We're going to read together in John's Gospel.
We're reading in John chapter 5, the first 18 verses of the chapter.
It's page 890 of the Church Bible, if you want to follow there.
The readings also in some of the intimation leaflets,
there's orders of service and the readings there also.
So John chapter 5, reading from verse 1 to verse 18.
Let's hear and read together in God's Word.
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 38 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,
Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up,
and while I am going, another steps down before me.
Jesus said to him,
Get up, take up 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's 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for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place.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 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 am working.
This was 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 God,
and to his name be the praise and the glory.
I don't know about you,
but when I was in school,
we were told there was no such thing as silly questions.
Anything is fine to bring before the teacher.
The teacher's happy to deal with any queries you might have.
Maybe it was just my school,
but it did feel like there were, in fact,
a lot of silly questions.
But we are in a series,
a preaching series,
called questions that Jesus asked.
And as David has just read for us,
we read about a man,
Jesus comes and finds this man who's been lying
by a healing pool for a long time.
He's incredibly sick.
He can't walk.
He's in a pretty bad way.
He's hoping for miraculous healing.
And Jesus comes up to him and says,
Do you want to be well?
And it seems to me,
at least on first reading,
that Jesus is actually breaking
the there are no silly questions.
Rule.
Of course,
this man wants to be well.
He's been lying there for a long time,
38 years,
hoping,
just hoping that somehow his paralysis,
his paralysis is going to be cured
and he's going to be able to walk.
We think,
and this is what four years of seminary teaches you.
Jesus doesn't ask silly questions.
And in fact,
Jesus sometimes asks questions,
the kinds of questions that are so clear
and so precise,
they pierce right to the heart
of the human condition.
And I think this is one of those questions.
It's a diagnostic question.
It doesn't prompt a one word answer.
The man doesn't say yes.
The man doesn't say no.
But he reveals so much about who this man really is,
how he sees the world that he is inhabiting,
where his hope is and where it isn't.
I want to show you tonight,
this isn't a silly question at all.
It's a question that Jesus is still asking today,
not to a man lying on a mat 2000 years ago,
but to all of us here in Edinburgh tonight.
We all know people in need of physical healing.
Some people are in very urgent of miraculous healing.
We know,
and we pray for them.
But even if you're relatively well,
even if you were able to,
you know,
run up the steps from the car park today,
you don't have to look too far to see things
that you need to be healed from.
You can see the brokenness of the world,
the fragility of our mental and emotional health.
You know that human relationships are fragile.
They're so easily broken and so difficult to heal.
You've experienced disappointments.
You've experienced suffering.
You've seen greed.
You've seen envy.
You've seen hurt.
You don't need to be a Christian to know
that we all need healing from all of these things.
The story of Jesus healing an invalid by the pool
goes beyond our need for physical healing.
It offers true healing
because true healing doesn't just patch us up for a while.
True healing is complete.
It offers deep,
eternal rest from ever needing to go looking for healing again.
So this passage doesn't just tell us about the wonderful healing.
Also points us clearly to the source,
where this healing comes from.
And it's not a pool.
It's a person.
I've got three points.
The first point is,
what's wrong with you?
John goes up to,
John tells us that Jesus is going up to a festival.
And there he comes to the Sheep Gate
and there's a pool,
a pool called Bethesda.
For a long time,
people who wanted to discredit the Bible
kind of hung on this pool and said,
there's no evidence that this pool actually ever existed.
Notice that the passage tells us
this pool has five porticos.
Those are porches.
And they offered shelter from the sun and the heat
for those who were lying around them.
So we all know, don't we,
that swimming pools are only rectangular,
oval, maybe a circle.
Nobody's ever heard of a pentagon shaped pool.
There's no archaeological evidence
that this pool ever existed.
And John's really specific about where it is,
right beside the Sheep Gate.
It had never been discovered until it was.
And finally, it was uncovered relatively recently
in the 19th century.
Archaeologists think that this wasn't necessarily
a healing pool,
like it's been treated by this man,
but it was probably a Jewish ritual cleansing pool.
There were, when it was excavated,
they found that there was a rectangular pool.
So rectangular pool has four sides, right?
Four porches,
except there was two separate basins.
So the top pool would flow into the second pool.
And across the middle,
there was this wall,
which had a porch.
And there we have it,
five porches,
a five porched pool.
And it proves exactly
what Jotun was writing about is true.
So why does that even matter?
Why does it matter?
Why does it need to be a real pool?
Isn't the most important bit,
the bit that Jesus does?
Well, yes,
the most important bit is the bit that Jesus does.
But if we can trust the Bible to be completely accurate
about a five-sided pool
that people never thought existed,
and the detail that goes into describing
exactly what that is,
then we can trust the Bible to be really crystal clear
about the big important things that it tells us,
like we're going to see tonight who Jesus really is.
So Jesus comes to this pool of Bethesda.
Bethesda means something like house of mercy
or house of grace,
which is bitterly ironic
because it doesn't seem as though
there's much mercy or grace in this place.
It's full of people lying around
completely debilitating,
debilitated,
waiting for a miraculous healing.
There's no grace in this place at all
until Jesus shows up.
And then amongst this sea of sick people,
Jesus identifies one man,
an invalid.
He's lying on his mat,
probably like a reed mat that you can roll up.
And he's been there a long time.
But John tells us that
Jesus didn't need to be told any of this
because he already knew exactly
what the man's condition was.
So the passage doesn't tell us exactly
what the man's disability was,
what was specifically wrong with him.
He had a weakness and he couldn't walk.
But it does show us
that there's more to this man's condition
than his physical ailment.
John's one of four gospels
and they all tell the story of Jesus's life,
but they come at it from slightly different angles.
John's a very precise writer.
He's really clear about what he does.
And he doesn't usually include
specific details by accident.
I think he's deliberately told us
that this man's been ill for 38 years.
And I think that that number
is one of the keys for us unlocking
the meaning of this whole episode
that Jesus has.
Because we find this exact number
in a very particular place
in the Old Testament.
So in Deuteronomy,
we read about how God
had brought the children of Israel
to the edge of the promised land.
Right to the edge.
The land that he promised
to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob,
to these people's forefathers.
And they came right up to the edge,
but they didn't get to go in.
They weren't allowed to enter
the land of rest.
They had to wander in the wilderness
for years and years first.
How many years?
38 years.
They had to wander in the wilderness
for 38 years
until all the people
who were guilty
of not putting their trust in God
had died.
And it was their descendants
who were to enter the land.
They weren't allowed to enter the land
because of unbelief.
They simply didn't trust God
to deliver on the things
that he promised them he would.
And I think this is the connection.
This is one of the connections
John wants us to make
between this man and Israel.
This man is suffering.
He's been suffering for a long time
in a really terrible way.
But underneath his suffering,
underneath his physical suffering,
is a spiritual sickness.
Notice too that Jesus comes
to this man twice.
So he comes to him by the pool
and he sees him when he's unwell.
But Jesus has also come to him later on.
He comes to him at the temple.
And Jesus' words there,
the words that he says to him
are important as well.
In verse 14,
Jesus says,
See your well.
Sin no more,
that nothing worse may happen to you.
Jesus is linking the man's
physical condition to sin.
So he's not doing it
in a mechanical way.
He's not saying,
if you sin,
you're going to get sick.
A few chapters later,
John chapter 9,
Jesus explains that that's,
you know,
the idea of suffering
isn't always directly
connected to punishment for sin.
But Jesus is showing this man,
he's showing us,
there's a need for greater healing,
even greater healing
than being paralytic for 38 years.
The final thing to notice on this
is that this need
for a different kind of healing
is in verse 4.
John says,
there are multitudes of sick,
blind, lame, paralyzed people
all around him.
And when we've read the Bible
and we look at that,
we see this is a clear picture
of the fallen world
under the effects of sin.
This man's physical weakness
is not his biggest problem.
His biggest problem
is spiritual helplessness.
And this man's physical condition,
it mirrors the spiritual condition
of all of humanity
apart from Christ.
Apart from Christ,
Christians,
human beings
are in a perilous situation.
You might not have physical ailments
holding you back,
but in Ephesians,
Paul tells us that
apart from Christ,
we're not simply unwell,
we're not simply off key,
we're dead in our sins.
Not limping,
not weak,
spiritually dead.
And that's the diagnosis.
That diagnosis
is much more serious
than paralysis.
So Jesus sees this man,
he sees through
his presenting symptoms
to diagnose
his spiritual desperation.
condition.
We don't know exactly
what the condition
of this man's legs are,
but that's not really
what this is about.
It's about the condition
of his heart.
And it's the same
for each of us.
The problem of sin
is universal.
Everyone,
all the multitudes
lying in the porches,
all five porches
around this pool,
they had it,
they had the same condition.
Each of us has it too.
But saying that you've
got a sin problem
is not an insult.
It's a mercy
because you have to know
what's wrong
in order to know
where to go
to be healed
or more accurately,
who to go to.
So we have a diagnosis
for this man,
for ourselves.
And this is when
Jesus asks the question
that with our understanding
of what sin is
and the same condition
can pierce us
in the heart.
When we read on,
when we read,
Jesus says,
do you actually
want to be healed?
Do you want to be well?
And when we first read this,
it feels a bit confronting,
I think,
confusing perhaps.
This guy's at rock bottom.
Of course he wants
to be well.
It almost sounds cruel.
So this,
you can imagine
this poor guy
is kind of dragging himself
unable to walk
and somebody else
is getting down
and achieving healing
before him.
If you think about it
in those terms,
it's like Jesus is saying,
you're not working hard enough.
Go harder,
go faster.
But that's not
what's happening at all.
Jesus is asking
this question
to expose
the deeper reality.
And when you look
at the man's answer,
I think it reveals
to us a lot.
So first of all,
look at what the man
doesn't say.
He doesn't actually
give a direct
answer to the question.
Instead,
he explains
why it's impossible
for him
to be healed.
He says
he doesn't have anyone
to help him
and other people
are more mobile
than he is.
So these things
might be true.
I'm sure these things
are true.
But why doesn't he
simply say yes?
Why doesn't he say,
yes, I do want to be healed.
He could say,
stranger,
please,
you've come up
and spoken to me.
Hang about a bit
just in case the water
is troubled
and you can help me
to the water
and I can get well.
But he doesn't say that.
And I think that reveals
so much about his
attitude to life
and the identity
that he has.
So for 38 years,
this guy has been
the invalid.
His whole identity
is wrapped up
in helplessness.
He's learned
to explain
his condition
away to people
rather than
hold out hope
for real
change.
In the film
The Shawshank Redemption,
Brooks is the
elderly librarian.
He's been in prison
for 50 years
and eventually
Brooks gets parole
and he leaves prison
and he doesn't
last very long
and he can't
handle life
on the outside
and he takes
his own life
and he leaves
a suicide note
and it says
that at first
the walls of prison
felt confining
but eventually
he became so
familiar with them
that he couldn't
imagine life
outside them.
One of the lead
characters in the
film, Red,
he's played by
Morgan Freeman.
He says,
at first
you hate the walls
around you
and then slowly
you get used to them
and given enough
time
you come to
depend on them.
Enough years
imprisoned
and a person
stops being able
to function
anywhere else.
And do you see
it isn't that
the man enjoys
his broken
condition.
It's that 38
years is enough
time for him
to have built
an entire existence
around his illness.
His habits,
his spot
under the porch,
his place
in the begging
order perhaps.
So when Jesus
says to him,
do you want
to be healed?
The question
isn't true
and it isn't silly,
it's surgical.
Jesus is asking
if this man
actually
is ready
to lose
the whole,
everything
of life
that he knows
in exchange
for a life
that he can't
even imagine.
Jesus is asking
him,
do you want
to build
an entire life
from scratch,
leaving every
aspect of your
old life
behind?
And that's
scary.
I wonder
if you can
see elements
of this man's
situation
in your
spiritual life.
Are there
patterns of sin
in your life
that have
become so
ingrained
that you
can't see
a way of
leaving them
behind?
Maybe you're
caught in
apathy,
in your
devotional life,
your prayer
life,
your time
with God
and that
urgency
that you
once had
to be with
your heavenly
father has
dissipated,
but it's
been so
long,
trying to
change just
seems too
difficult.
Or maybe
there's a
sin in your
life,
you know
that it's
not pleasing
to God,
but you
even stop
praying about
it because
you just
think now
that's part
of who you
are.
Because if
you can see
any hints
of these
things in
your life,
then the
gospel confronts
you with a
stark question.
do you
really want
Christ's
transforming
grace?
Are you
willing to
take the
sins that
you've become
so accustomed
to and
put them
to death?
Okay,
so our
deepest
sickness isn't
physical sickness,
it's spiritual,
it's sin.
And being
healed means
letting go of
the patterns
of sin that
we've become
so comfortable
with.
But here's the
wonderful news.
You're not
alone.
you're not
expected to
do these
things by
yourself.
In verse
seven, the
man says,
sir, I
have no
one.
But although
from his
desperate
situation, his
perspective
looked like
there was no
one to
help.
The man
could only
lie in his
mat, but
Jesus comes
to him.
This man
wasn't looking
for Jesus.
He doesn't
ask to be
healed.
When Jesus
arrives, the
guy doesn't
even know
who he
is, but
Jesus chooses
him.
Jesus'
compassion is
personal and
it's intentional.
And he
asks the
man to
contribute
nothing to
his healing,
nothing at
all.
Jesus simply
speaks the
words and
the man is
immediately
made whole.
Like,
spiritually,
every one
of us is
this man.
God's grace
always precedes
faith.
We don't
climb up
to God.
We don't
have to get
near the
pool in
order to
splash water
in our
faces and
make ourselves
look clean
enough to
be presentable
to our
heavenly
father.
We can't.
We're
spiritually
paralyzed,
unable to
take a
single step
without God's
grace.
We're
powerless to
save ourselves
and we're
utterly
dependent on
someone else
to save
us.
And this
is actually
good news
because the
one who
can save
us will
save us.
He knows
exactly who
you are.
He knows
exactly what
you've done.
He knows
exactly what
you need.
All you have
to do is
believe that
he is who
he says he
is.
And this
leads us to
the most
important thing
I think that
John wants
us to see
in this
passage.
So thirdly,
finally,
can you
see the
sign?
John tells
us right
at the
end of
his gospel
exactly why
he wrote
it.
He wrote,
these things
are written
so that you
may believe
that Jesus
is the
Christ,
the Son
of God,
and that by
believing you
may have
life in
his name.
These things
are written
so you'll
believe that
Jesus is the
Christ,
the Son
of God,
and that by
believing in
these things
you'll have
life in
his name.
All the
miracles in
John's
gospel,
are all
written for
that purpose.
And John
doesn't call
them miracles,
he calls
them signs.
Not simply
to show that
Jesus is a
super healer,
although he
obviously is,
but to convince
you that he
really is who he
claims to be,
the Son of
God.
Look,
we're used to
seeing signs
at poolside.
God.
With the
account of
this man
at Bethesda,
John's
putting up a
big sign for
us to see,
but the sign
doesn't say
no running,
no diving,
no heavy
petting.
The sign
reads,
Jesus truly
is the
Christ,
the Son
of God.
Believe that
and you'll
have something
much greater
than physical
healing.
You'll receive
spiritual healing.
You'll be
made whole
and that
means you'll
be reconciled
with God.
But there's
tragedy,
tragedy in the
second half of
this passage.
The man who's
been healed
walks out
carrying his
mat.
He's been
lying there
for 34
years.
Let's put
ourselves in
that position
just for a
second.
Somebody you're
vaguely familiar
with, you know
that he can't
walk.
He's been
lying there
for 38
years, begging,
desperate,
lonely and
alone.
And he comes
walking towards
you and
what's the
first thing
you would
say to
him?
You'd say,
wow, what
happened?
Who did
this?
I'm so
pleased that
you've been
healed.
This is
incredible.
But the
first people
that this
man meets
don't react
like that
at all.
He meets
the religious
authorities of
the time
and they're
not full of
joy in
any way.
In fact,
they're
outraged.
They say,
what do you
think you're
doing?
It's the
Sabbath day
and you're
breaking the
law.
Jesus has
just performed
miraculous
healing and
all they can
see is a
rolled up
mat under
a guy's
arm.
Now, this
guy actually,
he hasn't
broken God's
law by
carrying his
mat.
The scribes
accused this
man of,
you know,
not resting on
the seventh
day, the day
God appointed
for people
not to
work.
This man
wasn't
working.
He'd just
been made
whole.
He was
going home.
But in
the Jewish
tradition,
they'd
invented,
they'd
created,
they'd
built around
the
Sabbath
law,
certain
rules,
codes that
they had
to live
by.
I think
they were
39.
I'm not
sure.
What they
thought
constituted
breaking the
Sabbath day
and one
of those
rules was
carrying
furniture.
Think about
what has
to happen
for you
for that
situation
to come
about.
Think about
how committed
you have to
be to your
own legal
system,
your own
internal
code to
live by,
the code
that you've
laid down
exactly in
your image
for you
to uphold.
that when
God performs
an unmistakable
miracle directly
in front of
you,
you don't
even see
God.
You just
see an
infringement.
They're looking
straight at
the sign
and they
can't read
it because
they've decided
in advance
what the
sign should
say.
I think
like for
all of us,
those of us
who've grown
up in
church,
who've been
in church
for a long
time,
this is
frightening us
a little
bit.
Because
just like
the healed
man's
condition is
a mirror
to our
spiritual
condition,
these
first century
Jewish
rulers,
they remind
us that
there's such
an easy
tendency
to legalism.
Doctrine
is important.
The Sabbath
day is really
important.
But there's
this permanent
temptation,
I think,
in the heart
of Christians,
people who
take their
faith seriously,
to be so
committed to
our own
codes,
our own
sense of
how Christians
are supposed
to behave,
how Christians
are supposed
to look,
things that
are within
our comfort
zone,
boundaries that
we put
around God,
what is
and what
isn't
acceptable
to us,
that there's
a danger we
miss God
when he's
right in
front of
us,
doing things
that only
he can
do.
The question
that these
guys should
have been
asking
themselves
about this
Sabbath
controversy
is not,
is this
permissible,
but who
can do
what Jesus
has just
done?
Who can
speak a
paralyzed
man well?
On the
spot,
no rehab,
no recovery
period,
instantly
whole.
I mean,
there's only
one possible
answer.
only the
one who
created
human
bodies,
the one
who created
human bodies
in the
first place
could ever
restore a
human body
like this.
Only the
one who
holds the
whole world
in his
hands has
the kind
of authority,
the kind
of power
over broken
flesh and
blood to
take a man
whose legs
are broken
and make
him walk.
That's the
sign.
And the
question that
John's whole
gospel puts
to us is
in this
story, but
in other
places as
well, is
can you
read it?
Can you
read the
sign?
Will you
look in
John's gospel
at what
Jesus does
and see
who Jesus
is?
Or will
you look
like the
authorities in
this passage
and be so
preoccupied by
your own
code,
or your
own comfort
or your
own carefully
curated
conditions,
your own
right and
wrong, that
you miss
Jesus entirely?
So, John
hangs up a
sign by the
pool in
Bethesda, but
it isn't a
list of do's
and don'ts like
we might see at
the local
swimming pool.
It's a portrait
of a person.
Jesus is
pointing us
to the fact
that Jesus
truly is what
he says he
is.
Jesus truly
is the
God-man,
the one
who's so
much greater
than a
pool of
purifying
water.
Just one
chapter back
in John,
John chapter
four,
Jesus meets
a woman
beside a
well and
he said to
her, if you
knew who it
was that was
speaking to
you, you
would have
asked me and
I would have
given you
living water.
Living water
isn't a
special drink
that Jesus
hands out.
Like in our
passage today,
Jesus isn't
the one who
will carry
broken people
into a
healing pool.
Jesus is
living water.
There are so
many water
references in
the Bible,
but I'm just
going to finish
with this one.
In the last
chapter of the
last book of
the Bible,
Paul, in
his vision,
John sees
a river, a
river of
water of
life, bright
as crystal
flowing from
the throne of
God and the
Lamb, flowing
through the
middle of the
street and on
each side of
the river is
the tree of
life and the
leaves of that
tree are for
the healing of
the nations.
This is the
vision of the
future for
everyone who
puts their
trust in
Jesus.
You see,
through his
victory on
the cross,
Jesus undoes
the brokenness
of the world
that we see
around us.
He restores the
beauty and
splendor of the
Garden of Eden
when everything
was perfect.
And the
restored access
to the tree
of life,
that includes
the reconciliation
of people
with God
and the
intimacy of
our relationship
with him.
This is what
Jesus is
bringing when
he returns.
the first
miracle Jesus
ever performed
was turning
water into
wine.
At the end
of his life,
he makes this
astonishing
statement.
He says,
I'll not
drink wine
again until
I drink it
new with
you in
my father's
kingdom.
This is the
great hope
of every
Christian.
This is how
we can move
forward with
joy despite
the trials,
the suffering,
the pain
that this
life so
often hands
to people.
Maybe tonight
you feel like
you're a
paralyzed man
waiting by
a pool,
helpless and
lost.
But put your
trust in Jesus
because this
is his
invitation.
He says,
one day,
come to me,
one day
you'll drink
festival wine
face to face
with the
water of
life.
Let's pray.
Lord,
our God,
help us
tonight to
see clearly
our own
need for
Jesus.
Jesus,
who is
the water
of life,
the living
water who
washes away
our sins.
Help us to
be people of
repentance,
confessing our
sin,
not just with
our lips,
but turning
away from
sin,
so that the
sin that we
know is so
grievous to
you.
We thank you,
Heavenly Father,
for your son
Jesus,
the living
water who
doesn't merely
improve us,
but who makes
us altogether
whole.
Help us
every day to
see the reality
of who
Christ is
and what
he's done
for all
sinners and
for us as
individuals,
specific
individuals,
seeking us
out just like
he did with
this man by
the pool.
Lord,
we ask that
you'd accept
our prayers
in Jesus'
name.
Amen.