John 5:1-16, 25 May 2025

John 5.1-16 – All Saints
One of the things about going into another culture where you don’t understand the language or culture is that you need to rely on other senses to work out what is going on. You look for clues in people’s faces, tone of voice body language and so on. Sometimes you can sense something is going on but you can’t quite work out what. Is this familiar with some of you?
With our passage today the same is true. It appears at first glance as a straight-forward healing of a lame man – the events are fairly clear, but it also seems that more is going on than we first realise. Thankfully John provides some hints that help us sense what is happening below the surface.
First, it is important to keep in mind John’s purpose in writing this account of Jesus’ life and ministry. In John 20.31 he writes that he has recorded events so that: you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. So, this is our first clue – John’s ultimate purpose is to record events that demonstrate Jesus is the long waited for Messiah, the Son of God, and that
believing in Jesus leads to life. So details in this event will point to this truth.
Now let’s set the scene of the healing – Jesus is in Jerusalem for one of the big annual Jewish festivals where many Jews came to Jerusalem to make a sacrifice and worship God. Jesus goes to the Bethesda pools which are located near the Sheep Gate. This gate is where the sheep used for sacrifices in the Temple enter the city. At the pools Jesus sees a man who we are told has been disabled for 38 years.
When Jesus sees the man, he understands that he has been this way a long time. Jesus asks him if he wants to be healed. The man replies with a complaint that he has no one to help him enter the waters.
Jesus then tells the man to pick up his mat and walk. The man does so, experiencing the healing I imagine he had long waited for.
One pastoral care point to note here is that long term illness often isolates a person from community. The man had no one to help move him – yet Jesus notices him. Noticing the needs of others around us is an important aspect of a caring community. One of the missionaries in my organisation works in Uganda with children with disabilities and their families. These children too experience isolation from community. Her ministry is about seeing the children, loving them, valuing them as people seen by God, loved by God, and helping them connect with God and their community, getting the help they need and deserve.
I don’t know about you, but it can be a challenge in the business of our own lives to take the time to notice others around us who might need us to notice and ask how they are doing. Yet it is an essential aspect as we grow as a community of God’s people to keep noticing and keep asking and caring.
This healing is the third of the seven miracles John includes in his Gospel (John 2.11{wine at Cana} – this is the first sign…John 4.54 {healing official’s son} – this is the second sign…). These seven miracles all point to the divinity of Jesus – he is indeed the Messiah the son of God. The man and all others at the pool are waiting for healing through the mystery of the waters. John highlights that Jesus has power and authority that belongs to God – he is able to heal simply by speaking out healing. It is Jesus who is the source of healing, restoration and wholeness.
The setting of the healing near the temple during a festival is another clue John provides us that something more is going on. The man should be with others in the Temple and celebrating the festival – yet he is by the pool with no one to help. The healing also demonstrates the nature of healing Jesus Messiah offers. The man would experience more than just physical healing. He could be restored to community, once again visit the Temple freely and participate in sacred festivals. John shows us in this healing that Jesus came to restore life to people and restore a
broken relationship with God.
It is at this point in the account that John introduces another key sign that more is going on here than a physical healing. He tells us in verse 9 that the day Jesus heals the man is the Sabbath day. Why heal on this day of all days? Instead of giving thanks for healing the religious leaders point out that it is forbidden to carry something on the Sabbath.
What law might the religious leaders have in mind?
In Jeremiah 17 we read that the prophet Jeremiah instructs the people that they are not to carry anything into Jerusalem on the Sabbath or out of their houses. Over time this simply became carrying anything on the Sabbath. Jeremiah announces these Sabbath instructions at the gates into Jerusalem with the purpose of helping the people turn back to God and honour God in their worship especially on the Sabbath.
What might John want his readers to understand about Jesus by recording this aspect of the healing? All gospel writers capture stories about Jesus engaging the religious leaders about the Sabbath day. Here I think John links it to Jeremiah’s instruction.
When challenged by the authorities about his instruction to the man to pick up his mat on the Sabbath, Jesus responds in verse 17 saying, My Father is going on working and so am I.
Remember John’s purpose is to demonstrate that Jesus is Messiah, the Son of God. Jeremiah gives instructions to the people from God because their hearts were hard against God. Jesus here engages with religious leaders whose hearts were hardened towards Jesus. By giving the instruction to the man to carry something on the Sabbath and by saying he is busy working just as his Father is, Jesus declares his oneness
with the Father. John reveals Jesus’s authority to re-interpret the law as the religious leaders understood it. John presents us a clear picture of Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God.
Jesus here re-focuses our attention on the true purpose of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is about honouring God, about connecting with the Father. What better way to honour the Father and the intention of Sabbath by healing a man who has been in his own wilderness for 38 years by restoring his ability to go freely to the Temple to worship God.
In Matthew 12.8 Jesus tells the religious leaders that he is, Lord of the Sabbath. Reflecting on the Sabbath commandment and how it might be practiced in light of Jesus, the apostle Paul writes in Colossians 2.16-17: Therefore, do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Jesus is the reality of what the Sabbath was pointing to. Jesus is fulfilment of the Sabbath – in him rest and refreshment, restoration and wholeness are found.
Just as the man experienced restoration and wholeness in his life through Jesus, John wants us to know that all who believe in Jesus as Messiah can experience the same life, the same rest and restoration.
John’s uses multiple ways in this passage to point us towards Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God. Jesus is the fulfilment of the Sabbath. True Sabbath rest is found in Jesus who is the restorer of life.
In our brokenness, our doubts, our illness, our tiredness, our hurts Jesus, Son of God, the giver of life, is the one we can turn to.
This morning as we worship, as we take part in the Lord’s Supper, we too can find our true rest in Jesus, we too can bring our whole self and experience restoration and renewal through the Son of God. We too are can freely connect with God who sees us and reaches out to us through all that Jesus has done.
Pray