It was illegal...

seekeroftruth

Well-Known Member
John 5:1 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 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. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. [4] 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 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?”

7 “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.”
8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10 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.”
11 But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”
12 So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”
13 The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
14 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.” 15 The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.
This is from the footnotes in my Online Bible.

Some manuscripts include here, wholly or in part, paralyzed—and they waited for the moving of the waters. 4 From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had.
I've been giving this guy a bad rap for being lazy. Who lays around for 38 years??? It says here the man blamed others. He said they would jump in front of him so he couldn't get into the water. Then I thought about my back, and the fact I myself laid around for a year with a bad back. Now I'm not comparing my year with his thirty-eight years. He must have had some serious issue. But I can say, it's not easy being off your feet. Then again, if he was laying around for thirty-eight years, he probably never worked a day.

Look... Jesus told him to pick up his mat and go home. It was the Sabbath. It was illegal to pick up his mat!

He tried to put the blame on Jesus. Jesus told him to pick up his mat. Jesus knew he was going to do that. Jesus knew the Pharisees were going to pitch a real bitch about the healing on the Sabbath. He wasn't done with the Mission yet. It wasn't time for him to be arrested. He did His "walk through the crowd" thing and disappeared. We saw Him do that before, when we read about His family trying to throw Him off a cliff for being insane. Jesus just walked through the crowd then, and He's doing it again here.

Everyone in that crowd might as well have been concentrating on a bug on the ground. None of them saw Jesus because Jesus didn't want to be seen! One of His Superpower was reading and bending minds.

I really feel bad for this guy. He chose the wrong side. In verse 15 this guy went right to the authorities and turned Jesus in. Jesus caused him to break the law.

Once again, let me remind myself, the Temple was not like our churches. Attendance was compulsory. This guy couldn't go worship in the Temple as long as the Pharisees were blaming him for picking up his mat. As long as he "didn't know who cured him" he was in violation of the law. He had to put the blame on Jesus or stay away from the Pharisees. They were after Jesus, not him. They knew this guy didn't just heal himself. When a man has been in the way for thirty-eight years and then suddenly gets up and walks away... someone is going to answer. If Jesus wanted to keep it quiet, He wouldn't have healed the man by the pool. He would have waited. They knew who healed him, they just needed the confession on file.

Jesus knew it was illegal to heal the man on the Sabbath. He could have waited a day and healed the man. The man would have still been paralyzed for only one more day. Jesus didn't have to break the Pharisee's law. He chose to ignore the Pharisee's law.

It was illegal to heal a man on the Sabbath.

This healing was part of the plan. God knew that man had a bad back. It had to be sin laden, because Jesus told the guy to stop sinning [Repent]. Jesus would heal the man, so he could spend the rest of his life repentant and thankful, and at the same time, the Pharisees would have a "case" to help Him get to the Cross.

It was illegal. It got their attention.

It was illegal. It was part of the plan.

It was illegal.

:coffee:
 
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