John 5:16-18
At the end of John 5:15 we are told the man Jesus had healed at the pool realised it was Jesus who healed him and went and told the Jews. I find it sad that this man who had received such an amazing healing appeared to be so unmoved by what Jesus had done. When Jesus challenged him to change his ways, his reaction was to tell the Jews he had been healed by Jesus. There is no report of him changing his life.
As a result of this man’s report, we are told in verse 16 that because Jesus was carrying out these miracles on the Sabbath, they persecuted Him. How they persecuted Him is not mentioned. Jesus’ response was that His Father never stops working, so nor does He. This just led the Jews to increase their determination to kill Him. First He was breaking the Sabbath, but now He was claiming God was His own Father. In their eyes He was making Himself equal to God.
It is horrifying to think that the Jews persecuted Jesus. When they should have been sitting at His feet in worship, they persecuted Him. They were unmoved by his Holy presence. It is easy to condemn them, but how much do we do this in our lives? How often do we not take time to sit at Jesus’ feet? How often do we deny his instructions for our lives? How often do we knowingly do the wrong thing and justify it? How often do we refuse to acknowledge Jesus out of fear of being ridiculed or thought of as a weirdo? How often do we, or others we know, fall back on our own interests and our legalism to deny the work of the Holy Spirit. Are the churches, with their rules and rigid structures, any better than those who persecuted Jesus because they felt he had breached their rules? If the Son of God breaches a rule, then the rule is not of God. How often are people sent to share God’s message stopped by those in churches because they do not have the right qualifications or aren’t in the right place in the church hierarchy?
Before you condemn the people of Jesus’ time, consider your own behaviour and repent.

The last aspect of these verses I wanted to draw attention to is that of legalism and denying God because of legalistic interpretations of the law. There are numerous examples in the gospels of Jesus’ disputes with the teachers of the law over their legalistic interpretation of God. Many of those examples are in John and will be discussed in upcoming blogs so I will not mention them today.
Looking through the New Testament, there are many examples of such legalism with some early Christians. Some examples are Galatians 5:1-15 and Acts 15 which are to do with disputes between Paul and what he termed the “circumcision group”. In. Galatians 2:11-21 Paul takes Peter to task about his fear of the circumcision group. Galatians 3 is a good read on whether to live by faith or by legalism. Legalism seems to be part of our fallen human condition. It existed back in Jesus’ time and it exists today in the hierarchy of the Christian Church. This legalism has led to much that is wrong about church based Christianity. There are the obvious and very damaging disputes between denominations where warring factions are serving satan and bringing God into disrepute. There is also the more subtle legalism of individual churches. This is the legalism that excludes the single mother because she doesn’t fit the norm of a ‘couple’. The legalism that judges a visitor by the presence of her cleavage, that ignores a dishevelled man, that is too busy making sure the worship runs like well oiled, highly stage managed, clockwork to talk to someone in need. There is the legalism that judges a person’s way of life, that expects them to pray the sinners prayer, that denies their experiences with God and the knowledge they have. There is the legalism that won’t listen to anything a person has to say about God unless they have some sort of qualification in theology and the reputation to match it. I once heard a very legalistic new minister give a sermon on how we cannot speak unless we have authority and that has to be earned and proven through qualifications. He said it was understandable that Jesus was not taken seriously, He had no proof of His authority. Scary isn’t it, when Ministers ordained in the last five years preach such legalistic rubbish.
In my own life I have seen many instances of legalism, especially when, as a ‘woman’ I passed on God’s messages. In some churches, even in this century, women are expected to shut up and never say anything. I am not very good at shutting up and sitting in the background. If God has a message for me to give, I pray for and take the opportunities He gives me to pass on His message. Sadly, that frequently leads to being clobbered. I can accept that, after all it is minor compared to what was done to Jesus and I will gladly suffer in His name. But it does sadden me that the main witness of Jesus in the community is the church and it is an extremely poor witness in the majority of cases. I am so fed up with hearing stories from people about how the church turned them away. Needless to say, these people are usually so hurt by the experience that it is extremely difficult bringing them back to God. There is a series running on the Australian public broadcaster at the moment that is set in a law office. The ‘Christian’ character in that series is a nasty, vindictive, cold, sneaky woman. It angers me that this is how a Christian is portrayed, but that is how the Church presents Christianity in the world. People don’t see the many Christians who care for the homeless, those in poverty, the sick and those in prison. They see the people they interact with every day. Sadly, they interact with nasty people who are Christians and legalistic Churches. So if you are a Christian who loves Jesus and wishes to worship at His feet whenever possible and feels His unconditional, non-judgemental love for the people out there, please go out and love them and drown out the circumcision group

All day I have been struggling to write the next blog, looking at John 5:1-15 from the perspective of legalism. This evening I found myself in tears at Jesus feet. Tears of Joy at how insignificant I am and how much I want to be invisible to the people who hear Jesus’ message. I want people to see Jesus and I want Him glorified. It was so beautiful to feel that way and I realised this was what I needed to write my blog about.
I have been reading a lot lately about the Christian walk being all about sitting at Jesus feet worshipping Him. I have been reading a wonderful book “The Church in the Wilderness” by Chip Brogden and have been so excited at finally finding someone who expressed the same dissatisfaction with church services that I have felt for the past thirty years. I have read messages from Infinite Supply and Anne Graham Lotz which emphasise the emptiness of much of so called Christian worship. I am coming to realise that what I hate about much worship is that I don’t feel Jesus is there. This is what my children have noticed. Having been raised to have an expectation of one on one time with Jesus, they went to church expecting to have that and finding it was all about ceremonies, and orders of service, and perfectly organised musical pieces and exhortations for more money for the kitchen or for a new church building (what is wrong with the old one) and so called Christian kids who mocked them for only owning only two pairs of shoes and very little about God. This is not to say I have never seen true worship in the church. One of the ministers in the last church I attended could reduce herself, and many of the congregation with her, to tears because of her great love for Jesus. Sadly, those occasions were few and far between. My problem is that if you don’t include Jesus in your worship, then what are you doing? It is all about Jesus. The service is unimportant.
Many years ago I went to the evening service of a church and the entire congregation ended up face down on the floor for the entire service praising God. The Youth Minister running the service wisely announced that we would not be following the order of service because “The Holy Spirit has other ideas and they are more important than anything I have prepared”. It is wonderful when those things happen. But they don’t happen often enough.
I am horrified by ministers who stand in the pulpit and say that you don’t have to have a personal encounter with Jesus. After all they didn’t (and it shows). Then they say it is OK if you just come to a realisation about God and Jesus. What does that mean? Either you have a personal encounter with Jesus or you don’t. In the late 1970s Billy Graham made his last visit to Australia. One of my friends announced he was going to the rally in Sydney because he wanted to believe and he felt if Billy Graham couldn’t help him then no-one could. He went off to the crusade and had his personal encounter with Jesus and never looked back. Another friend at that time had never had that encounter and thought liking the idea of God and Jesus was enough. As he grew older he fell away from God and found himself at 40 in a very bad place. He felt he had nowhere to go and killed himself. God revealed to me as I prayed about his wife and children, that He had visited this man several times and revealed Himself and he had always remained closed to seeing God. When he needed God, he couldn’t find him.

Don’t believe it when people tell you it is OK to not have a personal encounter with Jesus. You need that in order to die to self. All the sinners prayers in the world cannot save you. If you seek that personal encounter with Jesus you will have it. Our Father in Heaven loves us. He wants nothing more than to be in relationship with us. If you seek, you will receive (Matthew 6:33, 7:7-8).

So ask now, and don’t stop asking until God answers your prayer.

John 5:1-15 Part 2
The aspect of these verses I want to highlight today is that of healing and wanting to be well. The mind is a powerful thing and has great control over our physical bodies. Much research has been conducted into the effects of stress on our bodies. It has been shown that our minds can make us sick and can heal us. There have been many books written about the benefits of remaining unhealed (such as “Love your disease it’s keeping you healthy” by John Harrison. This is not to say we chose to remain sick, but the mind can hamper or assist the body in healing.
In these verses, Jesus came to a man lying by the pool Bethesda. He had been there for 38 years and had not been healed. You could argue that he chose to stay unhealed because he had a lucrative business begging. You could argue that he had become despondent and no longer believed he would be healed so he had stopped trying. You could also argue that he had just not managed to get into the pool to get healed yet.
His encounter with Jesus was certainly curious. Jesus singled him out. The fact that he was known as having been there 38 years suggests he had been there a very long time, perhaps longer than anyone else. He seemed to have been well known. Did Jesus choose him because he had been there so long? It is hard to say. But Jesus did choose him and, perhaps because of those questions about the man’s motivation for healing, asked the man if he wanted to be healed.
In other healings Jesus did not seek the person out. In Luke 5_18-26, Jesus healed the paralytic man. This man’s friends had such faith in Jesus, that they lowered their friend down through the roof. Jesus was so impressed by their faith that He forgave the man’s sins. When criticised He asked “Which is easier to say ‘Your sins are forgiven’ or ‘arise and walk’?” (v.23). Jesus then announced He would heal the man to show He had the power and authority to forgive sins. Interestingly that man stood up and left, recognising, praising and thanking God.
Contrast this with the leprous man of Luke 5:12-13. He sought Jesus out and said “If you are willing you are able to cure me and make me clean.”. Which Jesus did. These two men are an interesting contrast to the man in John 5. He did not know who Jesus was (v11) and he is not recorded as having acknowledged, praised or thanked God for his healing. Even when he discovered it was Jesus who had healed him, all he seemed to do with this information was to pass it on to the teachers of the law. All that is recorded of his healing is the act of the healing and then Jesus seeking him out again and warning him to stop sinning or worse would happen (v.14) which suggests this man had received physical healing but had not responded spiritually to the healing. This suggests and important response to Jesus’ healing is to respond spiritually.
It is often considered Jesus’ miracles were performed solely to provide evidence of Jesus’ authority. Certainly the healing of the paralytic provides evidence for that, and there are other healings where Jesus attributes the healing as bringing glory to God (such as John 9:1-12). But not all healings were for those reasons. Those who believe the miracles were solely for that purpose will also tell you that healing miracles no longer occur. Of course that is also not true. I suspect the miracles had many purposes, one of which was to solely bring glory to God and affirm Jesus’ authority. In John 5, I believe this miracle happened to draw attention to the need for a spiritual response to God’s healing and the fact that our spiritual ill-health is more damaging and more in need of healing than our physical bodies.