"Stand Up, Take Your Mat and Walk"

Download the sermon here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmJE7A8Rixs

“Stand Up, Take Your Mat and Walk”

John 5:1-18

March 13, 2022

Read John 5:1-18

This is the Word of the LORD.

How would you describe your life as a Christian?  What would be your visual image? Are you a marathon runner, training daily and stretching to see how far you can go? Are you a body builder, looking to get stronger with each workout?  Are you a by-stander, passively cheering on those who are stepping out in faith?  Or, would the image of the ill man beside the pool feel like a fit – waiting for someone else, from somewhere else, to do something else to make things better for you?

Last week, we talked about the themes of faith and life.  This week, the themes are the same, but the encounter is in the reverse order: life, then faith.  But before we get to those themes, we need to go through a little background.

         Background

We have moved into a new section in John. Remember, John was not so much interested in providing a chronological narrative of Jesus’ life – that is, simply a biography – rather, he was interested in telling us things “so that [we] may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing [we] may have life in his name.” (John 20:31).  That is the purpose of the gospel; and that is the point of today’s passage.  As spectacular as is the miracle, the conclusion of the passage was the reason why John included this material in the gospel:

Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.”  For this reason, the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.

Make no mistake: Jesus was revealing who he was and the power of the kingdom of God.  Those who should have recognized him and welcomed him did not; instead, they rejected him and sought to kill him.  There are several things going on in our passage today, but keep Jesus’ self-revelation and power in the forefront of your mind because that is what John wanted you to see.

In chapters 5-10, John moved into a section where the focus was on Jesus’ interaction with the religious authorities during major feasts in the lives of the Jews.  There were three times during the year when Jews were required to go to Jerusalem for religious purposes.  Jesus’ presence and activity at these events raised the stakes for the religious leaders, and ultimately caused the leaders to develop the plot to have him crucified.  Though John does not specify in our passage this morning, it does seem as if it were Pentecost, which was the celebration of the first fruits of the harvest.

1. Sabbath

For the purpose of the larger gospel, this story set up the confrontation between Jesus and the religious authorities regarding Sabbath obedience and then Jesus’ self-identification as God’s son.  We looked at sabbath concerns extensively a couple of years ago as we were going through the gospel of Mark, so I am only going to touch briefly upon this topic this morning.

Why was breaking the sabbath considered such a big deal?  Remember the context in which Jesus was walking.  The Jews were God’s chosen people who had endured the judgment of the Lord – taken into captivity from the Promised Land – for their disobedience to the covenant established with Moses at Sinai.  The Jews had gone from being a powerful kingdom to an exiled and oppressed people.  Granted, the Romans allowed them to exercise their religion; the Jews viewed this as an opportunity to be actively faithful to the covenant restrictions.  If they were good enough, maybe God would send the Messiah to save and restore them to prominence, power, and prestige.

One of the Ten Commandments was to observe the sabbath.  The sabbath was a time of rest because God rested on the seventh day.  Observing the sabbath was a sign by which the Jews were distinguished from all the peoples of the nations, by all the rest of those who did not observe the sabbath.  The sabbath was the setting for our passage today.

This story is one of the biblical passages that archaeology has aided our understanding. In the last century, the pool described in John 5 was discovered.  It was a trapezoid shape (meaning, it had four straight sides, only two of which are parallel – I had to look it up).  It was 315 feet long.  It was 165 feet wide at the narrow point, 220 at the wide point.  It was a pool fed by underground streams.

The interesting thing is that the streams were not constant; that is, sometimes there was underground water filling the pool, other times not.  When a stream started to flow, the water in the pool would be stirred.  That phenomenon gave rise to the legend that surrounded the pool. According to tradition, an angel of the Lord used to come down to use the pool.  The water would get stirred up and the first one in the pool after the water was stirred up would be healed of whatever ailed them.[1]  That is why so many invalids gathered and lingered in the area.

         Do You Want To Be Made Well?

Before we jump into the specifics, it is worth noting that Jesus engaged one man; he did not ask all the “many invalids – blind, lame, and paralyzed.”  This is one of the most difficult aspects of God with which we have to wrestle – and, ultimately which we have to accept because it is a mystery: why does God allow suffering?  Seriously, if he had wanted, Jesus could have waved his hand, magically healed all of them, and everyone would have believed he was the son of God.  That is, everyone who was there – those who were not there would be jealous and wonder why they were not included if he were truly the son of God.

I do not want to go too far down this road because the point of the story was Jesus’ interaction with this man, but I do want to acknowledge that this miracle of healing occurred within the larger context of great suffering by many people, and long suffering by this one man.  He had been ill for thirty-eight years.  To put that into context, two years ago, this was the last pre-Covid Sunday – two years ago.  No imagine thirty-eight years.

Some of you know suffering: illnesses, trauma, losses, disappointments, and/or defeats.  For some of you, that suffering has been chronic.  Your prayers of “God, deliver me from this” seem to have fallen on deaf ears.  Yet – please do not hear me saying that you should be thankful you are suffering or that you should just accept suffering as your plight – yet, if you look with eyes to see, you are able to recognize God’s hand on you, sustaining you through the hard times. Recognizing God’s hand does not explain why, nor does it take the burden away; however, it is comforting to know God is in the midst of your suffering with you.

Here, Jesus went in and saw this man waiting by the pool.  Jesus knew he had been there a long time and asked, “Do you want to be made well?”

What a question!  How could the man not want to be made well?  Who among us would not want to be made well?  But it was not a rhetorical question at all.  Jesus was really asking.

The man’s response showed why it was a question worth asking.  The sketch John gave us makes it appear that the man’s disease had become his identity.  When Jesus asked if he wanted to be made well, the man responded with an angry statement of the injustice done to him at the pool.  He was so in tune with his identity as a victim of his own circumstances that he did not really hear the question Jesus posed to him.  “Be made well?  I would, but all these other people are not letting me…”

The question he answered was “why are you not being made well;” not, does he actually want to be made well?  How incredibly self-absorbed!  How incredibly naïve! How incredibly human!

Yes, the ill man was very much like you and me.   Do we want to get well?  Although we want to say yes -- at least for me – I know there have been times when I have been more concerned (and held captive) by why I think I am not being made well than recognizing the opportunity to be made well.  And, yes, there have been times when I have grown comfortable in my un-wellness.  I am abundantly aware of my limitations, deficiencies, and failures; yet the idea of getting better often strikes fear into me.  I do not think I am alone in that.  We feel safer in our current situation – no matter how painful – and often choose to deny that there is a solution to the problem, rather than deal with the possibility of change.

Such is the case in our spiritual lives, too.  Many of us know that we need to be made well in our Christian walk.  We know that we have been tagging along at a distance, trying to make sure that Jesus is still in sight, but not too close.  We are afraid that if we really are healed, things will change in our lives.  They will.

We are afraid that we will find ourselves doing things differently than we do them now. We will.

We are afraid that we will get deeper and deeper involved and that people we know now might not recognize us any more.  That is likely.

We are afraid that if we change and experience new life, we will not be able to complain about things like we do now.  That is true.

And, on this final one, Jesus is unsympathetic.  To the man he said, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.”  Thirty-eight years the man had thought of himself as an invalid. Thirty-eight years he thought of himself as a victim or a needy person who would never know anything different.  Suddenly, things were very different.

         Back into the real world

Things were different because the man did as Jesus commanded.  John does not give us any indication that the man had any idea who Jesus was, but he did what Jesus said.  He did not argue back, “Don’t you know I can’t walk?”  He did not ask, “How?” He did not overthink it, “Why are you telling me to stand up?  What is in it for you?” The man simply obeyed Jesus’ command.  Amazingly, miraculously, he was healed.

Can you imagine?

It would be difficult to grasp what had happened.  It would be difficult to comprehend that it actually did happen – healing had actually occurred and it was not just a dream. Things that are too good to be true are often fake – what was the catch?  I can picture the man lost in his own thoughts trying to figure out, “What just happened?  Am I imagining this?  Am I really walking?  Yes, I am really walking!  Look at me, I am really walking!”

Suddenly thrust into a new reality, the man took his mat and walked.  It was incredible!  It was a miracle!

Now, here’s the truth about mountaintop experiences with God.  The moment we enter back into the regular world, we experience the crash.  This man was a walking miracle – literally – and then, among the first things that happened, the religious leaders told him to stop doing that!  Can you feel the wet blanket?

Most new believers have this kind of experience.  There is the euphoria and wonder of experiencing God’s grace and salvation.  There is a joy that overflows and they cannot help themselves; they want to share their happiness with everyone around.  When they do, they are met with eye rolls and the look: “oh, you are one of them.  You are one of those annoying people.”  People cross the street to avoid them.  People screen their calls to not talk with them.

Their old friends tell them, “That’s great – for you.  Just keep it to yourself.  Don’t change.”  Then, they go to the people who should be celebrating with them and they get the knowing “just wait” look from more “mature” Christians.  “Oh, yes,” is the sentiment, “I remember when I was that happy.  It wears off.  Then you have to grind out day after day.  Enjoy it while it lasts.”

Ooof.

Thus, we have the negative reaction of the Jews.  The healed man was ecstatic and rejoicing.  He was completely a new person – and he was doing exactly as he had been commanded to do.  When he was confronted, “It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat,” he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’”  And, what John did not report (and I am adding) was “and I may never put it down again unless he tells me to.”

Now, let me get technical for a moment because it is the issue of this passage: as one commenter noted, “The Old Testament does not prohibit this activity, but rabbinic interpretation of the command not to work on the sabbath did prohibit it.”[2]  In short, God commanded one thing as a blessing for rest, and the rabbis – in order to be safe – expanded it to be legalistically restrictive over a far greater range of things.

Here's the thing: God is not safe.  God is not bound to play by our rules.  When we try to predict God, when we try to make God act like we think God should, when we try to control how God interacts with God’s creation - well, God shows up and does things in ways we do not expect or recognize.

Just so you see the modern application of this issue: missing God’s hand at work is what happens when church culture becomes normative and authoritative.  This is why “we have always done it this way” is so dangerous.  Error follows tradition that becomes institutionalized.  Frankly, this was a fundamental reason for the Protestant Reformation’s 5 sola’s: faith alone, grace alone, scripture alone, Christ alone, for the glory of God alone.  It was a reaction to the Roman Catholic Church equating church tradition and ecclesiastical interpretation with the authority of scripture.  Error always attends to our adding to or trying to improve scripture.

The Jews barked at the man without any understanding of the situation.  He was not conforming to expectations, so he must be corrected.  Conform first, and then…well, there was no second.  There was no, “why are you celebrating?  How wonderful you have been healed.  Praise God!”  Instead, “Why are you walking and carrying your mat on the sabbath?”  When the man said, “The guy who healed me told me to do this,” the Jews asked, “Who was he?”  To be sure, they were not asking because they wanted to congratulate Jesus; they were asking because they wanted to know whom to punish for stepping out of line.

Again, see what John was describing here: yes, the miracle was wonderful, but don’t miss the message.  Jesus’ actions were the basis for conflict with the authorities because – when we try to control how God acts with God’s creation – God shows up and does things in ways we do not expect or recognize.

           Transformed To Testify

Then the story shifted scenes.  The man could not tell the Jews who had healed him because – as he was standing, taking his mat, and walking, he lost sight of Jesus. John wrote, “Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there.”  The man was so stunned and captivated by what had happened to him, he lost sight of the one who had made it happen.

Do you remember the parable of the sower?  This is a classic example of the seed sown on rocky soil.  “It sprang up quickly, since it had no depth of soil.  When the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away.” (Mark 4:6)

Fortunately, Jesus did not let this happen to the man.  John wrote, “Jesus found him in the temple.”  The shepherd went looking for the lost sheep.  Jesus searched him out and re-connected with him.  He addressed the man, “See, you have been made well.”  You are alive; once you were dead but that is no longer true.  “Do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.”  In other words, you are alive – choose life from now on.  Have faith in the one who has given you life.

It was this second encounter that marked the real transformation in the healed man. The man’s reaction was interesting.  On first glance, it looks like he went to betray Jesus; however, the opposite was true.

The man went to the Jews to tell them that it was Jesus who made him well.  Instead of marveling at his own condition, he went to testify to who was Jesus.  The man with new life stood and walked to bear witness to those who were still blind and unwilling to receive him.  The testimony of his life confirmed the testimony of his words.  Jesus changed his life and he believed.

         Conclusion

Friends, how would you describe your life as a Christian?  What would be your visual image?  My encouragement to you today is to not miss the message for the miracle: the miracle points to who is Jesus.  The transformation in your life – the new birth into a living hope, as Peter would encourage the church – comes only because Jesus is who he said he is.  In Jesus, you can stand, take up your mat, and walk.  So, go do likewise.

Amen.

 

Questions:

1. How would you describe your life as a Christian? What would be your visual image?
2. Do you want to be healed? From what would you like to be healed: physical illness, spiritually lethargy, shame, other?
3. Have you had mountaintop experiences with God? How did people around you react when you told them about it?

[1] Information about the pool was found in Anchor Bible Commentary, Gospel of John, p. 207.

[2] Rodney A. Whitacre, IVP NT Commentary, p. 120-121.