Reader’s Guide: “The Word for Today” Friday, February 7, 2014 Read John 5:1-18 With chapter 5 we find ourselves back in Jerusalem. This gives us a great opportunity to reflect up the location of Jesus’ ministry in John’s gospel. So far there have been two very brief visits to Galilee by Jesus, both to the city of Cana. Otherwise the rest of the ministry of Jesus has been in the territory of Jerusalem. This is very different from the storyline that Mark has produced which has been followed for the most part by both Matthew and Luke. In Mark’s storyline once Jesus leaves for Galilee following the arrest of John the Baptist Jesus remains there. The location of the ministry of Jesus in Mark’s storyline is confined mostly to the towns around the Sea of Galilee. Mark never mentions Cana and the two stories told about Cana are unique to John. In John’s storyline, Jesus has made a brief visit to Capernaum but nothing is reported to have happened. John and Mark paint very different pictures of the location of the ministry of Jesus. We need to be thinking, “why is that?” At this point we simply need to note the vast difference. We have also noticed that John has shared only one or perhaps two stories with the writers of the synoptic gospels to this point in his story. The story John certainly shares with the synoptic writers is the cleansing of the Temple (a story that John has moved from the end of Jesus’ ministry to one of the earliest events) and perhaps the story of the healing of the royal official’s son which John may share with Matthew and Luke though there is credible doubt that this is the same story. If it is not then John has essentially shared nothing with Mark and the others since the cleansing of the Temple belongs much later in the story. John is weaving a different storyline than Mark and the synoptic writers did. All of this is very interesting. And, of course we can be very thankful because John is providing us with a number of events in the ministry of Jesus that we would not have if he did not write his gospel. Again, we need to pay attention to what John is doing and attempt to figure out why he has constructed his gospel in the way that he has. As we listen to the story in our reading today, it is set in Jerusalem just to the north of the Temple area. Archeologists have uncovered the pool of Bethzatha which adds credibility to the story. John is reporting an event that happened in the ministry of Jesus in Jerusalem. This, of course, leads us to the conclusion that Mark’s scenario of Jesus visiting Jerusalem only once at the very end of his ministry is not “historically accurate” but reflects Mark’s theological plan for his gospel. Mark gains much impact by telling the story in the way that he does. We need to recognize that it is for that reason that he created the storyline in the way that he did. In the end Mark was not simply trying to report what happened to Jesus in the order in which it happened and in the places in which it happened but to proclaim a message – the message of the crucified Messiah. It is also likely that John is not simply reporting what happened when and where, but is also committed to proclaim a message through the ordering of his gospel. The story itself is a mixed story. It is successful in that Jesus does heal the man. But the story is also a failure because the healing does not lead the man or anyone else to believe in Jesus. In fact the story leads the man and the religious leaders to seek to kill Jesus. They seek to kill him for two reasons. First, the act of healing happened on the Sabbath. And second, because Jesus is making himself to be like God – in fact to be God. The fact that Jesus got into trouble because he healed on the Sabbath is something that John shares with the synoptic gospels. It is almost certainly true that Jesus did in fact heal on the Sabbath and that his actions were a cause for his rejection. Mark makes clear that Jesus heals on the Sabbath because “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” and “the son of man is Lord of the Sabbath.” John does not use that language. Instead John lays claim to Jesus’ ability to heal on the Sabbath because Jesus is doing the work of God. At any rate Sabbath breaking was an accusation against Jesus. The second reason why Jesus is now in trouble and why the religious leaders are seeking to kill him is unique to John. Jesus, by his actions and words is claiming to be God. None of the synoptic gospels ever make such an accusation. The closest they come is in the story of the man who is lowered through the roof in Capernaum and healed. That story does have some affinities with this story but the differences are so great that it is likely that they are not the same story. In Mark and the synoptic gospels Jesus does tell the man that his sins are forgiven and the religious leaders do wonder because they know only God can forgive sins. Jesus silences them by asking which is harder, to forgive sins or to heal the man, and the implication is that because Jesus can do the latter which is the harder he can also forgive sins. But, throughout the story there is never the accusation that Jesus thinks he is God. We have already heard a number of times that in John’s view Jesus is indeed God taken on humanity – “the Word became flesh and lived among us!” So the accusation is true. That Jesus is God incarnate is not hidden in John’s gospel. The whole story serves to set the stage for the accusation of Jesus and the questioning of his authority. The important thing in John’s gospel is that people come to believe that Jesus is God the Son and that there is life only in him (John 20:31). This story tells the crux of the matter. The religious leaders do not believe and so they do not have life.