Does Jesus have authority to break the law? – John 5:31-47, Part 1

I often wonder if our church’s outdoor sign has any impact.  While I think it is good to have a sign with basic information such as our name and website, we don’t need to have a sign with a message board.  Most people learn about us online anyway.  But the message board is a small way to connect with the community, and we certainly have a lot of traffic driving by.

In my 20 years of being part of Faith Church, it is exceedingly rare that anyone has specifically responded to a message on that sign, unless it is for an event. Most our messages announce events.  Over the years, though, we’ve put a lot of other messages out there.  Such as this one, which is on the sign right now: “What step of faith will you take in the new year?”

How would you answer that? 

It seems to me that we Christians should be known as risk-takers.  Christians are to be people who are stepping out of our comfort zones on a consistent basis, so that we can participate in the mission of the Kingdom.   But do we step out in faith with any kind of regularity?  Do we get out of our personal comfort zones to step more in line with the Spirit? 

If not, I wonder if it is because we don’t believe Jesus is who he said he was.  In other words, can we really trust Jesus?  Does he have the wherewithal, the authority to sustain us?  Do we really believe him? 

Turn to John 5, as this week, we’ll be studying verses 31-47.  There were people in Jesus’ day who absolutely did not believe him.

In verse 31, Jesus is talking with the religious leaders, a talk that started earlier in the chapter, in verse 19.  This conversation stems from an incident which happened at the beginning of chapter 5. Jesus had healed a man on the Sabbath, telling the man to get up, pick up his mat and walk.  Because Jesus was, in the viewpoint of the religious leaders, working on the Sabbath, he was breaking their laws.  In verse 16 we read that the leaders, therefore, persecuted Jesus, which means they “hounded him or followed him, keeping tabs on him,” not that they were physically harming him or jailing him.  Not yet at least. 

Jesus isn’t deterred by them in the least.  Instead, in verse 17, he basically says, “You’re concerned about me working on the Sabbath?  Let me be very clear.  My father is working, even to this very day, and I too am working.”  Jesus is saying to them, “Follow me all you want.  Keep an eye on me.  I’m not hiding anything.  I am working on the Sabbath. Here I am. I am living my life based on God’s heart and mission, not on your laws.  I’m not going to hide, avoid, lie, or run away.” 

Jesus’ boldness fires those religious leaders up.  Look at verse 18. They want to kill him.  Not only is he breaking their Sabbath laws, he is equating himself with God.  In the religious leaders’ eyes, Jesus is not just lawbreaker who is disrespecting the Sabbath; he is a heretic, a blasphemer, and he needs to be gone.

This is the beginning of the end for Jesus.  It will take some time.  Perhaps a couple years from this point.  But we know the end of the story.  They will kill him.  They just need to figure out how to do it in such a way that the people don’t rebel against them.  Jesus is growing in popularity, and the religious leaders cannot just take him out now or they could face the wrath of the people.  The religious leaders need to be smart. 

Jesus, knowing their evil intent, responds with a teaching.  In the passage we studied two weeks ago, verses 19-30, Jesus makes it clear that he is the way to true life.  Through him, people can have abundant life now and eternal life in heaven.  God the Father has given him authority, Jesus says, to offer this new life to all people.  To receive this offer of new life, people must believe in him, and they will show they believe in him by how they live.  In summary, Jesus has just shared the good news with the religious leaders and the people in the crowd that day. 

It is a wonderful message of hope, new life, redemption, reconciliation and fulfillment of promise.  Jesus knows, though, that the vast majority of the religious leaders aren’t buying it and never will.  They are clouded by their specific interpretation of the Old Testament, and by the many layers of legalistic laws they have placed on top of the Mosaic Law.  They certainly aren’t going to take some no-name unschooled traveling preacher’s word for it.  Many of the religious leaders listening to Jesus teach that day are thinking, “Life is found in him?  You’ve got to be kidding.” 

Why don’t they believe him?  There are many reasons.  But I think one reason is that they’ve done their homework.  It would not be hard for them to learn that just a few months before this, Jesus was a  handyman from a tiny town in Galilee called Nazareth. No tourists go there. It has no interesting history; no one who is anyone comes from Nazareth.  So these religious leaders are fuming that Jesus, the nobody, is not only disobeying them, he is also confronting them, telling them they are wrong. 

Here’s one of the most important questions running through the leaders’ minds: On whose authority is Jesus acting?  Since they first heard about Jesus a few months prior, it is highly likely that they’ve contacted the synagogue leader from Nazareth.  Does he know Jesus?  Of course he does.  Nazareth is a small town. Everyone knows everyone.  So what does the synagogue leader say about Jesus?  Probably that Jesus is a nice guy, lost his father years before, and then Jesus stepped up to the plate to help out his family.  Never married, which is kinda odd, as most men his age were already married. But you have to hand it to the guy.  He did the respectable thing, keeping the family business going to help his widowed mom.  So, yeah, Jesus…nice guy, no trouble.

Then you can imagine them asking the synagogue leader, “Well, what do you think about Jesus becoming famous all of a sudden?  Did you authorize him?  Did you train him?”  The synagogue leader doesn’t know what to think.  He didn’t authorize Jesus, and he doesn’t think Jesus had any rabbinical training.  Certainly not under him.  Jesus’ meteoric rise to fame as a prophet is surprising to him too.  He heard Jesus was a relative to John, the guy who was doing baptizing, so maybe John trained him?  Maybe Jesus is helping John out too?  The synagogue leaders says, “It will probably just pass.  Just a phase.  His mom seems concerned, as do his siblings, and the word is they are trying to get Jesus to come back home.” 

Of course, I am speculating.  But I think the scenario I described is likely.  My point in all this is that the religious leaders have had plenty of time to form opinions about Jesus.  They do not believe Jesus has authority to be breaking their rules and claiming some kind of divine right.  Jesus, in their eyes, is a nobody.  Under whose authority is he ministering?  Though they suspect he has no authority, they need to question him about it.  They need to get him to admit it in front of the crowds.  They need to undermine him, to shame him. They’ve tried this before.  Remember? 

They questioned him back in chapter 2, verses 13-22, when Jesus caused a riot in the temple courts, whipping up the animals into a frenzy and throwing over the tables of the money changers?  All the while yelling, “Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!”  The religious leaders are watching the riot.  In chapter 2, verse 18, they ask him, “What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” 

In their view, there was no way Jesus had authority to cleanse the temple.  They absolutely did not believe he could perform a miracle.  Yet, Jesus’ response is unexpected: “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”  The religious leaders could easily say, “What kind of response is that?  You’re saying ‘destroy the temple, and I’ll rebuild it,’ because you know you can’t do a miracle to prove yourself.  Like we would ever destroy the temple just to test your miraculous ability.” 

Keep reading, however, in chapter 2, starting at verse 23, and what happens right after the temple incident?  Jesus is doing miracles!  Many people saw the miracles.  Right there in the city.  The city where the leaders have their headquarters, and where they have just challenged him to do a miracle.  Did the religious leaders see the miracles?  Did they hear about them?  Almost certainly.

But back in John chapter 5, when Jesus heals the man on the Sabbath and then makes a claim that God is his father, the religious leaders don’t care what they’ve heard about him.  In their view, he is a law-breaker, and he has no authority from God to tell this man to take up his mat and walk.

Jesus knows they doubt him.  Jesus knows they do not believe him.  So what does he say?  Can he say anything that might convince them otherwise? We’ll study what he says starting in the next post.

Photo by Navi Singh on Unsplash

Being radical…right or wrong? – John 5:31-47, Preview

Have you ever scolded someone for being too radical?  Maybe they’re young, idealistic and are making plans that you, in your years of experience, know will almost certainly fail.  So you step in, clip their wings, giving them what you believe is a much-needed dose of reality. 

“They’re so immature.  So young,” you think to yourself, shaking your head as you remember your youthful radical years.  You never had someone like yourself to help you avoid all the trouble and pain.  Maybe it is your grandkids.  Maybe it’s a younger co-worker who just graduated from school with all the grandiose ideas that sound great in a classroom, but you know will go down in flames in the real world.  

Radical.  It’s usually not good to be radical. Radicals often get themselves in trouble because they challenge the status quo. Here in the USA, we recently celebrated MLK Day, memorializing Martin Luther King, Jr. MLK said quite a lot, but often we focus on his famous “I Have A Dream” speech. What we don’t talk about nearly as much are his controversial statements. If MLK wasn’t controversial, if he wasn’t a radical, why was he assassinated? Scratch past the surface, and you’ll find MLK was a radical, and he paid for it with his life. So again, I say, in our society, it’s not considered good to be a radical.

Or is it?  We can place radicals in a such a negative light, but should we?  Above, I described how we can caricature radicals naïve.  Sometimes we think of radicals as stupid.  Sometimes we think of them as wrong.  “Normal is good,” we say, “Radical is bad.  Why do you have to be so idealistic?  Just go with the flow.”

But is that the right way to think about radicals?  Could it be that normal is bad, and radical is good?  When we think about discipleship to Jesus, I wonder if we have normalized a low standard of discipleship, while at the same time redefining radical as abnormal.  If Jesus is who he says he is, however, the Messiah, the Savior, God, the one who calls us to die to ourselves, take up our cross and follow him, then suddenly he is the radical.  

After a week-long break, we continue our study of the life of Jesus, and we’ll discover that the religious leaders in his culture are desperate to redefine Jesus as a radical who needs to be eliminated from their system.  But there’s a problem.  He claims that he is God, and thus above their system.  Can this possibly be true?  What authority or evidence does Jesus have to prove that he is God, and that his call to all people to be his disciples, to be radicals, is the best way of life.

In other words, trouble is brewing for Jesus.  Can he prove that he is who he said he was?  Read John 5:31-47, see for yourself.  Then join us on the blog tomorrow as we talk about it further.

Photo by Unseen Histories on Unsplash

How to know if you are a true believer – John 5:16-30, Part 5

How do you know if you are a true believer? Many people have wondered, and sometimes their wondering has caused anxiety. Some of have said, “Well, we won’t know until we get heaven.” But is that true? Thankfully, no. Jesus says there is a way to know now if a person is a true believer.

In the previous post, we learned how Jesus is the giver of life. Interestingly, then, notice, as he continues teaching how this life-giving capacity of Jesus relates to eternal life.  In verses 24-27, he says this,

“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.”

There is not only abundant life in Jesus, but also eternal life.  Jesus has life in himself, just as the Father does.  And of course he does because he and Father are one, along with the Spirit.  Why doesn’t he mention the Spirit here, then?  He will.  You can see for yourselves in chapters 14, 15 and 16, where he says that he is sending the Spirit to them.  But we’re not quite at that part in the story. 

For now, Jesus is clearly saying that those who hear his word and believe him who sent Jesus, he is referring to the Father, have eternal life. Those people will not be condemned.  When he says, “condemned” he is talking about people who do not believe in him, and thus are separated from him, both in this life and the life to come. Separation from God is not a place you want to be, no matter when or where.  Jesus, however, is clearly giving people the way to be connected to him, to experience life in him. 

That’s the message we as his followers can embrace, and which we communicate to others.  There is life in Jesus.  New life.  Abundant life and eternal life.  He has life, and he wants us to experience that life.  Think about the beauty of that.  God has life in himself.  Jesus has life in himself.  And he offers us relationship with him, so that we can experience his life in our lives. 

I love how Paul describes this in Ephesians 3:15-19,

“I pray that out of his glorious riches [God] may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

That’s intense.  That’s deep.  The life of God, so fully flowing through you.  That’s what Jesus is talking about in John 5.  He wants people to experience that life.  There’s simply nothing that compares with that. 

As Jesus continues teaching, we read in John 5, verses 28-30,

“Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.”

Jesus here helps us take a peek into the future, at a time called The Resurrection.  He is not referring to his resurrection.  He is talking about another resurrection, and the dead will rise to face a sorting.  Those who have done good to eternal life, those who have done evil to eternal condemnation.

Jesus speaks like this in many places.  In his famous Sheep and Goats parable in Matthew 25, for example, he says that God will sort people based on what they did and didn’t do. 

Notice that precise word.  “Did” and “do.”  Not belief.  Not ideas.  Not thoughts.  But actions.  What they did and didn’t do.  That’s the basis for the sorting.

That’s a problem because so often we tell people, “Just believe.”  Except Jesus didn’t say, “Just believe.”  In the end, Jesus said, the sorting will not be based on who believed and who didn’t.  It will be based on who did good and who did evil. 

But wait a minute, Jesus, what about what you just said?  Look at verse 24.  “Whoever believes has eternal life.”  What gives?  Is Jesus saying contradictory things? 

No.  They work together quite nicely.  You show what you believe based on your life choices and actions. 

In my mind I often return to something Bishop Bruce Hill once said, “Jesus doesn’t want believers, he wants disciples.”  He wants people who lives are actually changing, who are becoming more and more like him.  People who say “I believe in God and Jesus,” but who are not becoming more and more like Jesus, are simply believers.  Jesus clearly teaches us here in John 5 that he wants doers, disciples. 

You show you believe by what you do.  If you say you are a believer in Jesus, but you are not actively the following the mission of his kingdom right here, right now throughout your life now, then you are showing that you don’t fully believe in Jesus. Belief is not enough.

I’m not suggesting that belief is bad.  No.  Belief is good! Jesus says so.  What I’m saying is that all humans have beliefs.  There is no such thing as an absolute unbeliever.  Even atheists have beliefs.  Their belief is that there is no God.  Maybe they believe in science, maybe in the idea that the natural or material world is all that exists.  Everyone has beliefs.  Therefore, here’s the main point Jesus is making: We show what we believe by how we choose to live. 

Jesus wants all people to have the best life possible, yes with a hope for eternity, but also, and equally importantly, life now.  That life is possible for us, when we choose to live more and more like he did. 

Jesus critiques the religious leaders’ version of the good life, which they said was only attainable by following their rules upon rules upon rules.  Jesus comes along and says, “No, that’s not what my Father ever intended.  Instead, learn from me how to truly live.”  When you follow the way of Jesus you will be free to live his life, the real good life.

Photo by Eunice Lituañas on Unsplash

How Jesus brings us life – John 5:16-30, Part 4

As we learned in the previous post, Jesus not only disobeyed the law, he said that could do so because he is God. Thus he put himself in a very precarious position.  Some of the most powerful leaders in the land want to kill him on what they believe are justifiable grounds.  What will Jesus do?  Get out of their fast?  Flee? Hide? Nope.  He dives in deeper.  Look at John 5, verses 19-23.

“Jesus gave them this answer: ‘I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him’.”

Do you see how Jesus dives in deeper?  He clarifies even further that he and the Father are one.  Jesus is the Son, and God the Father is the Father.  Jesus describes himself as an obedient son, which he was.  He says, “You’ve seen the miracles I’ve done. Well, you’re about to see even greater things.  You’re going to see the dead raised to life.”

In verse 21, it is uncertain what Jesus was referring to when he says, “The Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.”  There is no doubt that Jesus is the giver of life.  In chapter 11, he will raise his friend Lazarus from the dead.  In chapter 20, Jesus himself will rise from the dead.  So, his statement certainly relates to near-future resurrections.

But there is also something interesting Jesus said in chapter 10, verse 10, that helps us understand the multi-layered meaning of Jesus’ phrase, “The Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.  In John 10:10, Jesus says, “I have come they might have life and life abundantly.” 

In John 10:10, Jesus is not talking about raising dead people to life.  He is also not talking about eternal life.  He’ll get to eternal life here in chapter 5 in just a moment.  But in chapter 5, verse 21 and in chapter 10, verse 10, when Jesus says that he is the bringer of life, it also includes a kind of flourishing life now, on earth, before we die. It is a life where injustice in society and culture is rectified.  It is a life where people experience reconciliation.  It is a life where people are filled with the Spirit, so the Fruit of the Spirit is growing in us, and flowing from us in ever-increasing quantity and quality.  Imagine that.  A life of such goodness, gentleness, peace, joy, love, patience and self-control. 

Jesus is the bringer of life.  Interestingly, this life-giving capacity of Jesus is in direct conflict to the legalistic, binding nature of the religious leaders.  They said to the man Jesus healed, “You may not carry your mat on the Sabbath!”  By imposing laws like that, they have overturned the heart of the sabbath.  Legalism is a deceptive monster.  Instead of freeing us to be holy, a legalistic spirituality leads us to be law-breakers.  Jesus comes to that and says, “No, I have come to give you life that is real life, the freedom to truly live.”

So how does this relate to eternal life? We’ll find out in the next post.

Photo by Tyler Nix on Unsplash

Why Jesus sometimes disobeyed the law – John 5:16-30, Part 3

Did you know Jesus was a law-breaker? In fact, he broke the law so much, it got him in big trouble.

In the previous post about John 5, verse 16, we read that the religious leaders are persecuting Jesus.  When you read that word, “persecute,” don’t think of it as extreme.  They’re not whipping him, throwing him in jail, or doing any kind of bodily harm, at last not yet.  Yes, we know that day will come.  For now, though, this word “persecute” refers to them hounding him. Following him.  Confronting him.  The religious leaders are trying to shame him and knock him down a few pegs in the eyes of the people. 

You can read the numerous times in the other Gospel accounts where the religious leaders challenge Jesus, sometimes demanding he provide authentication of his authority.  Sometimes they try to beat him at Bible trivia or in a theology duel.  Over and over again, Jesus bests them at their game, often leaving them humiliated and fuming. 

Guess what he says to them this time, here in John 5?  Look at verse 17. 

“Jesus said to them, ‘My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working’.”

With that, Jesus drops a nuclear bomb into the situation.  He’s not trying to placate them at all.  He’s not saying, “Guys, we can work can this out.  Let’s sit down and talk and try to understand each other.”  No.  Nothing like that. Jesus just says exactly what is happening.  Blunt, unfiltered, truth.

Keep in mind that the religious leaders’ major issue with Jesus is that, according to their laws, he was working on the Sabbath.  To that accusation, Jesus says, “Well, my Father is always at work, to this very day, and I, too, am working.”  He is not in the least concerned about their definition of work.  He just straight up says it, “Yes, I am working, just like my father, who is also working.” 

That was bold.  Jesus was flaunting working on the Sabbath, and he was doing it in their face.  That kind of disrespect of their laws and viewpoints made the religious leaders really upset.  More than likely, it was not a private conversation.  Jesus many times talked like this to the religious leaders in earshot of a crowd of people.  People who were wide-eyed in their wonder at this man who was not only a miracle worker, but who also authoritatively, bravely, and courageously defied some of the most powerful people in the land.  I bet the crowd loved seeing those haughty, arrogant, hypocritical leaders cut down to size. 

I bet those religious leaders were seething.  But Jesus in that one statement has gone farther than it first might seem.  He has not only challenged the religious leaders about working on the Sabbath, saying, “Yeah, I am working on the Sabbath,” he also said that his Father is working on the sabbath.  His father?  Is he talking about his earthly adopted father, Joseph?  No.  Actually, Joseph never appears in the Gospels during Jesus’ adult years, likely meaning that Joseph had passed away by then.  Even without that detail, the religious leaders know that Jesus is talking about God, as if God is his Father, and that was too much for them.  Look at verse 18. 

“For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.”

Those religious leaders knew exactly what Jesus was saying.  That he is equal with God.  Jesus is saying that he himself is God.  God in the flesh.  At Christmas we sing “Emmanuel,” which means “God with us.”  That’s what Jesus is.  We believe that Jesus is God.  We believe that God is a Trinity, three in one.  God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit.  All are equal.  All God. Not three different gods.  Only one God, with three equal persons that together are one.  Tri-Unity.  Three in one.

The religious leaders couldn’t stomach this.  This man standing before them calling himself God?  That’s blasphemy in their minds.  Blasphemy is the sin of profaning God.  Sacrilege.

Those religious leaders viewed Jesus just did that.  The punishment for blasphemy?  Death.  Clearly, Jesus is in a very precarious position.  Some of the most powerful leaders in the land want to kill him on what they believe are justifiable grounds.  What will Jesus do?  Get out of their fast? 

We’ll find out in the next post.

Photo by arvin keynes on Unsplash

What is the Sabbath? – John 5:16-30, Part 2

What is the Sabbath? It goes back to Genesis chapter 2, verses 1-3.  Page #2 of your pew Bibles, so you know this is going back to the beginning.  Well, almost.  Actually, we’re going back to the story of creation, and we read it described like a week.  God creates the universe on the first six days of the week, and then we read this:

“Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”

See that word “rested” or “ceased”?  It is the Hebrew word, “shabbat,” which where we get the English word “sabbath.”  Sabbath means “to rest” or “to cease.”  The Sabbath day, the day of rest, would get a lot more attention in the Old Testament Law.  If you turn to Exodus 20, verses 8-11, we read Ten Commandment number 4,

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

In their covenantal agreement with God, the people of Israel were not to work on the Sabbath, and instead they were to preserve it as a time for personal rest, relational connection, and worship with God.  It was an actual 24 hour period, starting on sundown Friday and lasting till sundown Saturday.  It was a day off. 

But it is more than just a 24 hour day off from work.  Notice that there is a principle embedded in the sabbath, that of faith and trust in God.  On that seventh day of each week, the people were to take a break, a day off, from their attempts to earn a living, so therefore they would be trusting God to provide for them.  That means they are purposefully decreasing their earning potential by 14.29% (one seventh).  Think about that.  If they just worked on Saturday, they could give themselves a 14% raise.  That’s a pretty decent raise. 

But God said, “I don’t want you to do that.  Instead, I want you to trust in me, showing the world around you that you trust in me, even as the rest of the world goes on working.  Furthermore, there is something deeply healthy and flourishing about taking time to rest, to worship and to connect with family and friends.  You need the Sabbath.  The sabbath is a gift to you.”

And that’s how it started.  Fast-forward about 1500 years to the days of Jesus.  The Sabbath was still the Sabbath, meaning a time of rest, worship and connecting from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown, but it was also something else.  The Jewish religious leaders had turned Sabbath, as they had with nearly the entire Law of Moses, into a legalistic nightmare.  If the foundational law of God was simply, “Keep the Sabbath holy by not working,” those religious leaders, in what was probably, centuries before, rooted in a healthy desire for holiness, placed laws on top of laws.

They strictly and precisely attempted to define what was constituted work.  For example, I’m going to make a rule up, hoping to give you an idea of what it might have been like in Jesus’ day.  Say that the religious leaders decided that you could walk 1000 steps on the Sabbath, and that was not work.  But if you walked 1001 steps, that 1001st step put you over the limit into breaking the law.  They had all sorts of legalistic rules on top of rules like that.  If you were a Jew living in Jesus’ day, your life could be dominated by a repressive legalistic system that had very little to do with the heart of God. 

That’s why these religious leaders saw the healed man carrying his mat, and they confronted him.  But that was just the tip of the iceberg.  When you keep skimming through the next few verses in John 5, they find out that it was Jesus who healed the man, on the Sabbath, and then told him to pick up his mat, on the Sabbath, the religious leaders are really upset. 

Jesus is clearly ignoring their laws on top of laws, though notice that Jesus is not breaking God’s Law.  Healing a man and telling him to pick up his mat and walk is not even close to breaking the description of keeping the Sabbath holy, which we read in the Ten Commandments. Jesus isn’t earning any money through his healing.  He’s not working on the Sabbath, and neither was the man.  But still, it really angers the religious leaders that Jesus is disregarding their laws, and therefore disrespecting their authority. 

So back in John 5, verse 16, we read that the religious leaders are persecuting Jesus. Persecuting? What does that mean? We’ll find out in the next post.

Is Chick-fil-A’s decision to close on Sundays really necessary? – John 5:16-30, Part 1

My son will nearly every Sunday on our way home from our church’s worship service ask if we can get Chick-fil-A. If you know about Chick-fil-A, you know that my son is either being very forgetful or joking. I can tell you that he’s not forgetful, at least when it comes to getting Chick-fil-A. Instead, he is trying to make a joke, knowing full well that Chick-fil-A is closed on Sundays.

Why would an incredibly popular fast food chain close their doors on the day of the week that is arguably the most profitable for fast food? It’s a somewhat radical decision in today’s world. The founders of Chick-fil-A require all their locations to be closed on Sundays, and they do so based on their Christian faith commitments. In fact, their outdoor signs say, “Closed Sundays,” as you can see in the photo above.

Should Christian establishments be open or closed on Sundays? On the one hand, from a business standpoint, it’s a poor decision to close on Sundays.  Open on Sunday, and you’ll likely increase your income quite a bit.  You’ll also be providing jobs for people.  You’ll be providing a service for people who want to visit your establishment.  You can even say, from a theological standpoint, that since we Christians are stewards of God’s money and possessions, we should seek to expand them for him and his mission.  If we have more money, we can support more ministry. 

On the other hand, what about time for rest?  What about making it easy for people to worship?  What about shutting down on Sunday as an act of faith in God?  Those are all good things, all based on a theological, biblical rationale too.

What did Jesus do about Sundays?

Interestingly, Jesus got in big trouble for working on the Sabbath.  In our series through the Gospel of John, this week we are studying John 5:16-30. In John 5, verse 16, John writes:

“So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him.”

What was Jesus doing on the Sabbath that would get people upset at him?  Sabbath being a day of worship, was he interrupting worship services in the temple or synagogue?  Was he himself skipping worship services and telling people to skip with him?

No.  If you scan back to verse 8 earlier in John chapter 5, we read what we talked about last week.  Jesus healed a man and then said to him, “Get up, pick up your mat and walk.” 

That’s exactly what you would do if you just healed a man who had been waiting for this healing for 38 years.  John tells us in verse 9, the man did what Jesus said, but there was one little detail about this situation that presented a problem.  It happened on the Sabbath day.  When the Jewish leaders saw the man walking and carrying his mat, as we can see in verse 10, the basically say, “Stop right there, buddy, you are breaking the law.  You can’t carry your mat on the Sabbath.”

Huh? To us, this sounds utterly ridiculous.  How is carrying your mat on the Sabbath breaking the law?  How could that possibly be?  To try to answer that question, we need to understand the importance of the Sabbath in the Jewish mindset and culture.  What is the Sabbath? Is it the same as Sunday?

Check back to the next post tomorrow, and I’ll try to answer that question.

Are you living your best life? – John 5:16-30, Preview

A group of friends are joking around on a hill overlooking a town, so they take a photo and post it on Facebook with the caption, “Living our best life!” A person is enjoying their bowl of Lucky Charms one morning, so they take a selfie of the moment, post it on Instagram, captioning it with “Living my best life!”  Another person is on vacation at the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, so they post a video on Tik Tok in which they say “Living my best life!”  

Are you living your best life?  

The idea of a person living their best life is a contemporary phrase that is often used on social media.  It’s not meant to be understood literally, as if we could even know if we are or if anyone else is living this so-called best life.  Even if a person seems to be doing extremely well in all areas of their life, there’s a high probability that they could improve at least something.  So what do people mean when they say, “I’m living my best life”?

They are referring to a really good feeling about life.  It might be a feeling in the moment, or it could be that they are experiencing an extended period of blessing.  In other words, people tend to define their best life in an individual way.

In other eras we called this “living the good life.”  Certainly each individual person can have their own opinion about what the good life is for them.  But is there a kind of life that is good beyond each individual’s opinion?  Can the government tell us what the good life is?  Can a very wise person say, “I have figured out what the real good life is”?  There are certainly many attempts.

Professor Laurie Santos of Yale University teaches a course called Psychology and the Good Life, and it has become Yale’s most popular course in over 300 years.  It led to the creation of The Good Life Center at Yale.  Learn more here.  On their website, they have a “Methods” page that briefly describes their approach.  They emphasize wellness in the following categories: eat well, love well, move well, mind well, rest well, save well, seek well, and work well. 

I must admit that I’m intrigued by what they have discovered about the good life.  They seem to have uncovered some scientifically-verified data and methodology that anyone can apply to their lives if they want to experience a happier life.

I wonder if Yale’s approach might have any alignment with Jesus’ approach?  Jesus also talked about the good life.  We Christians have long claimed that Jesus himself literally lived his best life, and that his vision of the good life is something he wants all people to experience.  In our study of the life of Jesus, as told by the Gospel of John, next week Jesus will talk about that good life.  How does he describe it?  And is it possible that you could make some changes to live the good life of Jesus? 

If you’re feeling that you’re not living your best life, then take a look at John 5:16-30 ahead of time, and we’ll talk about it further next week on the blog. 

Photo by Matheus Ferrero on Unsplash

What we can learn from Jesus’ ominous warning to a man he has just healed – John 4:43-5:15, Part 5

Jesus heals a man, and then he says something ominous to the man. John 4, verse 14:

“Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”

Woah. What got into Jesus? Why so dark after healing the man?

I wonder if Jesus was referring to the man letting fear rule him, which we talked about in the previous post.  Or maybe Jesus is just speaking generally about the condition of the soul, which is instructive for all of us.  While we want physical healing, Jesus is saying that there is a spiritual healing, a pursuit of holiness, that is far more important. 

It is not wrong to desire sickness removed from our bodies, but we should have an equal or more passionate desire to be holy, to remove sin from our lives.  To connect our hearts to him.  Jesus came for the purpose of reconciliation.  Is that a regular thought in our heart and mind?  How can we step closer in reconciliation with God and others?

When Jesus tells the man to stop sinning, as I said above, Jesus is referring to the pursuit of holiness.  What “pursue holiness” means is not to be holier-than-thou; it is not to be self-righteous.  Pursuing holiness is a desire and the resulting action to live like Jesus lived.  To care about what he cared about.  To strive to do what he did. 

Otherwise, Jesus says, something worse may happen.  Sickness is bad, and it can lead to death.  But the something worse that Jesus refers to is likely separation from God.  Jesus could be referring to separation from God in eternity, or he could be referring to separation from God in the here and now.  Separation from God is life lived without relationship with him, without connection to him, without his Spirit in our lives.  Any separation from God is truly something worse.

So let’s be passionate about pursuing Jesus and his way of living.  Let’s believe in him so that we give our lives to follow him in 2023 and beyond. 

Again, though, I am shocked when I read how this story concludes in verse 15:

“The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.”

This guy seems dominated by fear.  Twice he tells the religious leaders, “It isn’t my fault that I’m carrying my mat on the Sabbath…it was the guy who healed me. He told me to do it.”  Worse, this second time he gives Jesus’ ID to the religious leaders.  I bet the guy was really afraid that he was going to get in trouble with the religious leaders when they confronted him for carrying his mat on the Sabbath.  That would be awful, especially after he just got healed and was probably overjoyed.  But he was self-focused. 

It is amazing how cold we can be when we are self-focused.  We can receive an astounding undeserved blessing, like loads of Christmas gifts, and still we can fixate on ourselves, on self-preservation.  Jesus had even warned the guy about sin.  Didn’t seem to make a dent, though.  It seems all the guy could think about when he was talking with Jesus was, “Whew, now that I know who this guy is, I can get the Pharisees off my back!”

Here at the end of 2022, maybe you feel a bit like the man who was waiting for 38 years for a miracle.  And it still hasn’t happened, at least as you expected it to. 

In the middle of the waiting, I urge you to start 2023 by counting your blessings.  I urge you to start 2023 by examining your motives and desires.  Are you self-focused, even in some small way?  What can you do to be more God-focused in 2023?

Let’s ask God to help us see him more in 2023.  He is here.  Emmanuel, “God with us.”  And we are called to be his hands and feet to others.  We now have the wonderful privilege to be the presence of the Jesus in the lives of those around us.

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Has fear kept you quiet about God – John 4:43-5:15, Part 4

In the previous post, we studied John 5:1-6, the story of Jesus’ in Jerusalem, asking a hurting man if he wants to be healed. What does the man want?  We find out in verses 7-9. 

“’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.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.’ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.”

That’s two miracles in a row! The first we studied earlier this week here. In that previous post about John 4:46-54, Jesus healed a man’s son who was on his deathbed, and the man and his whole family responded to the miracle by believing in Jesus. Now we have another piece of evidence to place faith in Jesus.  Will the man in Jerusalem also place his faith in Jesus?

John tells us, as we read above, the man, now healed, just walks away, as you would if it’s been 38 years since you walked!  You indulge in it!  But it means that both Jesus and the man disappear into crowd that would have been in Jerusalem for the feast.  They don’t talk further, at least not yet.  But the man does talk to other people. Look at the middle of verse 9 through verse 13:

“The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.” But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ” So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?” The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.”

Oh boy…trouble is brewing.  The Jewish leaders, probably Pharisees, because they were hyper-concerned about this kind of thing, question the man, “Who did this?!?!”  As if someone had injured the man or mugged him.   No, someone healed him, and then told him to pick up his mat and walk.  I find it interesting how the healed man responds to the religious leaders. 

Also notice how different the healed man’s response is as compared to the royal official’s response in the previous story.  The royal official and his whole family believed in Jesus.  But this healed man?  It seems he lets his fear of the religious leaders get the best of him. 

When questioned by the religious leaders for carrying his mat on the Sabbath, the man says, “The man who healed me told me to pick up my mat and walk!”  I see fear all over his answer.  Think about it. You’ve just been healed, after 38 years of desiring healing, and then when asked by a healer if you want to be healed, you say, “Yes!”. But then you don’t honor and protect the man who healed you?

We could be really hard on the healed man for not sticking up for Jesus.  But frankly, let’s turn the lens on ourselves first.  We are ones who have been abundantly blessed by God.  Some of us have experienced physical healing ourselves.  We could all count our blessings.  And yet, while we may not betray Jesus, we can sure ignore him.  I wonder how that makes him feel?  Keep that in mind.  We forget our blessings so fast.  Instead, we can fixate on the times we did not receive what we hoped for. Or, like the man, we can allow fear of reprisal from others, keep us quiet about the blessings we’ve received.

Back to the story.  Were the leaders upset at the healing or at Jesus’ saying the man should carry his mat on the Sabbath, and thus break the law?  They likely viewed both the healing and the mat-carrying as illegal on the Sabbath.  At this point, we only have a foreshadowing.  John seems to include the interaction between the healed man and the religious leaders to add a tone of ominous threat to the story.

Staying with that ominous theme, Jesus himself gets a bit dark in verse 14, and we’ll find out how in the next post.

Photo by Melanie Wasser on Unsplash