Moses Wrote of Me - Part Two
SCRIPTUREJohn 5:9-17
Now that day was the Sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. 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.”
LESSON
There was one difficulty in the healing of the invalid at Bethesda's pool: the work of mercy was performed on the Sabbath day! Jesus had purposely selected the Sabbath to heal the man, knowing full well the uproar it would cause.
We never need fear running counter to man's traditions and conventions. We have an excellent pattern for this in our Lord Jesus Christ. True, when He crossed the barriers and broke traditions, His contemporaries sought to kill Him (vv. 16,18). Yet, knowing their attitude, He deliberately invaded their hypocritical traditions and invited conflict.
This does not mean that we are expected to go about with a chip on our shoulders, as Christians. But, at the same time, it means that we are not to avoid controversy if it is inevitable.
Christ told the healed man to pick up his pallet, or mat, and walk. In doing so, the man also broke the Sabbath. Whether he did not realize it was the Sabbath, or whether in his new joy of being able to walk, he did not particularly care, we cannot tell. The Lord of the Sabbath had issued the command; the man obeyed this order of his benefactor.
When he was challenged by the religious dignitaries for violating the Sabbath, the healed man did not even know his benefactor's name. Later, when he met Jesus in the Temple, and came to know who his Saviour was, he immediately returned to the religious leaders and told them.
This he did, not in any spirit of spite, but naively feeling that the religious leaders ought to know who this wonderful Man was. To the man newly made whole, this was his first witness to God's grace.
The Jews had contrived all sorts of rules and regulations for the Sabbath day that made it a nightmare instead of a blessing. The thousand and one restrictions were a constant thorn in the side of the people while their leaders delighted in catching the offenders. The law of man was replacing the law of God.
A man might spit on the ground on the Sabbath day, for example. However, if the spittle rolled in the dirt, it was considered "plowing a furrow." This was labor performed, and illegal on the Sabbath day. This sort of thing turned the Sabbath day, which had been "made for man," into a drudgery instead of a benefit. Consequently, our Lord Jesus Christ lashed out in unrestrained righteous indignation against the type of mentality that would devise these absurd restrictions.
This was why, on many occasions, He deliberately chose the Sabbath day to perform His works of mercy. And this was why the religious leaders hated Him and persecuted Him.
Then, when Jesus coupled with His violation of the man-made Sabbath rules, a declaration associating Himself with God (v. 17), this was the last straw. To the Jewish mind this claim was one of two things: it was either true-which was inconceivable to them, or it was rank blasphemy. They chose the second, and we read: "Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God" (v. 18).
In response to their angry charges, Jesus uttered this beautiful description of the harmony existent between God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
At one of the turning points in our Lord's ministry, He said, "I do always those things that please him." (See John 8:29.) And again, as He approached the close of His earthly work, in the garden of Gethsemane, He said, "I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do" (John 17:4).
STUDY QUESTIONS
- Does this passage teach us that we should no longer observe the sabbath? Why or Why not?
- Is the focus of this passage the healing ministry of Jesus or his relationship to the Pharisees? How does this affect our view of the passage?
- What about the Pharisee's view of the Sabbath made it a "man made tradition."
