After this there was a Jewish festival and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ·Now by the Sheep Gate, there is a pool—the one called Bethzatha in Hebrew—having five porticos. ·In these lay a great number of infirm people: blind, lame, or paralyzed. ·Now a certain man was there who had been infirm for thirty-eight years. ·Seeing this one lying there and knowing that his condition had lasted a long time, Jesus said to him, ‘Do you want to become well?’ ·‘Sir,’ the feeble man responded, ‘I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is agitated; so someone else steps down into it before me while I am still on the way.’ ·Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up; pick up your sleeping-mat and walk!’ The man then became well immediately; and he picked up his sleeping-mat and walked about. However, in that same day it was Sabbath. ·So the Judeans said to the man who had been healed, ‘It is Sabbath. It is not allowed for you to carry a sleeping-mat!’ ·‘The one who made me whole,’ he answered them, ‘that man told me, “Pick up your sleeping-mat and walk!”.’ ·‘Who is this man,’ they then asked him ‘who said to you, “Pick up your sleeping-mat and walk”?’ ·But the one cured had not recognized who it was since, due to the crowd in that place, Jesus had disappeared. ·Afterwards, Jesus found him in the temple courts and said, ‘Pay attention! You are well again. Do not sin any more or something worse might happen to you.’ ·The man went away and informed the Judeans that Jesus was the one who made him whole. (John 5:1-15 GH[i])

The Judeans went after Jesus because of this—in that he did these things on the Sabbath. ·His answer…was, ‘Up till now my Father is working, so I am working.’ ·Because of this, the Judeans sought rather to kill him—in that he not only broke the Sabbath but also said God was his Father, making himself God's equal. ·So Jesus answered, ‘…The Son cannot do anything from himself; he can do only what he observes the Father doing. For whatever things he does the Son also does in like manner, ·since the Father is deeply fond [Gr. philei] of the Son and shows him everything he himself is doing. And he will show him greater things than these, works that YOU will marvel at… ·…And the things I hear alongside him…are the things I speak.’ (Jn.5:16-20; 8:26b)

‘The one who believes in me will also do the works I am doing; and he will do greater things than these because I am going to the Father… ·After this I do not call YOU servants, because a servant is not aware of what his master is doing. But I have called YOU friends [Gr. philous], because everything I have heard alongside my Father I have made known to YOU. ·In that day… whatever desire YOU might ask of the Father, in my name, he will give YOU … ·Not…that I will ask the Father for YOU; ·for the Father himself is deeply fond [philei] of YOU because YOU have been deeply fond [Gr. pe-philee-kate] of me.’ (Jn.14:12; 15:15; 16:23,26b-27)

In the above text, Jesus describes this work of healing in terms of a close partnership with his Father. The responsibility of the Son is to join in with what his Father is doing. This is an ‘adult’ level family relationship; for John uses the Greek word for ‘love’ derived from the word for ‘friend’ [philos]—to describe how the Father is ‘deeply fond’ [philei] of the Son by showing him what he is doing. Two years later, Jesus tells his disciples that after his ascension they too will do the same kind of works in partnership with the Father. They too will be treated like ‘friends’ who also can know what their Father is doing (Med.#22 & #57); for the Father himself is deeply fond [philei] of them. And they too will be able to learn things directly from the Father (Med.#51). So it is important that we learn how to do all this by observing how Jesus worked with his Father.

The first thing we learn from Jesus concerns his willingness to interrupt his plan for the day in order to do what he sees his Father doing. He has come to Jerusalem to celebrate one of the three major Jewish festivals and is on his way to the Temple. But, led by the Spirit, he takes a detour into a building full of sick people. The second thing we learn is that he limited his actions to healing one particular man. While his general ‘anointing’ was to heal people and set the oppressed free (Lk.4:18), his primary focus was on his partnership with the Father, not on his ministry calling. Perhaps the Father leads him to only heal one man because of the Sabbath law that he had given. For on all five recorded occasions when the Father led Jesus to heal on the Sabbath, only one person was cured each time.[ii] Why this particular man? Probably out of the Father's deep compassion for this man who had suffered for such a long time, thirty-eight years; for this is what he revealed to Jesus about this man. And although the Father also shows Jesus that this man's own sin had something to do with his illness, this only comes up later. The Father is more focused on us than he is on our sin!

Third, Jesus was careful to follow the Father's direction to seek wholeness for this individual, not just fix his deformity or confront his sin. Jesus doesn't just say to the man, ‘Be healed!’ He first asks him if he wants to be healed. Perhaps you think this a silly question, but is it really? Some sick people have become used to the attention they receive by playing the role of victim. Listen to this man's words: ‘I have no one’ to help me; always ‘someone else steps down into the pool before me’. To become whole, he must stop playing the victim and choose to get well. This means acting on Jesus' word to him: ‘Get up…and walk’. And there is something that he needs to stop doing, Jesus says, or he might end up with a worse infirmity in the future.

What this man's sin was we are not told. But there are sins that can result in a long ‘imprisonment’: a failure to show mercy to another after having received mercy ourselves (Med.#19); or a failure to forgive others, which can keep us from experiencing our Father's forgiveness if we ourselves are unforgiving to others (Med.#13). Was there someone in this man's life whom he has been refusing to forgive or show mercy to for almost four decades? If so, the Father has now taken the first step to show mercy to him, but he expects this man to show mercy as well. In challenging the man to choose—healing over being a victim, faith over fear, and imitation of his Father over self-righteousness—Jesus and the Father are treating this man with dignity. He is not just a poor victim in need of charity, or a ‘sinner’ in need of help from a person with supernatural healing power. He is a ‘lost’ son who is expected to take his responsibility in the Father's healing work.

All Jesus' works, and words, have their origin in the Father's heart (Med.#64; Med.#10). Yet the people in this story with a ‘religious’ orientation cannot see this. The lame man's first response to Jesus is to think only about a ritual protocol; and later he is so intimidated by some judgmental religious people that he chooses to betray Jesus to them. Likewise, these Judeans cannot see the Father's merciful work in this man's life, only that he and Jesus are breaking the Sabbath rules. They have forgotten that showing mercy, doing justice and walking humbly with God are more important to him than exact law observance and sacrifices (Mic.6:6-8; Hos.6:6; Mat.12:7-14; 23:23). Religious rules and rituals can become a subtle substitute for a relationship with our Father; and people who turn God's Word into a religious system tend to lose sight of its deeper emphasis on a personal and collective relationship with their Creator as their Father—both in the Torah (Med.#A), and in the Prophets (Med.#C). When religious rules and rituals no longer help us to grow in a relationship with our Father, in order to become like him (Lk.6:46; Lev.20:7), we become fearful servants of a religious system—like the lame man. Or, like the Judeans, we seek safety from a distant God in religious performance and in defense of the system. And these men were even willing to commit murder to protect their religious system.

So when Jesus explains his action by saying ‘Up till now my Father is working; so I am working’, these religion-focused men can only hear blasphemy—of a human being making an exclusive claim to equality with God. Many theologians today make the same mistake. They can only see in Jesus' explanation a claim to be God. Now while John believes that Jesus is God (Med #58)—and so do I—the main point Jesus is making on this occasion concerns: the responsibility of a true son (or daughter) to do what he (or she) sees his (or her) Father doing, even if this offends religious sensibilities.

If you are a disciple of Jesus, do you know: that your Father is deeply fond of you as an adult daughter or son? And that he wants to show you what he is doing in your life and in the lives of those around you? Are you working with him like Jesus did? Or are you so focused on the rituals, rules and ideas of a religious system (and on the criticism you might receive from ‘religious’ people) that you cannot see what your Father is doing? Perhaps you or someone close to you has been suffering for a long time. Do you know: that your Father knows all about it, and desires to show mercy? Keep on asking him for healing in Jesus' name (Med.#14), but don't limit your requests to your own needs and desires.

Father, I ask you in Jesus' name to show me what you are doing, (Jn.5:20; 16:26-27)

And I want to be merciful today, just like you are merciful. (Lk.6:36)

[i] The Scripture passage is taken from J.K. Mellis, The Good News of the Messiah by the Four Witnesses, pp.53-54, 142, 238, 241 and 244.

[ii] The second recorded Sabbath healing took place shortly afterwards in Galilee (Mat.12:9-14; Mk.3:1-6; Lk.6:6-11); the third over a year later in Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles (Jn.7:2,14; 9:1-7); the fourth and fifth during Jesus' Perean ministry (Lk.13:10-17; 14:1-6).