The Sign of Authority

Some reasons that employees have given for missing work:

I ate cat food instead of tuna and am deathly ill. 

 
Someone glued my doors and windows shut so I can’t leave the house to come to work. 

My false teeth flew out the window while I was driving down the highway. 

I am experiencing traumatic stress from a large spider found in my home, and I have to stay home to deal with it. 

I have a headache after going to too many garage sales. 

I have to mow the lawn to avoid a lawsuit from the Homeowners’ Association. 

I woke up in a good mood and don’t want to ruin it. 

 

What are some reasons that you have heard of that people give for not choosing to get physically, emotionally, or spiritually well? 

When people assume Jesus’s compassion and power is limited the same as humanity’s, they give excuses for their conditions rather than trust His authority to accomplish the supernatural. Consequently, they might miss what Jesus is ready to do in their lives. We look at a sign of Jesus' authority that shows that Jesus works in a way that goes beyond our expectations.

We look at Jesus' visit to the pool of Bethesda and see an example that challenges us to evaluate whether we have legitimate reasons or excuses for our conditions. We all make assumptions every day...we assume that people will drive carefully; we assume that the food we are served was healthfully prepared. We also make assumptions about how God works. We assume we know how, but Jesus paints a far better and more accurate picture of how God works.

We look at John 5:1-11, and 17-20 as we examine the third sign that John presents; a sign of Jesus’s authority.

John transitioned his narrative from ministry in Galilee to Jerusalem. In this recounting Jesus had restored a broken life, demonstrated His authority over physical calamity, and asserted His superiority even over the Sabbath day laws. By so doing, Jesus is identified as One who has the authority and ability to work in ways that go beyond our expectations.

Let's dig deeper.

John 5:1-7

 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. ² Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. ³ Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. ^[4] 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

⁷ “Sir,” the invalid replied, “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.”

First, let's look at the pool of Bethesda.  Though I have used a few photos from the internet you will find more at THIS LINK and even more information at THIS VIDEO.  Click on images for larger view.

John doesn't specify which feast was being celebrated, it could have been one of the three primary feasts, Passover, Tabernacles, or Pentecost; or the Feast of Purim, celebrating God’s use of Esther to rescue the Jews from being killed by the Persians.  But it was not the feast that was of importance, John just highlights that Jesus was in the city for one of the feasts.  John describes Jesus' travels as went up to Jerusalem because Jerusalem was higher in elevation than much of the surrounding countryside.

“Going up” also highlights Jerusalem as the center of the world or more correctly the navel of the world, a symbolic term used in metaphorical sense indicating a place of central importance as the symbolic center connecting heaven and earth.  The location of the spiritual umbilical cord so to speak where God spiritually nourishes humanity.

Jesus' group entered Jerusalem on the north side of town through what is known as the sheep gate, a holding area for the sheep being driven to the Temple for its sacrifices.  Even today an open-air sheep market operates one day a week just outside this gate.

The name of the pool, Bethesda, comes from a combination of two Hebrew words: beth, which means “house” and hesed, which means “mercy.” People came to this “House of Mercy” for healing. 

The area of the Pool of Bethesda has always had a water source. In the days of the Old Testament, the area was outside the city of Jerusalem to the north. It had a large pool that shepherds used and was called the Sheep Pool.  In the 700’s BC a dam was built to turn the spring into a reservoir that would collect rain water which could then be channeled into the city. 

The pool collected rainwater until about 164 to 37 BC when the Hasmonean dynasty added a second pool on the south side of the dam and covered the channel to improve water quality. Through archaeology the spring that feeds the pools has been located, and water still collects in the lower areas.  So after 37 BC the pools of Bethesda had two basins: the northern one measured about 174 by 131 feet, and the southern, 154 by 171 feet. This was a LARGE complex.  Totaling about 165 feet wide by some 400 feet long, this pool was 50 feet deep!  

The reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington is about the same width, but it 5 times longer.  But Washington’s reflecting pool is only 18 to 30 INCHES deep holding some 6.75 million gallons of water, while the pool of Bethesda would hold some 24.75 million gallons of water, a volume of water similar to 24 or 25 modern urban water towers.

The Northern pool was the reservoir and had a shaft system with a means of allowing water to drain from the northern reservoir into the southern pool that provided easier public access, serving as a large public mikvah, or ritual bath.  Surrounding this public installation were five covered porches.  The concept of five porches puzzled biblical scholars for some time, but archaeologists discovered the porches ran along the four sides of two pools and in between the two on top of the dam—thus, five. 

The four sides of the long rectangle had a porch as did the dam cutting though the middle of the rectangle providing ample space for the many infirm people who came there.  One guess-stimate is that nearly 400 people spaced at 3 feet of space per person could occupy the spaces of the porches.

From John's description we learn that people in hopeless conditions have come to believe popular urban myths that whoever was first into the pool when an unexplained stirring of the waters occurred would be healed.  It is likely that the stirring of this water was merely the water dropping from the northern pool into the bottom of the southern pool causing a "gushing effect" on the surface of the water.  These people were the blind (who would not have been able to see the water stir), the crippled and withered (who would have had some difficulty in getting to the water and probably had a volunteer to assist them.  Thus it was, in effect, a lottery to see who could get into the water first whenever a random gushing occurred.  As with most lotteries there was seldom a big winner.  While the Bible accurately reflects the belief among the Jews of healing powers in the water once it was agitated, it does not suggest that such belief was valid.  One can acknowledge a contemporary urban legend without holding it to be true.  

So as Jesus approaches this place of "last resort" he becomes aware of a man who has been infirm for 38 years. This man’s seemingly never-ending condition forced him into what he might have perceived as a living-death existence. His having been disabled so long helped authenticate Jesus’s miracle as being genuine; no one could say the man had simply gotten over a temporary difficulty. 

John focused on Jesus’s habit of ministering to the physically weak and sick. He went to the place where those seen as the most hopeless and helpless, the pitiful and pathetic found themselves day after day. But rarely do we see Jesus asking someone if they wanted a miracle. 

Jesus’s question reminds us some people become comfortable in their misery. For Jesus this was not a pointless question. The man was not aware though that Jesus was offering to put His compassion into action. The word translated as whole occurs in John’s Gospel only concerning this man’s healing. It carries the idea of having a sound or healthy body. 

John did not describe the man’s condition, but verse 5 indicates that he would have needed assistance in getting to the water. Can you imagine having an occupation for 38 years that required you to become aware of a flow of water and then get into the water first, all while hoping for a miracle?  Do you imagine that the man was "less than diligent" at times?  His response seems to indicate a matter-of-fact statement of hopelessness "I have no man to put me into the pool."  

So it seems that this man was resigned to his lot of lying near the pool every day in hopes that maybe someday it might be his lucky day to get well.  Jesus approaches this man and asks "do you want to be whole?" The man thinking that maybe Jesus is offering to help throw him in the pool is likely shocked by Jesus' response.

John 5:8-11

⁸ “Get up,” Jesus told him, “pick up your mat and walk.” ⁹ Instantly the man got well, picked up his mat, and started to walk.

Now that day was the Sabbath, ¹⁰ and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “This is the Sabbath. The law prohibits you from picking up your mat.”

¹¹ He replied, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”

Jesus completely ignored the man’s statement about having no help to enter the pool, and did nothing to correct the man’s superstitious thinking. Jesus’s words show He gave no credence to the popular claims that the pool had healing powers. The Greek verb used here is a command; the tense applied to a one-time action, not one that would need to be repeated. Never again would the man need to gather up the mat intended to ease his discomfort while waiting for healing from his infirm condition.

Jesus' words rise . . . and walk are again commands, however, they appear in a different tense and speak of continuous actions. The man would repeatedly arise from his resting position and he would keep on walking. He would not be returning to the poolside tomorrow. He was made whole, he took up his mat, he walked.  These were not the actions of someone infirm, crippled, blind, or paralyzed; but they were the obedient responses of the now able-bodied man. The man gained these abilities because of the power in Jesus’s spoken words. As God had spoken at creation, here Jesus spoke at the re-creation of this formerly infirm man. 

So why was this sign important?  Timing. In Hebrew the word shabbath means to cease or halt. All four Gospels highlight the conflict between Jesus and the Jewish authorities because of His views and activities related to the Sabbath. This escalating tension contributed to the religious authorities’ determination to have Jesus killed.  In this instance the religious glitterati directed their ire at the man whom Jesus had healed rather than at Jesus Himself. Soon enough, the focus of their attention would shift. 

They told the man that it was not lawful to carry your bed on Saturday (the sabbath). The fourth commandment prohibits working on the Sabbath, but the text does not define “work”, but the Jewish leaders amassed thirty-nine types of work that they considered prohibited on the Sabbath. These laws, included in “the tradition of the elders,” were passed down orally through the generations before eventually being put into written form in about AD 100. These laws included the prohibition of moving an article from one place to another on the Sabbath. The law specifically stated that a bed could be moved on the Sabbath only if a disabled person was lying on it and as a means of relocating that person. Thus, the now-healed man was violating an oral law or tradition but not one of the Ten Commandments. 

The man's response echoes Adam’s and Eve’s efforts at redirecting blame away from themselves. All I know is that guy who healed me told me to take up my bed and walk, so I did.  The healed man did not call Jesus by name because at that time he did not know who it was who had healed him. Only later did he learn Jesus’s identity.

Now lets skip down a half dozen verses to look at Jesus' response to the law enforcement people.

John 5:17-20

¹⁷ Jesus responded to them, “My Father is still working, and I am working also.” ¹⁸ This is why the Jews began trying all the more to kill him: Not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal to God.

¹⁹ Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, the Son is not able to do anything on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son likewise does these things. ²⁰ For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing, and he will show him greater works than these so that you will be amazed.

Despite the traditions of the elders, God did not cease taking action on the Sabbath. The Jews believed that although God rested from the action of creation on the seventh day at the completion of creation, He allowed Himself to take action in limited ways on later Sabbaths. Evidence included people being born and dying on the Sabbath and the fact that creation was consistently being sustained year-round, including on the Sabbath—God did not take days off from that work.

Just as the Father continued His work on the Sabbath, if even in a limited capacity, so the Son’s compassion would not be rendered inoperable by a day on the calendar. With this statement Jesus put Himself on the same level as the Father; and in healing the man on the Sabbath, He was doing work that only God was “permitted” to do.  

This is the first reference in John’s Gospel to the Jewish leaders wanting to kill Jesus. This wording indicates this was a growing plan of action.  

In healing the man when He did, Jesus was perceived to have dishonored the Sabbath. The Torah declared that violators were to be executed.  Not only that  the religious leaders thought that by Jesus calling God “My Father”, He had blasphemed God’s name. Rarely did Old Testament people refer to God as “Father.” For Jesus to use the title so familiarly, so personally, without some qualifier (such as “in heaven”) seemed blasphemous. The Law instructed the Hebrews to stone to death anyone who uttered blasphemies against the Lord. Blasphemy was the ultimate charge the Jews leveled against Jesus before Pilate. Jesus’s words and actions meant that He was elevating Himself to divine status. 

Jesus was telling them that He could not do anything under His own (human) initiative. To do so would have been contrary to His divine yet submissive nature. Jesus the man didn't initiate the miraculous, the Holy Spirit within Jesus did when it suited GOD's purpose.  If as Jesus claimed, He was able to do whatever He saw His Father doing, that would mean Jesus was indeed divine. This was a clear declaration of His divinity. 

The healing of the crippled man of 38 years was a clear sign of Jesus' divine authority. But party officials wouldn't condone it because of their own beliefs.  

But the point of John’s story is that Jesus works in a way that goes beyond our expectations. He has the authority to do what is needed.