Read John 5:1-29
As Jesus is moving into Jerusalem he begins to gain momentum in revealing himself as the Son of God. There is a pattern emerging of Jesus doing “signs” and then teaching about who he is as people begin to ask questions. Important context for this account of Jesus healing on the sabbath is to remember what the sabbath is and how the Pharisees had missed the point of the law in such a major way that they were unable to recognize how Jesus was acting more in line with the sabbath than they were. For the pharisees the sabbath had become another work by which they thought they were going to earn God’s favor and merit the coming of the Messiah. As a result, the pharisees created a number of rules for how to best keep the sabbath and equated breaking one of those rules with breaking the sabbath. One such rule was that a person could not pick up their own bed on the sabbath.
But, in Genesis 1-2 we see a different picture of the sabbath. The sabbath was built off of the final day of the creation account when God rested from his work. The work that God was resting in was the work of creation as he had made it and deemed it good. It was a way that God communicated to us that he wanted us to enjoy and rest in his finished work for one day out of the week and devote that day to worshipping him as an act of rest. However, this rest was drastically altered because of the fall and the entrance of sin into creation. As a result, rest became something that we naturally resist. In a fallen state, people naturally resist the rest that God provides because they are distrustful of God by default.
In the Old Testament, the sabbath day occurred at the end of the week (Saturday). This symbolized the pattern that God had created and the place in “redemptive history” that God’s people were in before Christ. They were still in a period that was working up to rest. God was working redemption for a time and bringing rest on the seventh day. We learn in the book of Hebrews, that Jesus is the perfect rest, he is the living and breathing seventh day. We remember this symbolically by placing the Lord’s Day (Sunday) at the beginning of our work week. This demonstrates that we work out of a place of resting in the finished work of Jesus and our work does not earn that rest.
Jesus’ interactions with the man he heals and the pharisees who accuse him of breaking the sabbath take on a tragically comical tone. The law and the oppressive religious rule of the pharisees had become so oppressive that the joy of having a man who had been invalid for 38 years suddenly healed was completely robbed and choked out by the fear that it didn’t happen in the right way according to the pharisees. They were giving Jesus grief about the manmade laws about the law while completely overlooking the harmony that Jesus had created between the sabbath day and a man’s natural ability to move being restored. Jesus had shown them the sabbath day on the sabbath day by healing this man, but both the man and the pharisees could not see the grace and mercy in front of them because of pride and fear.
Questions
What are the Pharisees concerned about when they see the healed man walking? Why was his “breaking” the sabbath more important than the miracle of his healing?
In what ways do you act like the pharisees? When have you been more worried about someone else’s behavior not meeting a standard than celebrating God’s work in their life?
How does pride blind the pharisees to who Jesus is?
Why do you think the healed man sells Jesus out to the pharisees? How might fear factor into that?
What do we learn about who Jesus is in verses 18-29? How does what Jesus reveals about himself provide a definitive answer to both the pharisees and the man who was healed?