The first portion of the book of John focuses on Signs that prove Jesus is the Messiah. There are 7 signs that John highlights. We focused on the first “sign” a few weeks ago when we read about Jesus’ first miracle: turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana. This week, we will focus on two more of the signs - two occasions when Jesus miraculously healed people who were ill.
So, let’s turn to the Gospel of John and read these two stories of miraculous healings…starting at John chapter four verse forty-six:
The Scripture John 4:46-54 & 5:1-18
Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum.
When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.
“Unless you people see signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”
The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”
“Go,” Jesus replied, “your son will live.”
The man took Jesus at his word and departed.
While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living.
When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, “Yesterday, at one in the afternoon, the fever left him.”
Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he and his whole household believed.
This was the second sign Jesus performed after coming from Judea to Galilee.
Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals.
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.
Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.
One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.
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?”
“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.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath,
and so the Jewish leaders 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.
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.”
The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.
So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him.
In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.”
For this reason they tried 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 with God.
Here ends this reading of the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Let us pray…
The Message Healing Miracles
The stories we read today focus on healing – Jesus healed a sick child and Jesus healed a disabled man….one of the people healed was probably a Gentile and one was probably Jewish. Both formerly ill people received miracles from God – and yet, both incidents of healing led to religious leaders feeling disturbed and troubled about Jesus – if he could do this, these miracles, what else would he do?
In the first story, a desperate father approached Jesus. When the father asked Jesus to come to Capernaum, a 20-mile distance from where they were, Jesus said something critical about people needing evidence to believe in him. Jesus’ words were more for the gathered crowd than for the father. But, the father’s next statement was so direct that Jesus immediately responded. The dad told Jesus that unless he acted the man's son would die….so Jesus told him that his son was healed. On Jesus’ word, the father began the journey back to Capernaum. And, he found out when his servants reached him the next day that the son was healed at the exact same moment Jesus told the father the son was well.
Scholars assume the man and his family were Gentiles. They weren’t steeped in the Jewish faith and didn’t understand how Jesus was the fulfillment of hundreds of years of prophecies about the Messiah. Instead, the father was a desperate man on a mission – he would do anything to make his son better. He would do anything to keep his son alive. He heard that Jesus was a powerful healer, so the father rushed to seek Jesus’ help. When Jesus told the man his son was healed, the father trusted Jesus’ word. And, when the father returned and reunited with his son and his family, they all believed. They all believed in Jesus and our God. In our story from last week, the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, a whole community of Samaritans converted to the Christian faith after they met Jesus. After today’s event, a household of Gentiles believed after Jesus’ word healed one of their own. Jesus came to earth to save us, all of us, whether we are Jewish or Samaritan or Gentiles.
Our second healing story is about a disabled Jewish man. He laid next to the Pool of Bethesda for thirty-eight years….thirty-eight years. That is a long, long time. We don’t know what type of disability the man had – our scripture just calls him an invalid. In the first century, Jewish believed that whenever the waters of the pool were disturbed, the first person who entered the water afterwards would be healed. But, in the thirty-eight years the man laid next to the pool, he was never the first person to enter the water. He was never fast enough. And, he apparently had no support – no one helped him get into the water.
When this healing took place, Jesus had returned to Jerusalem for a festival. He saw the invalid man and learned that he was laying next to the pool for thirty-eight years….an eternity! Yet, when Jesus asked the man if he wanted to be healed, the man was non-committal ... ..he was apathetic…he explained that no one would help him get into the pool and in the man’s mind, getting into the pool was the only way he could be healed. We can understand why the man was so hopeless…thirty-eight years is a long time to experience a disability….thirty-eight years is a long time to wait for healing.
Jesus told the man: “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” And the man was healed at once….he picked up his mat and walked. Finally, after thirty-eight years, the man was healed.
You would think everyone would rejoice…that everyone who saw the man after his healing would be delighted and happy. But, oddly, some people reacted with suspicion and accusations. Instead of delight, they were critical – why was the man carrying a mat on the Sabbath? Who healed him? And, when they found out Jesus had healed the man, they were upset that the healing occurred on the Sabbath.
So, some of the haters, Temple authorities, approached Jesus with accusation – why was he violating the rules by healing someone, doing work, on the Sabbath? And, when Jesus responded, they became even more angry and accusatory…Jesus told them his father worked 7 days a week and so did he.. So, then they were upset because Jesus called God “his father.” They were upset because Jesus was indicating he was the Messiah and that he had insight into God’s will for us.
Instead of appreciating the wonderful things that were happening, the Temple authorities were mad about the little details – they thought Jesus violated the sabbath rules by working and they thought Jesus was making false claims about being the messiah. Ugh.
Talk about someone not being able to see the forest for the trees. The Temple authorities were not happy about the healing. They weren’t delighted that the Messiah was in their midst. They were paying attention to the wrong things.
When the Gentile family saw the healing of their son, everyone believed. They didn’t stop and throw out criticisms or excuses. They believed.
But, the people who should have had a similar reaction to the invalid at the pool being healed were the opposite. Instead of believing in Jesus and being appreciative of God, they had many criticisms and excuses and accusations. Witnessing a miracle didn’t help them believe.
In our lives, we need to work to be more like the family of Gentiles and less like the Temple authorities. We should respond to good things that happen in our lives and in the lives of our family members appreciatively. God is making things better….God is actively at work in the world….let us rejoice and be glad in response to God.
But, often, like the Temple authorities, we get distracted by the details and miss out on the big events. A man who was disabled for 38 years was better! Praise God. But, because the healing happened on the wrong day of the week, and the person doing the healing didn’t look the way they expected or have the right kind of education or belong to the proper group of Pharaisees or Sadduccees, they were upset. They missed out on something special because they allowed themselves to be distracted by the details.
In our lives, we put these constraints on ourselves….we can’t help people who are homeless because we aren’t trained as social workers. We can’t help our nephew learn algebra because we don’t have an education degree. We can’t help our neighbor get groceries because we don’t speak their native language and they don’t speak English. We miss out on doing a good deed, or putting our Christian faith in action, because we get too caught up in the details ... .we get too caught up in doubting ourselves or our skills or our talents.
When Jesus met people who needed to be healed, he healed them. He didn’t demand they have the right background. He didn’t worry if they didn’t deserve to be healed. He didn’t check their documentation. The man by the pool of Bethesda didn’t even ask Jesus to heal him. When Jesus met people who needed to be healed, he healed them.
Let us work on putting our faith in action. Let us help people who are suffering. Let us help people who are struggling. Let us worry less about whether or not we have the right training or knowledge and instead step forward and respond. Let us model our lives on Jesus, and when we see a need, respond to that need with love and action. And, let us delight in the work of God all around us.
Amen
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