The Progression of Hatred

Some time ago, several months
ago, I pointed out that in John’s gospel, one of the features is
that of faith, belief. John has a special focus in zeroing
in on that particular element of the process of salvation. Some of the other gospel writers
will note it, certainly it is part of the gospel, but John
has a special focus on faith. And yet here in chapter five,
there is a sad and sobering turn that whereas faith is such a
huge part of John’s gospel, mentioned dozens and dozens of times, Here
in chapter five, we are introduced for the first time to the other
end of that spectrum, that of unbelief. And we will see that
in chapters three through 12, there is a recurring mention. In every one of those chapters,
there is a distinct and sad episode of unbelief, lack of faith. One pastor, summarized it simply
by saying that we are introduced to a theme which is important
in the rest of this gospel. Jesus will do his mighty works,
but instead of faith, strenuous opposition is aroused. The conflict
grows and intensifies. Eventually, Jesus will meet his
death. Now, even in that little description,
there is almost the perception that Jesus starts in some kind
of a neutral place. Somewhere along the line he irritates
the wrong people. That irritation grows and ultimately
develops into acrimony and controversy and debate. And that through
that process ultimately Jesus is condemned. First there is
the thought in their mind and then ultimately on their lips
of putting Christ to death. I think the saints will be shocked,
as I was, to see that it doesn’t happen over a course of three
years. It doesn’t happen over a period of time, not a lengthy
period of time. We tend to think that the hatred
and hostility towards Christ is something that developed slowly,
something that grew over time. But we’ll soon see that no sooner
does the hostility present itself that we are taken to the core
of that hostility. And the core of that hostility
is murderous hatred. Even as we draw near this week
to focus in on the passion of Christ, ultimately culminating
with Good Friday and his sacrifice for us. We see here all the elements that go in. We see this developing acrimony
and we see the core of this murderous hatred right off the bat. If God’s people would just glance
down beginning at verse one of chapter five. After these things, There was
a feast of the Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there
is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called
in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticos. In these lay a multitude
of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, waiting for
the moving of the waters. For an angel of the Lord went
down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water. Whoever then first, after stirring
up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease
with which he was afflicted. A man was there who had been
ill for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there
and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition,
he said to him, Do you wish to get well? The sick man answered
him, sir, I have no one to put me in the pool when the water
is stirred up. But while I am coming, another
steps down before me. Jesus said to him, get up, pick
up your pallet and walk. Immediately the man became well
and picked up his pallet and began to walk. Now, It was the
Sabbath on that day. So the Jews were saying to the
man who was cured, it is the Sabbath and it is not permissible
for you to carry your pallet. But he answered them, he who
made me well was the one who said to me, pick up your pallet
and walk. They asked him, who is the man
who said to you, pick up your pallet and walk? The man who
was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away
while there was a crowd in that place. And afterward, Jesus found
him in the temple and said to him, behold, you have become
well. Do not sin anymore so that nothing
worse happens to you. The man went away and told the
Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. For this reason,
the Jews were persecuting Jesus because he was doing these things
on the Sabbath. But he answered them, my father
is working until now and I myself am working. For this reason,
therefore, the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him because
he not only was breaking the Sabbath, but he was also calling
God his own father, making himself equal with God. And in one short
episode, we see that it transitions very quickly from irritation
to persecution and ultimately the plotting of death, his execution. Go back if you would to verse
one. where we pick up the strange
account of the healing at Bethesda. Remember that it was only at
the start of chapter four that we found Jesus departing Jerusalem
in order to avoid greater conflict. Remember that? And now it seems
that he is immediately returning and will soon experience what
he previously sought to avoid, conflict. But bear in mind, As we considered last week, John’s
gospel is a very truncated portion of the gospel testimony. John’s
gospel offers us very meager consideration of Jesus’ Galilean
ministry. And the truth is that considerable
time has now passed And Jesus returns, and certainly not with
evil intentions of stirring up trouble, but knowing full well
that it was for this very purpose that the Father had sent him.
Jesus isn’t afraid to go to Jerusalem, but Jesus is going to mark the
time with great specificity. And we’ll see graphically just
how rapid this descent is. from irritation to persecution
to execution in a short span of time. It says in verse one, after these
things, after the events of the Samaritan ministry, after the
great outpouring, after not only the dialogue of the woman at
the well and the dialogue with his disciples over that particular
dialogue, but also the great harvest of the Samaritans themselves,
which had just concluded. After these things, there was
a feast of the Jews. The feast is not named, and it’s
not easy. In fact, it’s almost impossible
to be definitive on exactly what feast this was. And that tells
me that it’s not a detail that’s particularly important. Verse
two says that there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool which
is called in Hebrew Bethesda. Having five porticos. We don’t
have a great deal about this either. We don’t know about this
particular place. Even after 2,000 years of study
in archeology, we don’t know about the sheep gate. We don’t
know any more about the pool. We don’t know any more about
the place or the porticos. We don’t even know the purpose
of this place. Was it some kind of a convalescent home? Was it some
kind of a healing place? We just don’t know. Even Bethesda. The spelling of this word varies
greatly in the existing manuscripts. And so the identity of this particular
place is obscure. If it is truly Bethesda, that
lends credibility to the fact that this was some kind of a
hospital or at least a gathering place of the sick because Bethesda
means house of mercy. And obviously God’s people would
have many different anecdotes as far as hospitals and such
named after this very place. Nothing really more is known
about the pool or the precise location. As I said, maybe it’s
a place of convalescence. But let’s summarize for a second.
Verses one and two. We don’t know what the feast
was. We don’t know what the gate was. We don’t know what Bethesda
was. And that tells me that those details are intentionally by
God obscured. They’re not important for the
greater consideration of this passage. And so that takes us
to verse three. In these, and I take that to
mean in these porticos, kind of like cabanas would protect
those from the sun and the rain. In these lay a multitude of those
who were sick, blind, lame, and withered. And I think John is
careful here to point out that this is not a place for the gathering
of the demon-possessed. These sicknesses were physical
maladies, they were significant in nature, and this much we know. But that for some reason, this
was a gathering place of the sick and the infirm. The fact
that it mentions four different kinds of sickness, four different
kinds of bodily disorder kind of gathers up everybody who was
sick of any real particular sickness would be gathered here. Now, I don’t know about you,
but I have always felt uneasy about this passage because honestly
to me it just seems strange. You got an angel coming down
unseen, more than likely, stirring up the water in some fashion,
and then you have a race to the pool, you know, where you almost
picture some individual doing a cannonball into this pool just
to beat everyone else. It’s a strange deal. It seems
to advocate a kind of lottery type, one at a time, first one
in, only if you’re lucky, kind of supposed healing. This bothers
me. It’s just strange. And the thing that we’re told
here is, it’s an explanation essentially about verse 7. The
sick man answered, I have no one to put me in the pool when
the water is stirred up. but while I’m coming another
steps down before me. And so the thing, the thing is
very interesting. J.C. Ryle said it’s very curious,
nothing like it in the Bible. Even the historian Josephus doesn’t
mention anything about Bethesda, doesn’t mention anything about
a pool, a pool that was stirred up allegedly by an angel where
healings took place. You would think that that kind
of thing would be mentioned even by a historian. It wasn’t at all. This occasional appearance of
an angel would be a profound miracle and would be captured not only
by You know, just a public comment that it would be not only a popular
story, but it would ultimately become the talk of the town. And beyond that, it would find
it into the history books. But this, this whole story just,
as I said, smacks of strangeness. One commentator said this, that God would miraculously throw
down from time to time a boon among a company of cripples to
be seized by the most forward, selfish and eager, leaving the
most helpless and miserable to be overwhelmed again and again
with bitter disappointment is a supposition not admissible.
You hear what he says? This story doesn’t fit with the
nature of God. This kind of casual, flippant,
occasional, you know, throw the cripples an occasional miracle
and the first one in gets it. As if God is playing some kind
of cruel game with the poor, sick people. That’s what bothers
me about this story. I want to call your attention
to one of the most overlooked, but one of the most helpful devices
in your Bible. Brackets. Depending on your particular
version, the device may vary, whether it’s brackets, or an
asterisk, or italics, or parentheses, or something. There are tools
in your Bible that are there and available for you. They may
vary from translation to translation and from publisher to publisher,
but almost certainly you have a device there readily at your
fingertips. And the purpose is all the same.
The purpose of the brackets or the asterisks or the italics
is to identify these verses as not being part of the original
text. The words were added. Now people,
every time I have one of these discussions, I am not telling
you this to undermine your confidence in the scriptures. If anything,
this should give you great confidence in the scriptures. That over
2,000 years of history, we can now reach back in and distill
out the very pure word of God And this was not part of it.
Let me tell you how the end of verse 3 and verse 4 made it in. The verse that I’m actually speaking
of starts with the waiting for the moving of the waters. Remember
I said to you that essentially this is an explanation for verse
7. The man just says, sir, I have no one to put me in the pool
when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another
steps down before me. Well, that’s a strange thought.
And it’s built upon this legend, this idea that this angel would
stir up the water and somebody would get healed and so on and
so forth. And so some scribe at some point
wrote that explanation in the margin. And in time, that got
woven in and blended right into the text of scripture. NIV identifies
it. The NIV, the old NIV, the 70s
version says, verse four was doubtless inserted by a later
copyist to explain why people waited by the pool in large numbers.
Even the NIV says, people, This is not trustworthy. The ESV more
recently says, some manuscripts insert wholly or in part waiting
for the waters and so on and so forth. They identify it as
such. The ASV, one of the great translations of our previous
century, which really started and solidified the direction
of scholarship in biblical studies, said this, many ancient authorities,
and what he’s talking about there is manuscript evidence. Many
ancient authorities insert wholly or in part, waiting for the moving
of the waters and so on and so forth. Good speed, 20th century. Some
versions just omit it and don’t say a word about it. They just
cut out the end of verse three and verse four, throw it aside
without even a note or a comment or an explanation at all. This
was a very common occurrence. And the fact that we can now
look back at manuscript evidence and distill and recognize these
and pull them out if necessary should be a great encouragement
to us. that our scripture is divinely protected, and that
we do have before us the very word of God. These little comments
in the margins were called glosses. A gloss was a brief explanation,
as one said, a brief explanation of a difficult word or phrase,
or in this case, a difficult concept. You have this legend
that had developed in these people’s minds and all of a sudden John
is writing about it and he knows he’s got to explain. And so John
captures verse seven, but later commentators, those studying
the scriptures didn’t feel like verses six and seven were enough.
And so they would write this note in their margin and eventually
those notes made it into the text. Here’s how Bruce Metzger,
just one of the most capable scholars there is, this is how
he put it. Words standing in the margin
of older copy were usually incorporated into the text of the new manuscript. Since the margin was used for
glosses, that is, synonyms of hard words in the text, as well
as corrections, it must have been most perplexing to a scribe
to decide what to do with a marginal note. I mean, here’s the scene. You’ve got this guy, probably
a minimum wage guy. He’s capable and he’s hardworking,
but he’s got limited resources. There certainly is no PC. There
certainly is no internet to which he can turn. He’s in a dimly
lit room with a page of blank paper and a page of text and
he’s copying and he comes across one of these comments in the
margin. It was easiest to solve this
by putting the note into the text which he was copying. Thus it is probable what was
originally a marginal comment explaining the moving of the
water at the pool of Bethesda was incorporated into the text. of John’s gospel. And so, as
we’ve already summarized, the whole passage, this whole section
was essentially completely omitted from the oldest manuscripts of
the New Testament. And that begins to explain to
us why this whole strange thing seems to us so strange. God isn’t saying here, God didn’t
stipulate to the apostle John to write this episode and prescribe
that something like this actually took place. This was legend. This was what people conceived
of in these waters. And you can’t be entirely sanctimonious
criticizing some scribe, you know, several hundred years ago
who took the opportunity to import this into the very text of scripture. We can’t be sanctimonious because
in a sense there is a gap in the information. We read verses
five through seven and we’re left scratching our head as to
what he’s even talking about. What do you mean you have nobody
to pick you up? Get in the pool. Water’s stirred up, what does
that mean? While I’m coming, another steps down before me,
first one in. It just doesn’t make enough sense
to us. So, we come to verses five through
seven, a man who had been there ill for 38 years, And Jesus saw
him lying there and knew that he’d already been in that condition
a long time. Not only would Jesus have known this supernaturally,
but the man was probably well-known throughout the community. After
all, he’d been in that condition for 38 long years. John doesn’t tell us what his
particular malady is, some kind of paralysis perhaps, but the
fact that he was that way for so long, also allowed Christ to zero in
on the most needy one of all for a miracle like this. And
just like that, this friendless man is face to face with the
greatest of all friend for sinners. And he said to him, do you wish
to get well? Do you wish to get well? There’s an another occasion recorded
in all of the New Testament where Jesus Christ initiates, as he
does in this particular setting. He comes to the man and essentially
asks, would you like a miracle? Would you like to be healed?
Do you wish to get well? Perhaps the man had gotten to
the point where he was just, he had given up on being healed.
He had given up on any other method. The only method he knew
was this pool, this stirred up water, occasional healing that
he had no access to. He’d long since given up. He’s
hopeless. And Jesus wants to stir that
hope. Jesus wants to let him know that there is another method
of healing, namely God himself. And so Jesus awakens his hope
to a method that’s much more sure than this mythical pool
and far more lasting a cure than it could provide. I’ll tell you
about that in a moment. Look at verse seven, the sick
man answered him, sir, we’ve seen it. No one put me in the
pool when the water is stirred up, but while I’m coming, another
one steps down before me. What you have here is just heartbreaking. Even if the pool is just a mythical
deal, you have this kind of jockeying for position. You see shame here,
you see a lack of decency, you see greed. the lack of kindness
of others. Nobody would give up their spot.
No one would say, hey, look, you’ve been here waiting 38 years.
I’ve only had my sickness for six months. Let me put you in. J.C. Ryle pointed out that this
is an intentional proof of the heartlessness and unkindness
of human nature. It’s a selfish world and the
sick and afflicted have few real friends in time of need. The
point is that Jesus saw this. That’s partly why he singles
him out. There were a lot of people, remember,
sitting around this pool. But Jesus takes the most unlikely,
the most friendless, the one that had long since been forgotten.
When I told you there was a gap in our information, here’s the
gap. Here’s the question that begs for that more information
that the scribes grabbed out of the margin. Why the poor man
had no friend to drop him in the pool when the water was stirred? You say, wait a minute, what
is that? How is the timing of getting into the pool important?
What is this stirring? As one described it, evidently
the popular belief was that when the water began to bubble, the
person who first bathed received relief, but the spring did not
benefit more than one person. That’s the myth that had developed
around the pool. And so you enter now the helpful
scribe who sees this note in the margin and likely integrates
it, inserts it, thinking that it was the God-given explanation
to this passage. What it was, in fact, was someone’s
attempt to explain this legend, this popular idea. Can I call
it an old wife’s tale? You can see me later. That they
believed that this angel somehow stirred up the water, and then
there was this flurry of activity, this rush to get into the pool. They believed this, or at least
some people did. And it isn’t new, right? For
thousands of years, people have claimed the healing properties
of these hot pools. I looked at a couple of different
websites that talked about it. For centuries, Native Americans,
early European explorers, and visitors from around the world
have flocked to natural hot springs to bathe in the healing waters. You’ve been to these places,
haven’t you? Soaking in naturally occurring hot springs can benefit
everyone in today’s stressful world. Contemporary medicine
has been slow to establish any scientific basis for the benefits
of soaking in mineral-rich hot springs water. Its soothing beneficial
effects cannot be denied. So it still goes on. Another
article said, as long as there have been people in hot springs,
there have been claims of beneficial healing, associated with soaking
in these springs. Well, you know, in the days of the
Roman Empire, they were touting the benefits of these hot springs.
Throughout the world, even to America, Native Americans have
always believed in the healing properties of these hot spring
pools. Let’s be honest for a minute.
These pools mineral baths, hot pools. They feel great, don’t
they? They do feel great. And they
make you feel great while you’re soaking. And then you get out. And you dry off and with hours
you feel pretty much the way that you always have. It’s not
a miracle. It’s not healing. Let me ask
you this. If these were healing pools,
when was the last time that you saw a 2,000-year-old Roman? Or stay within our parameters
here for a moment. When was the last time that you
met a 500-year-old Native American? These hot pools don’t heal anyone. Anyway, the idea of these healing
pools, as I say, is not new. Nor are they unique here to the
Jews. They had just spiritualized this
whole hot tub thing. It was likely a belch from the
earth that issued forth this burst of hot mineral water, and
they assigned, they gave credit to an angel. And a myth was born. A miracle pool. And this man
believed it. He believed it. The trouble was
he wasn’t well enough to beat out the competition, all vying
for the first spot in the pool. Well, this man believed in this
magical pool, this miracle pool, but he was forlorn in his futile
attempt to find healing there. It was elusive for him and it
had been for 38 years. And Jesus knows this. And rather
than tempting him and schooling him, he asks him a simple question. Do you wish to get well? And
rather than getting into a debate or even a short dialogue with
him regarding this pool and its benefits,
Jesus just tells him, get up, pick up your pallet and walk.
Verse 9 says, immediately the man became well and picked up
his pallet and began to walk. Jesus healed him on the spot.
Imagine the joy of this man. 38 years of pain and suffering,
humility, frustration, shame, heartache, all of it gone. And
he’s healed and restored. And in a very real sense, Jesus
was telling the man to do the impossible. or what had been
to that point impossible. For the man to even attempt to
stand after 38 years was itself an act of great faith. But John
adds now this last little additional piece of information, one little
factoid. That this healing, this miracle,
this long-awaited blessing just happened to take place on the
Sabbath. Now it was the Sabbath on that
day. And please be certain that Jesus
didn’t forget what day it was and accidentally perform an act
of healing. He divinely chose this day for
his own God-given purposes. Now, the interesting thing is
there are six recorded Sabbath healings discussed in scripture. This isn’t the only one, but
it is the first. But I wanna take you on a tour
just so we can see the course of these healings. This one was
the very first, and it caught the Jews quite by surprise. They’re
irritated, they’re bothered by it. But I want to take you to
a few other healings, namely Matthew chapter 12. Matthew chapter 12 is the one
that involves his own disciples eating grain. It’s recorded also
in Mark chapter 2, Luke chapter 6. But I want to take you to
Matthew’s version, Matthew chapter 12, and look at verse 1. Now remember, Jesus has already
worked this miracle at the pool on the Lord’s day, on the Sabbath,
and it does make quite a impression on his Jewish friends. And now they’re watchful and
watch what they see in verse one. At that time, Jesus went
through the grain fields on the Sabbath and the disciples became
hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat. But when
the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, look, your disciples
do what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath. What, eat? No. Harvest. That’s essentially what they
charged them with, was harvesting wheat by plucking the heads of
grain, rolling them in the palm of their hands, picking out the
heads, and eating them. And if you note, if you compare
the other gospels, Matthew is the only one that points out
that the reason they were picking the grain, well, very simple,
they were hungry. They were hungry. And Jesus goes
on to give them several examples of justification for this. And
I’m not encouraging you, if you find yourself in Iowa, don’t
try this. You’ll get shot for picking someone
else’s corn. But according to Jewish law,
this is absolutely perfectly legal. Deuteronomy 23, 25, when
you come into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck
the heads with your hand, but you shall not use a sickle on
your neighbor’s standing grain. You could walk by and pick whatever
you wanted. Just don’t load up a bushel basket. Don’t use a knife to cut the grain. We take it to the second, or
rather to the third act of healing there in verse nine of chapter
12. Also recorded in Mark and Luke,
it’s the parable of the withered hand. Departing from there, he
went into their synagogue and a man was there whose hand was
withered. And they questioned Jesus asking,
is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him?
And he said to them, what man is there among you who has a
sheep? And if it falls into the pit on the Sabbath, he will not
take hold of it and lift it out. How much more valuable then is
a man than a sheep? So then it is lawful to do good
on the Sabbath. Jesus pointed out that if it
isn’t wrong to rescue a sheep or a cow or a donkey, How much
more valuable is a man? How much more appropriate is
it that he do a healing if necessary, even on the Sabbath? The Jews had this rule that only
if it was a case of deadly disease was the healing allowed to be
done. And this one wasn’t deadly. And
so it could wait until, you know, the next day. I’ll take you to
another one. Back to John’s gospel to chapter
seven. Actually, I’m going to pass on
this one just for the sake of time. There is a dialogue that
takes place in chapter 7 of John’s gospel where Jesus is referring
back to the healing at the pool and he begins to talk about this
because they’re brooding over that incident. They’re stuck. And so Jesus tries to reason
with them, and he says, look, Moses gave you the right of circumcision,
and you practice the right of circumcision on the Lord’s day,
on the Sabbath. Isn’t it appropriate to heal
an entire man on the Lord’s day? Turn instead to the Gospel of
Luke. There we covered it. The Gospel
of Luke records Another healing on the Sabbath. Luke chapter 13 and look at verse
10. Many of us can relate to this
poor woman with a back issue. He was teaching in one of the
synagogues on the Sabbath, and there was a woman who for 18
years had a sickness caused by a spirit, and she was bent double. She could not straighten up at
all. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, woman,
you are freed from your sickness. And he laid his hands on her,
and immediately she was made erect again and began glorifying
God. But watch what happens. But the synagogue official, indignant
because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, began saying to the
crowd in response, there are six days in which work should
be done, so come during them and get healed and not on the
Sabbath day. But the Lord answered him and
said, you hypocrites. Does not each of you on the Sabbath
untie his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead him away to
water him? And this woman, a daughter of
Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for 18 long years,
should she not be released from this bond on the Sabbath?” These
were not one-time occurrences. This was a recurring, this was
a deadly course that Jesus was on because He’s up against their
most darling law. The Pharisees had turned the
Sabbath into something that was intended to be a blessing and
they had turned it into a curse, a burdensome obligation that
was supposed to be upheld with perfection by even
the most common individual. One pastor said the Jews regarded
the Sabbath as a joyful day but nevertheless they hedged it about
with a multitude of restrictions which cannot have been anything
but burdensome. Works of all kinds were prohibited
and the attempt to define work exactly so as to be certain of
what was allowed was sometimes fantastic. We’ll see that in
a moment. Turn if you will to John chapter nine. You know this
passage well, and I’ll just briefly mention it before we flip back
to the last one. In John chapter 9, it’s the healing
of the man born blind. Remember, it starts by suggesting
that the man perhaps had done something to bring upon this
blindness, or perhaps his parents had sinned. Look at verse, jump
down to verse 14. Now it was a Sabbath on that
day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. Then the
Pharisees also were asking him again how he received his sight. And he said to them, he applied
clay to my eyes and I washed and I see. Therefore some of
the Pharisees were saying this man is not from God because he
does not keep the Sabbath. and the last Sabbath healing.
Please turn, if you would, back. I’m doing these in chronological
order. And the difficulty is getting
worse, but we see already the course of action in the first
healing. Turn back to Luke’s gospel, chapter 14. In looking at these in chronological
order, we see that the scene is heating up. We see the hatred
of the Jews. We see the case that they’re
building against Christ. And we see that they have absolutely
not a word to say about it. Luke chapter 14 and verse 1. It happened that when he went
into the house, one of the leaders of the Pharisees on the Sabbath
to eat bread, they were watching him closely. And there in front
of him was a man suffering from dropsy. It was kind of an edema
disease. And Jesus answered and spoke
to the lawyers and Pharisees saying, is it lawful to heal
on the Sabbath or not? And he put the question now to
them. But they kept silent. And he took hold of him and healed
him and sent him away. And he said to them, which one
of you We’ll have a son or an ox fall into a well and we’ll
not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day. And they
could make no reply to this. They hid behind their silence
because they knew that if they answered, they would indict themselves. And now if you would, back to
John. John chapter five, and we pick
it up in verse 10. The apostle John has just forecasted
for us. Now it was the Sabbath on that
day and we should have been able to read in that there is great
trouble ahead because of this. And we see it in verse 10, the
Jews were saying to the man who was cured, it is the Sabbath
and it is not permissible for you to carry your pallet. This
is the start of all the hostility that will culminate in Christ’s
crucifixion. You see, misery loves company. And their thinking was that if
we have to conform, you have to conform. And they made great
business about going and insuring and upholding this so-called
law. The fourth commandment was where
they resided. They took this commandment and
they milked it for all it was worth. One pastor said, by ostentatious
rigor and enforcing the fourth commandment, the Pharisees exhibited
their zeal for the law. Here, Jesus confronted them.
He came to vindicate the law and make it once more lovable. The law, of course, is of the
10 commandments, Exodus chapter 20. Remember the Sabbath day
to keep it holy. Six days you shall do your labor
and all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord.
The problem is the rabbis had drawn up a whole list, a great
list of things, 39 principles describing works, ultimately
dividing them up into categories that were forbidden on the Sabbath.
Here’s a few. Carrying was considered a double
violation because you had to lift and then carry, and then
you had to set it down. You were limited to carrying
no more than the weight of a dried fig. If you wanted to catch rain,
that was fine if it ran down the wall. You couldn’t do anything
that would be helpful to future work, like you couldn’t accidentally
spill water on the floor that would then have to be mopped
up. Very, very cautious. Here are some additional. On
the Sabbath, a man could borrow one of his neighbor’s jars of
wine or oil provided that he didn’t ask him and suggest that
he lend them to him because that would imply a transaction and
a transaction would involve writing and writing was forbidden. And
so essentially what they have is this system of theft. You just walk into your neighbor’s
house and take what you need. Another one said that If you
put the lamp out for fear of the Gentiles or thieves or an
evil spirit, or to allow a sick person in the home from sleeping,
you would not be liable of breaking the law. But if you put the lamp
out in order to save oil, or to save the wick, then you’ve
broken the Sabbath. And you begin to get the feel
of what was going on here. It’s legalism run amok. It’s
out of control. And Jesus’ entire purpose here
is to confront that. And he does so with these Sabbath
miracles, and he does so for the purpose of pointing out the
extent of their foolishness and their hatred, really, not only
for God’s law, but also for God himself. We’ll pick it up essentially
right there. next Lord’s Day. Let’s go before
the throne of grace as we rejoice in the goodness of God in His Word. Let’s pray. Our
merciful God, we see this narrative of this real man who was in a
real plight and had fallen into this real difficulty of hoping for a miracle
that would never come, hoping for healing waters that were
no more than a myth, coming up against the coldness of humanity. Lord, we rejoice. We rejoice. Not only does this man enjoy
the blessing of Christ’s physical healing, but ultimately he enjoys
the miracle of the confrontation of his sin and the miracle of
the new birth. Lord, we rejoice. We rejoice
in that for our own sake. We thank you for the salvation
that we have come to enjoy, and we thank you for the escape from
the legalism and the attention to all the laws and rules that
no deed that we can do would ever save us, no deed that we
can do would ever spare us, but we are justified by faith
in Christ alone. What a joy. And Lord, as we begin
to prepare for this week, the culmination of Resurrection Sunday,
we think that what was begun here in this very setting, that
Christ would be criticized, ultimately persecuted, and that the plotting
of his death begins even in this passage. Lord, we pray that you
would keep us focused even this week on the fact that this death
was not accidental. This was not God losing control
for a weekend. This is Christ. coming to the
cross for us. Lord, we thank You and we praise
You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.