week
and he is memorizing Psalm 103: “Praise the Lord O my soul, all my
inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget
not all his benefits, who forgives all your sins and heals all your
diseases.”
And Glen said that phrase “heals all your
diseases” stopped him in his tracks, as he said, “Thank you, Lord, for the
healing you bring into our lives.”
Then the next question we have is, “Why
doesn’t He heal everyone who asks?”
And I’m not sure that’s the point of our
text. The point of our text is to show us the person of Jesus and we are
meant to bow our heads and hearts before the one who is Lord over the
physical world and who with a word can bring health.
The attitude we are to have with this picture
is one of reverence. We are to fall before the one who is able to heal. If
we experience healing, He gets the praise. If we are not healed, He gets
the praise. Whatever state we find ourselves in, He is to get the praise
because He is Lord.
The picture we are given here is of Jesus –
the Christ, the Son of God who is able to heal.
Our text continues, “The day on which this
took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jews said to the man who had been
healed, ‘It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.’
But he replied, ‘The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and
walk.’ So they asked him, ‘Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and
walk?’ The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped
away into the crowd that was there.”
This is quite a strange encounter, isn’t it?
Here is a man who had been paralyzed for 38 years and he’s up walking around
and the people ask him, “Hey, why are you carrying your mat on the Sabbath?”
The man tries to draw attention to his new
condition and says, “Hey, the man who healed me told me to pick it up and
walk! You think I’m going to disobey him?” It is strange that the crowd
seems more interested in keeping the Sabbath rules than they are the fact
that the man is healed.
Skip down to verse 16 for a moment, “So,
because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted
him, Jesus said to them, ‘My Father is always at his work to this very day,
and I, too, am working.’ ” Here is yet another snapshot of our Lord.
Clearly Jesus is the one who fulfills the Sabbath.
It’s interesting as we read these next number
of chapters to chapter 10 that John presents us one Jewish festival after
another – here the Sabbath festival, in chapter 6 the Passover festival, in
chapter 7 the festival of Tabernacles, in chapter 10 the Hanukkah Festival –
and in each one Jesus will demonstrate how He has come to fulfill these
festivals and how He is the one to whom these festivals point.
Of course the most common festival for the
Jews was the Sabbath festival, celebrated every seven days, a day of rest,
to trust in God and look to Him. A day remember that we are dependent on
God, He is the one who restores us, He is the one who sustains us, He is the
one who gives life to us.
And here is Jesus healing on the Sabbath. He
is the one to whom the Sabbath points. He is the one who brings rest, He is
the one who sustains and gives life. He reminds the crowd of this on the
Sabbath.
At verse 16 He tells the crowd that He is
always at work. That shocks the crowd and would eventually get him killed,
but what does He mean when He says that He and His Father are always
working? Well, the day Adam and Eve sinned was the day that God’s Sabbath
rest was broken. From that time to this our God has been at work, searching
us out, providing salvation, bringing about His plan for the renewal and
redemption of humanity. And it is that work that Jesus is involved in.
God the Son, like God the Father, is busy at work bringing about the
redemption of humanity.
Clearly we have another snapshot here. And
from this snapshot we learn that Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath who brings the
life that the Sabbath was meant to restore.
And we say, so what? I think the application
here for us is – we must be careful – as we stand back and watch the crowd
and the anger they have about how Jesus heals on the Sabbath, we shake our
heads and say, “tsk, tsk.” But we have to be so careful that we do not end
up like that crowd. They were so concerned with the letter of the law that
they failed to see that a miracle had happened, and they failed to recognize
Jesus in their midst.
You know, John refers to the Jews all through
his gospel. And John is not being anti-Jewish. He is not spitting out
those words with bitterness or anger, or hatred – “The Jews.” No. Being
Jewish was not the problem. Jesus was Jewish and so were His early
followers. No, the problem was that Jesus’ opponents had turned their great
faith into something deadening, soul-destroying, rule-keeping, so that
couldn’t even recognize Jesus when He did a miracle right in front of their
eyes.
Jesus is Lord of all – He is Lord of the
Sabbath – we have to be careful that while remaining consistently religious,
keeping the rules and all, we have lost our love for God and recognition of
him as Lord.
Well there is one more snapshot given to us
here. Verse 14 – “Later Jesus found him, that is the man who he had just
healed, and said to him, ‘See you are well again. Stop sinning or something
worse may happen to you.’ ”
And we here we see Jesus calls us to holy
living. It is obvious that in this instance the man’s suffering was the
result of his sin. There is no principle here – we can’t say that all
suffering is a result of sin, any more than we can say that all blessings
are a result of holy living. It’s not. The rain falls on the good and the
bad alike. The sun shines on the righteous and the unrighteous.
But we do know that sometimes sin can result
in physical suffering. That’s not the point that is being made here anyway.
The point is that Jesus is the Lord of the moral realm and when He heals us,
when He calls us to Himself, when we experience His touch, we are called to
holy living. It’s almost so simple and plain, I hesitate to mention it.
But it remains one of the greatest criticisms
leveled at the North American church – belief in Jesus Christ seems to make
no difference in people’s lives. What they were before they continue to
be. But that’s not the type of Christianity that our Lord calls us to, and
it’s not the type of Christianity that we are to aspire to.
Clearly Jesus calls the man, and ourselves, to
see the healing that He has brought about in our lives, for us it might be a
healed soul – and He calls us to see that and respond to it with gratitude
but also discipleship – to follow Him in holiness and right living.
I have always loved the story of Stephen Lungu,
who is now president of the mission organization, African Enterprise. In
his biography Out of the Black Shadows he speaks of a time when he
was part of a gang of men who sought to destroy and kill and maim
missionaries and all who got in their way. He carried a gun, was familiar
with explosives and was ready to use them at all times.
It came about that he heard of the love of
Jesus Christ and he gave his life to Christ and decided to live for Him. He
said, “I felt like an entirely new creation. I was aware of God as I never
would have imagined.”
The next day, he realized he needed to give up
his gang, his gun and his knife. He was a changed man and he had to live
like it. So he headed to the nearest police station – and presented himself
to the policeman at the front desk – by saying, “I am under arrest.” “Who
arrested you?” the officer asked. Stephen replied, “Jesus Christ arrested
me,” and he turned in his weapons.
The police didn’t know what do with him. They
questioned him and let him go, saying, “If your Jesus forgive you, we
forgive you also.” Stephen left with gratitude and tears streaming down
his face. He had begun his life with Jesus. 1
I think it’s a wonderful picture of what it
means to be a Christian – it is to turn away from the sin that used to haunt
us and rule and live for Him.
So there are four snapshots of Jesus for us in
this text. And interestingly each snapshot calls for a response on our
part.
Jesus is the one who constantly breaks in on
us. Are we paying attention?
Jesus is the one who heals – do we revere Him
who has this power of life?
Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath – do we worship
Him as Lord over all?
Jesus is calls us to holy living – are we
living differently because Jesus has touched us and made us His own?
Jesus knocks at the door of our heart may we
respond to Him in faith, in worship and whole hearted devotion.
Copyright MBC and Rev. Dr. Tom Cullen -
February 2009
