“…He not only broke the Sabbath, but He also called God His own Father, making himself equal to God.” John 5:18

13 March 2024   John 5:17-30  

Jesus didn’t give his opponents much choice.

Either they would hate Him as a Sabbath-breaker and Blasphemer, or they could follow Him as the Messiah and the Son of God.

In John’s gospel there are seven “discourses,” basically speeches in which Jesus spells out in detail who He is and what He came to do. In these speeches He doesn’t hold back, but goes way out on a limb, telling his interlocutors in disturbing detail all the reasons why who He is and what He is doing are going to shake their world down to the foundations.

After healing the man at the pool of Bethesda who had been lame, helpless, and hopeless for 38 years, Jesus was challenged and prosecuted because the healing had taken place on the Sabbath, whereupon he explained in a lengthy speech (pretty much all of John 5) that God was not idle on the Sabbath, therefore neither could he be. God created life on the Sabbath (even the Law couldn’t keep babies from being born on the last day of the week), so Jesus would, too. God would judge on the Sabbath (even the Law couldn’t keep people from dying on the Sabbath), so Jesus would judge too.

In short, Jesus would heal on the Sabbath because He was God.

Any questions?

Jesus didn’t give his opponents much choice.

Either they would hate Him as a Sabbath-breaker and Blasphemer, or they could follow Him as the Messiah and the Son of God.

The United States Council of Catholic Bishops at a recent meeting took up the problem of worsening mental health in the U.S., particularly among young people. The Bishops noted how famed psychologist Carl Jung said that at bottom all psychological problems are spiritual problems. People may have mental illnesses that manifest themselves on the surface as anxiety or depression, but if you trace those problems to their source you find the problem of idolatry, false worship, people identifying as their highest good something other than God. Years of clinical study and hundreds of actual patients led Jung to the conclusion that if people identify the wrong thing as the highest good, the result can only be mental suffering and anguish. Much has been made of the increasing number of young people who claim no religious affiliation, the so-called “nones.” The Pew Research Forum has found that this accounts for fully a third of all people aged 18-29 in the U.S. Philosopher Charles Taylor has noted that this is a situation unprecedented in the history of the world. For centuries, millennia, humans have been insistently religious, but in very recent years – no more than the last 20 or so – very large percentages of the young are saying that religion simply doesn’t matter to them. Taylor asks how that could not cause huge disturbances in people’s sense of psychological well-being. It seems so obvious.

There isn’t any time for tippy-toeing around a problem like this. This is not a time for hints, subtlety, or artful circumlocutions. People are growing increasingly more miserable, some are dying, more are dying at their own hands. This is a time for bold claims and determined arguments. This is not a time for wishbones, but backbones.

Jesus says, “I heal on the Sabbath because I am God.”

We need to have this one out. Jesus is either a fraud, or He is God. He did not leave room for any other alternatives. He did not intend to. He still doesn’t. He means to save people from their misery, especially their self-inflicted misery. He still can. He still does.

Any questions?