The Miraculous Timing of Jesus

Transcript

Hello Saints. I would love to wish all of the dads here a very, very happy Father’s Day. It’s really, really sweet to see the kind of culture that we have here at Trinity Church where you regularly see dads holding and hugging their kids, showing affection to them, telling them that they love them, helping with childcare. And doing away with a lot of these, I would say, worldly ideas about masculinity and machismo and showing that true masculinity is stepping up and doing what God calls you to do, and that is loving your children in such a way as to point them to their Heavenly Father. And so I’m really grateful that this is a regular part of our church culture. It’s a beautiful thing to see. I’m grateful for you men, and I praise the Lord for you and pray for you, and I’m glad you’re here. So happy Father’s Day, dads.

Well friends, if we haven’t met, my name is Andre. I’m a member here at Trinity Church, and I have the immense privilege of serving this church as one of her pastors. And this morning we’re going to continue our study of the Gospel of John. And as we continue our study of the Gospel of John, we look again at Jesus. Surprise, surprise. And friends, I know that I say this, I think, pretty much every time that I preach, but it really is a huge gift for each of us to get to come in contact with Jesus and His Word, to learn about Him, to grow in love for Him, to learn to treasure Him more, to see Him more clearly. This is an immense gift. This is a privilege of the people of God to get to study God’s Word together, to get to grow together in our understanding of who Jesus is, and encourage

one another with that reality. And friend, I want to say, if hearing about Jesus doesn’t excite you, I’d like to invite you to pray and ask God to soften your heart through His Word. If you’re a Christian, to see your Savior more clearly, to love Him more, to be excited to hear more about Him, to learn more about Him. And if you’re not a Christian, for God to soften your heart and allow for you, give you the grace to see Him as He is, and that is the beautiful Savior who came to save His people from their sins. And so today we find ourselves in John chapter 5, and we’re going to be looking at verses 1 through 18. And I’ve titled this morning’s sermon, The Miraculous Timing of Jesus. If you have a Bible, I’d like to invite you to open it there to John 5, and we’re going to

The Miraculous Timing of Jesus

read these 18 verses. And if you don’t have a Bible, you should have a Bible in the seat in front of you. And if you don’t have a Bible at home, I’d love to encourage you to take that Bible home with you to read it, to study it. It’s our gift to you. Can I invite you to stand for the reading of God’s Word, friends? After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, He said to him, Do you want to

be healed? The sick man answered Him, saying, Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up. And while I was going, another steps down before me. Jesus said to him, Get up, take your bed, and walk. And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed. But he answered them, The man who healed me, that man said to me, Take up your bed and walk. They asked him, Who is the man who said to you, Take up your bed and walk? Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd

in the place. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, See, you are well. Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you. The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, My Father is working until now, and I am working. This is why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. This is the word of the Lord. Please be seated, Saints. Would you pray with me? Father, I ask that you would speak to us this morning, and that you would show us the beauty, the magnitude, the power of Jesus in a way that we perhaps have

never seen it before. Help us to worship him in spirit and in truth. As we see in your word, he is worthy of all our praise and worship. It’s in his name we pray. Amen. There’s a lot to like about Jesus. He was certainly quite popular in his time as he performed many miracles. He surrounded himself with everyday people, many of whom were rejected by the broader culture, but not by Jesus. And Jesus was never afraid of a confrontation with the religious leaders of his day. In fact, his conflicts and his disagreements with these very leaders were likely what made him even more popular with regular folks, the kinds of people with whom he would regularly be seen enjoying a meal, traveling from town to town, having conversations. In our time, Jesus still has a certain cultural cachet for his kindness, his care of needy people, his teaching of love and forgiveness and patience and mercy. It seems he

was misunderstood then and often still misunderstood now by the broader world. You see, friends, Jesus was much more than a great moral teacher. He was much more than a religious miracle worker. He was much more than an anti-establishment political leader creating a new way to look at authority. He was much more than pretty much any other label that people might throw his way. In short, anything other than Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God, falls pretty short. Seems that whatever Jesus did over the course of his earthly ministry, often the people whom he served and spent time with would love him as a result of those things, would draw nearer to him, would want to be around him. And every time he did any one of those things, the religious leaders hated him more and more and more and sought to discredit him more and eventually even find ways to kill him,

as we just saw in our text. But looking at this passage, looking at John 5 verses 1 through 18, what makes this healing so difficult for the religious class of Jesus’ time to stomach? You’d think it’d be pretty straightforward. A lame man, an invalid, a crippled man, whether he was paralyzed or just crippled in some other way, he’s healed. What makes this so controversial? What makes this such a big deal? Was it just that it was the wrong day of the week? If he did it on Friday or Monday, he would have been fine. This wouldn’t have been an issue and they would have praised him and been like, wow, you are the Christ. Or was it the fact that yet again his ministry poses a challenge to their ministry, to their way of life? Let’s take a look at our text a little bit closer to find out.

More Than a Healing

What happened here was more than just a healing and Jesus here shows himself to be much more than just a healer. In verses 1-15, we see that this is more than a healing. As was the case with everything Jesus did over the course of his three-year earthly ministry, the encounter with this man was intentional. This wasn’t a happenstance. This wasn’t that they just randomly crossed paths with one another. Jesus chose to go to this pool, this place where people needed healing. And this was just like his encounter with the woman at the well. He had to pass through Samaria. He had to be there at that time when that woman was drawing water from the well. And just like that, Jesus had to be at this pool at this time next to this man. There were people that he had to call to himself in Samaria and at this pool. And Jesus will do whatever he needs to in order to save his people.

He’ll go wherever he needs to go. He’ll say whatever he needs to say. Picture the scene here. Just imagine this pool which was likely fed by a natural spring and there’s people all over the place. It says that there was a crowd. So Jesus could just pull away from the man and just disappear into the crowd. There’s people everywhere. Sick, disabled people. Just imagine the talking and the chattering and the shouting and the groaning likely from pain. The hoping and the praying. Quiet prayers and loud prayers and shouts for mercy from God. For relief. It’s tragic. Imagine this tragic scene. And why were they all drawn specifically to this pool? Specifically to this place? Why are these people here in this very place? Well, take a look at verse 4. -oh. Why is verse 4 missing? Most of your translations will go from verse 3 to verse 5. And there should be a note at

the bottom of the page explaining why that is. So let’s nerd out a little bit. Let’s talk New Testament textual criticism. In essence, New Testament textual criticism is a branch of biblical scholarship which seeks to determine what the original manuscripts of the Bible would have said. Well, this portion of the text is missing in the oldest and in the best Greek manuscripts of the Gospel of John. And it’s only really seen in what textual critics would call the latter manuscripts or the slightly more contested manuscripts. Modern translations, as a result of that, often omit it. Does this mean that the Bible isn’t trustworthy? Does this mean that because certain translations say one thing, another translation says another thing, a textual critic or biblical scholar can come along and say, oh, I don’t think that this belongs here because this was in the latter manuscript. This doesn’t really fit. Does this mean that our

translation isn’t reliable? The Bible that you hold in your hands can’t be trusted? Not at all. Textual criticism is a thorough and a careful science. And what we have in front of us is testable and it’s accurate. Often critics of the Bible and critics of Christianity will say things like, oh, it’s just translations and mistranslations and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it’s just translations of other translations. And that’s just not the case. The Bible that you have in your hands is a translation from the original language. Moreover, there are approximately 5,800 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament of the Bible, giving us approximately 2.6 million pages of biblical texts to study. And biblical scholars take great pains to carefully study, analyze the biblical text, to carefully handle it, to go thoroughly through these ancient manuscripts, pour over all of the details, study them in depth. And like I said, 5,800 manuscripts. And so when

you compare that to other ancient texts, how does that, how does the Bible hold up? I think it’s safe to say there are no other ancient texts that even come close to this many copies of the original. This many ancient manuscripts to be used for comparing, for studying, for analyzing, and for criticizing, to be able to figure out what would have been in the original texts. The only other ancient texts which have, are considered to have large numbers of manuscripts, how do they fare? Well, Homer’s Iliad is about 1,800. That’s the next, second most. And that’s, so that’s 4,000 less manuscripts. Virgil’s Enid is between four and 500 original manuscripts or ancient manuscripts rather. Plato’s Dialogues is right around 200. Sophocles’ Plays is right around 200. And from there, it just kind of drops down into the double digits. And so 5,800 manuscripts in the original

language, ancient manuscripts verified, is a lot to study. So verse four, what’s going on there? This seems to have been there at some point, probably added later to explain verse seven, where it talks about the stirring of the waters, to help add clarity about why people came to these waters for healing. But it doesn’t seem to have been there in the earliest manuscripts of John’s Gospels. So as is the case with all textual variants and omissions from certain manuscripts of the Bible, none of the variants or omissions have any bearing on any key doctrine of the Christian faith. There’s no variant which is like, Jesus wasn’t God. That doesn’t exist. It’s always minute details about a setting, about a place, about this was said this way. No, no, no, it was actually said this way. The audience was this big. No, the audience was actually this. It’s very

minor, small details and no bearing on anything in the Christian faith. All of them are minor details or additions which change nothing about how a person is saved and how that saved person is to live. You can trust your Bible, saints. The Bible is God’s Word. It’s infallible. It’s perfect as it has been translated and it is sufficient for all life. It’s a beautiful thing that God has preserved his text in this way. And when you compare it to what’s going on in other religions and in other ancient texts, it’s not even close. Can I get an amen from the biblical scholar? Yeah. Friends, I want you to understand that the Bible is historically reliable. And this is, I really think this is worth hammering home. As new archaeological discoveries emerge, more historical work is done. What ends up happening time and time again is not that the Bible is put more under

The Reliability of Scripture

question. It’s actually always the opposite. The reliability and accuracy of the biblical text is affirmed every single time. I forgot to add this to my notes and I forget, I think this was in 2005 that the discovery of this pool was actually made. Until that discovery was made, a lot of critics of the Bible said, what is this pool of Bethesda? That didn’t exist. That wasn’t a thing. And then in 2005, the discovery is made of this very pool, further affirming that God’s word is true and trustworthy. So what is the missing text that is in some of these later manuscripts? I’ll read it for you. Waiting for the moving of the water for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred the water. Whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had. That’s the missing text. This verse may have been a reflection

of the superstitions and beliefs of the people coming to the pool for healing, as opposed to something that God was actually doing in that pool. The pools would have been fed by underground springs, which would cause the water to kind of bubble up as it flowed in, often coming from a natural spring as we see around the Pacific Northwest. And when it comes into another water source, it bubbles. And so people would respond to the moving and the bubbling of the water, and they would jump in right at that moment, seeing it as a miraculous place where something supernatural was happening. Well, whatever was happening in these pools, the man in our text certainly believed that this is where he needed to be. The man in our text believed that this is where a person comes to be healed. This is where a person comes to be fixed of their aches and their

pains and their suffering. But instead of being lowered into the pools, he meets somebody. He meets Jesus. Our text tells us that there’s a multitude of sick people. Just, I mean, imagine it. Again, it’s crowds of people that Jesus could just kind of withdraw and disappear into. Why did Jesus choose this one man? Why did he stoop down next to this one man, this guy? Why not the others? Could it be that this man had a particularly long and a hard life? Could it be that he had a particularly painful existence? Could it be that his suffering was just so acute? Being crippled in the ancient world was not easy. It’s not easy now, but one’s ability to survive at that time depended almost entirely on others, as is evidenced by the fact that he couldn’t even get into the pool without someone having to lower him in.

Does Jesus know that he’s likely come to this pool several times? He’s made his way over and over and over, and every time he’s just about to go into the waters to receive healing, somebody’s coming just a little bit faster, or someone has a friend to lower them down into the water. Does Jesus see the hopelessness, the light fading from his eyes? John says that Jesus knew he was suffering. He knew his struggle. Just like the woman at the well, Jesus knows what’s going on. He knows what the need is, and he knows how to solve the problem. So Jesus has moved. He’s moved to heal this man, to serve him. Notice, saints, this man, he doesn’t show faith yet. He doesn’t say anything.

He doesn’t even call Jesus Lord or Rabbi or anything. In fact, he doesn’t start this conversation. Do you want to be healed? Jesus looks at the suffering person, and he’s moved to help them. And what happens when Jesus speaks to him? What happens when Jesus opens his mouth? At once, at once, right away, instantly, the man is healed. There’s no adjustment period. There’s nothing that needs to happen. There’s no need for any more help, for any medical interventions. Just hobble over there and do this thing instantly. 38 years like that. It’s just gone.

Just like the official sun in the previous chapter. Just like the water that instantly becomes wine in chapter 2. Just like the woman with the bleeding problem in Mark 5. When Jesus heals, when he performs a miracle, there’s no period of adjusting or waiting. There’s no delay for lack of faith. If Jesus wants to heal you, you are healed. Just like he spoke this world into being, so Jesus spoke health into a broken body. He made him right. Immediate healing, a true miracle. It’s incredible. We don’t get a description of this man’s reaction, but can you imagine? Can you imagine? I mean, you hope, and you pray, and you believe that it could, because otherwise why would you be here at this pool? You want it to be better, and then a man looks you in the eyes and says, get up. And you just feel it, like the pain and the infirmity leave your body

instantly. Can you imagine? And then this man is sent on his way, and as he goes, who does he encounter around the temple? The Jewish religious leaders. And what do they say to this man who they likely knew was crippled, whom they’ve walked past many, many times, who they probably stepped over on their way to and from the temple? Are they amazed? Do they marvel? It’s the Sabbath. What are you doing? Why are you carrying your bed? Why are you breaking the law?

Are they citing a scripture to say this? Are they pointing to God’s Word to confront him like this? No, absolutely not. What’s being referenced here is in addition to God’s law. This is an addition added in by rabbis where they said that you couldn’t carry something from one place to another on the Sabbath. Rabbinic law had created 39 laws about work on the Sabbath, every single one of them man-made. God said, rest. That’s it. Rest. Worship. Recover from your work. Focus on me. Spend time with me. The rabbis thought that wasn’t sufficient. God wasn’t doing enough there. And so they said, you can’t lift. You can’t carry. You can’t do this. You can’t do this. You can’t do this. You can’t do this. All completely unnecessary. Completely and totally unnecessary. So when they see what Jesus has done to this man who’s been suffering before their eyes for 38 years, how do

they react? Not by marveling. Why are you carrying your bed on the Sabbath? It’s so ugly. Instead of being amazed at what God has done, they lean into their religion. They double down on their way of doing things. They don’t want God. They show it over and over. They want nothing to do with God. They want their own way of life. They want to worship in their own way. And are they actually worshiping God by not lifting a thing and not carrying it here? Absolutely not. How do I know that? Because Jesus says that they’re dead inside. How can a dead person worship God? Something beautiful takes place and the reaction to it by the people who should care the most, who should be amazed and be like, where is this man? Show him. The people who should care the most, they keep missing what Jesus is doing. They keep

Physical and Spiritual Healing

misunderstanding what Jesus says. This man who’s just experienced something extraordinary, something profound, he didn’t even catch Jesus’ name. Jesus disappears in the crowd and when they ask who healed him, he couldn’t say. But Jesus wasn’t done with him yet. And Jesus runs into him again. He says this very interesting, somewhat confusing thing. Let’s reread verse 14. Afterward, Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, see, you are well. Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.

What does this mean? Is Jesus saying that the challenges that we face in life and the trials we go through are the result of our sin? Not necessarily. But I will say, we shouldn’t assume that this is also never the case. Sometimes we suffer because we’ve sinned. Sometimes our challenges in life and the persecution or the trial or whatever it is that we feel is stemming out of our choices, our rebellion, the lifestyle that we’ve chosen. Sometimes though, our suffering is a result of how the world works after the fall. And this is what the Bible is talking about time and time again when it talks about, don’t be surprised when you experience trials, when you suffer, when you go through challenges. God will use all these things for your good. The Christian should be a person of regular self-analysis, but our doctrinal convictions should also help inform our understanding of

why the world is the way it is, why we have broken bodies, why people die, why people suffer, why we experience pain and loss and devastation and anxiety and depression and so on and so forth. We live with the understanding and a deep abiding faith that God uses even our suffering and our trials, even the evil that we experience in our lives for our good, to draw us closer to Himself and to make us more like Jesus. So is Jesus saying to this man, you were crippled because you sinned? Not necessarily. There may be some hint of the consequences of sin here, but it seems to me There may be some hint of the consequences of sin here, but it seems that what Jesus is saying is that after having his body healed, he shouldn’t long for and seek just the healing of the body.

Jesus wants to heal the soul. Jesus is saying if you just stop at physical healing, if you just fix the immediate problem, but you don’t think about what’s going to happen to you if your soul isn’t right, if your heart isn’t right before God, you’re in big trouble. Eternal condemnation awaits. And I say this because it seems that there’s a connection between what’s going on here and what’s going on in verses 28 and 29 later on in the chapter when Jesus continues this conversation. He continues this explanation and he says the following, do not marvel at this for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out. Those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. Jesus is talking about how if you don’t fix your heart, if you don’t make your, if you don’t go

through the necessary steps of repentance and faith and stand rightly before God on that final day, you will experience judgment. And if you think 38 years of paralysis, of pain was bad, the wrath of God is far worse. Why did Jesus come after all? Was it just to heal and meet the felt needs of people? He definitely did a lot of that. We see that clearly throughout the gospels. He served a lot of people. He cared for these people. He gave of himself for people. But when his disciples came to him to call him to go to all the people waiting for healing, the massive crowds in Mark one, his response in verse 38 was, let us go to the next town that I may preach there also for that is why I came out. He came to preach the gospel so that sinners might be saved.

Yes, he was compassionate and kind and felt pity towards suffering people, but a person can be healed and their broken body fixed and they could still die in their sins. So that’s why Jesus goes back to this man and he warns him because he loves him and he cares for him. He cares for the whole of who he is in this conversation when saying, do you see what I’ve done for you? Do you see what I’ve done for you? Now go and sin no more. Jesus isn’t telling this man to summon up his willpower and the strength that he has inside of him and just be better and do better, but to understand who it is that he’s encountered, who it is that he’s talking to and what has been done for him in light of the power that has healed him and his new reality to now go and

live in the newness of life and faith in the one who healed him. This man is getting the whole package here. He’s getting physical healing and he’s getting the offer of spiritual healing as well. It’s beautiful. What a compassionate savior. Friends, when we read stories like this from the life of Jesus, it’s easy for us to just linger for a second, see Jesus showing compassion to a suffering person and then just move on because this happens a lot in the gospels. Jesus heals a lot of people. He serves a lot of people. He gives his attention and shows love and kindness to people from all different walks of life, all different kinds of suffering.

Don’t let yourself get to a point where you think that his compassion towards suffering and needy people shouldn’t also define your life, friend. Don’t be so set in your theology that we just kind of hunker down on it. They just need the gospel and that’s it. Just preach the gospel and move on.

Be changed by him. Jesus was compassionate and he calls us to follow after him. Show him to the world around you. There are a lot of hurting people around us. You may not be able to heal them, but you can love them. You can show kindness to them. You can serve them. You can and should give them Christ. J.C. Ryle, when writing about this story, says, this is just one among many examples of how our Lord Jesus Christ’s kindness and compassion. He is full of undeserved, unexpected, abounding love toward us. He delights in mercy, says in Micah 7, 18. He is far more ready to save than we are to be saved, far more willing to do good than we are to receive it. Let your love for sinners be like that of Jesus, who cared for the whole person. John Piper has said a number of times over the course of his

ministry, Christians care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering. We preach the gospel to people dying in their sins. We call them to repentance and faith. But in the process, we also see the humanity and the imago Dei in these people and everyone that we show compassion to and that we meet the needs of. It’s easy to just drive past that homeless man that you’ve seen time and time again, to see the young drug addict on the street corner and just be disgusted by his lifestyle. Don’t let your heart be hardened. These are human beings. These are people who are made in the image of God. That’s someone’s son. That’s someone’s daughter. Jesus cared for these people. We should as well.

More Than a Healer

We see in our text that when the healed man has the second interaction with Jesus, he then points him out to the religious leaders and it made them hate him even more. And they’re about to find out that he’s not just someone who refuses to play by their rules. He’s much more than that. In verses 16 through 18, we see that he’s more than a healer. Read these verses with me. And this is why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, my father is working until now and I’m working. This is why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him. Because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God. Upon finding out that Jesus healed this man on the wrong day of the week, our text tells us that this is why they were persecuting him.

So Jesus responds to this persecution by escalating the situation just a little bit. Jesus answered them, you think that’s bad? My father is working until now and I am working. First, they were persecuting him. And then in verse 18, it says that they wanted to kill him. They wanted him dead. And why did they want to kill him? Because he was making himself equal with God. It’s important to see what Jesus said and taught, but it’s also very important to see how what he said and taught was received by others. There are a lot of people who will say that Jesus never actually claimed to be God. That’s just something that Christians say. You hear this from Muslims, you hear this from different heretical movements and sects, but there are multiple places throughout the gospel where Jesus clearly speaks of his own deity, of being equal with God. I spoke about this when I preached from John 4, verses 1 through 42,

and all of the I am statements throughout the gospel of John, where Jesus very clearly communicates that he is God. He makes himself equal with God. And so we see this throughout the gospel of John, we see this throughout the gospels, and we see this all throughout the New Testament. The deity of Jesus was clearly understood by the people of his time. Why? How do I know that? Because they wanted to kill him for it. He made a claim of deity. Moreover, note what happens here. When he speaks of his work being equal with the Father’s work, how do the religious leaders hear that? This is important to understand. Is it just that he kind of said something that could be understood that way, but the religious leaders didn’t really see it that way? No, they see what he’s saying as equality with God. They see what he’s saying

as a claim to deity. And does Jesus correct them? Does he say, no, no, no, you got it wrong? No, he absolutely does not correct them. He leaves that as is because it’s what he taught. He claimed to be God. The religious leaders understood that and they ultimately killed him for it. Our brother Sean is going to flesh this out a little bit more next week, but in the following section of chapter five, Jesus says, whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. Whatever God the Father does, God the Son does. Jesus is not just a great moral teacher, friend. He’s not just a miracle worker. He’s not just a nice guy or an advocate for the poor and the sick and the needy. Jesus is God. Yes and amen. That’s it. There’s no way to navigate around that. You can say you don’t believe that, but he doesn’t leave that in the

text. He says it clearly and it’s what the people of his time believed. His response to religious leaders in verse 17 is also something that’s unique in the Bible. Normally, this kind of response is only seen in the context of a court trial. This is almost like a legal defense that he’s providing for his accusers. The response is essentially that while God stopped the work of creation on the seventh day, he ultimately didn’t cease all work. God didn’t just walk away from his creation. He sustains it. We don’t believe in a deist deity. God didn’t just let the world go. No, everything works. Everything holds together because God holds it together. If he would stop making things work and holding all things together for even just one second, all of this would disappear. Everything would be gone. Nothing would exist. The question that underlines Jesus’ response is, is God allowed to work on the Sabbath? Are you telling God what he

can or can’t do? The son who was responsible for the creation of the entire universe rested on the seventh day as he saw the goodness of his creation and was glorified by the perfect universe before him. We read this passage in the beginning of our service, and I’ll read it again,

for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things and in him all things hold together

— Colossians 1

(ESV)

. That’s pretty comprehensive. I heard all a couple of times. All things holding together in him means that he continues to work. Nothing can exist apart from his sustaining power. The one who created the Sabbath is Lord of it, as we see in Matthew 12, 8. When Jesus challenges these religious leaders, he’s not just trying to

be difficult. He’s pointing them and everyone listening to the promise of the new world to come. He’s pointing them to the reality of the one who created this world also creating the world to come. When God created the world, it was good. There was no sin. There was no death. But the rebellion of the first man and woman brought upon the curse of sin and its effects. When the promised Messiah comes to save his people from their sins, he performs miracles like healing, which were meant to be a sign to show who he is and why he came. Moreover, as he speaks of the law, as he points to the law, who is the perfect fulfillment of that law? It’s him, because we can’t do it. These miracles, the healing of sick people, of broken people, the casting out of demons, the raising of the dead, show the reality of the world to come where there will be no sickness,

where there will be no death, where there will be no evil. Jesus is saying to the religious leaders, you’re missing the point. I’m here to save you and give you hope for the life to come. And they refuse it. They don’t want what God has to offer. They already have everything figured out. Yeah, yeah, Jesus, but he can’t carry his bed today. The very one who gave the law to people for their good and to point them in the direction of the Savior that they so desperately need, is now being accused of breaking that very law by stopping on his way to the cross to heal a man and give him hope of eternal life. Man-made religion is absurd, man-made religion is absurd, isn’t it?

So yes, he’s much more than just a healer. Friends, how we see Jesus, what we think of him, how we relate to him, this is the most important thing about any of us. How you understand him says everything about you. Misunderstand him, think too little of him, overly generalize him and what he taught, and you miss the mark. But believe him when he says who he is, and as a result of that, worship him in spirit and truth and experience the fullness of joy and the life that can only come from the Creator who created that life. We’re able to live the lives that God calls us to, the kind of life that was supposed to exist before sin entered the picture. He’s calling us back. We don’t get the healing and the restoration and the newness of life here necessarily. We’re still limping through life,

we still see wheelchairs, we still hear about suffering and sadness and despair, we lose loved ones, but the Christian man or woman is a person who longs for the world to come, where every tear will be wiped away, where we’ll behold our Savior forever. Jesus, the lawgiver, the Lord of the Sabbath, the perfect fulfillment of the law, the long-expected Messiah who comes to save his people, he carried out his ministry in such a way as to make it a point to stop for one crippled man and to heal him. Why? To give him and the people watching hope of the world to come and tell them how they might reach that world, where nobody needs healing anymore, and it’s only through him. And every single time it happens, dear saint, it’s a miracle. Amen? Amen. Pray with me. Pray with me.

King Jesus, we stand in awe of you. You are merciful, you are gracious, you are loving and kind, and it is only because you are so that we can come to you, cry out to you, and find our hope for salvation and life to come, because you have died for us, made us your people, and given us eternal life.

What words can we say that sufficiently express our gratitude, Lord? Thank you, Jesus. We love you. Thank you for loving us. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.