Jesus and the Stoners

       Thirty eight years ago that David Bowie released the classic album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.  That same year Hank Aaron became the first player in the history of Major League Baseball to sign a $200,000 contract. 

       Thirty eight years ago the first ever mobile phone call was placed by Martin Cooper, in New York City.  The first scientific hand-held calculator, the HP-35   was introduced for $395. 
       Thirty eight years ago Mark Spitz won seven gold medals at the Munich Olympic Games.  That same year five White House operatives were arrested for burglarizing the offices of the Democratic National Committee. 

        Thirty eight years ago the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 1,000 for the first time. 
        Thirty eight years ago Shaquille O'Neal, Jennifer Garner, The Rock, The Notorious B.I.G., Cameron Diaz, Eminem, and Alyssa Milano were born.  Kristin Giffin was four years old. 
       For thirty eight years the lame man by the Pool of Bethesda waited to be healed. Jesus tells him to stand up, pick up his bed, and walk. The man obeys and is cured.  We looked at the healing two weeks ago.

       For the first time in 38 years the man walks on his own two legs. And, as we continue the story, we see that  the first thing that happen in his new found freedom is that he gets in trouble with the religious leaders for carrying his bedroll on the Sabbath. 

       The Sabbath laws in 1st century Israel were an outgrowth of the 4th commandment about remembering the Sabbath Day and keeping it holy. Sabbath is a Hebrew word which means "cease," so the command is clear.  One day a week we are to cease from work. 

       But in their zeal to protect the law, the Rabbis took this general principle of rest, and regulated it and dissected it so there could be no doubt of when a person was working or not working.  For example, they legislated about whether a man could wear a wooden leg or false teeth on the Sabbath or if that was bearing a burden.  All of these Sabbath rules were recorded in a book called the Mishnah.

       One of the rules in the Mishnah declared that it was allowable for people to carry a bed with a paralyzed man in it on the Sabbath because the bed was necessary for his conveyance but that it was not allowable to carry an empty bed because that was not necessary. In fact, the penalty for illegal empty bed carrying was set down as death by stoning.  

      At the present time in Iran, Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani, a mother of two is waiting to be stoned. Convicted of adultery in 2006, she will be buried up to her chest, deeper than a man would be, and the stones that will be hurled at her will be large enough to cause pain but not so large as to kill her immediately. Ashtiani was forced to confess after being subjected to 99 lashes,

       Stoning was big in 1^st Century Israel.  The former cripple caught in the act of carrying his bed on the Sabbath must have felt like he'd jumped from the frying pan into the fire.  “I was crippled.  Soon I’ll be dead.”  So he shifts the blame.  "The one who cured me told me to do it.”  He has been blaming other people for his situation for the last thirty eight years and isn’t going to stop blaming others now just because he is no longer crippled.

      Strangely enough, the man doesn’t know who healed him until Jesus meets him in the Temple and identifies Himself.  Then the man hot-foots it back to the authorities to tell them that it was Jesus’ fault that he had broken the Sabbath.

       All this is this man's first act of witnessing to what Jesus has done for him. He gets Jesus into trouble. He wants to get the trouble off his own back and he figures that Jesus can take care of Himself.  In any case, the man reports his benefactor to the authorities.  In all of scripture it is difficult to find a more unattractive character or a worse model for witnessing.

       Verse 16 tells us that “the Jews were persecuting Jesus because He was doing these things on the Sabbath."  The verb tense there is interesting. It indicates that this healing on the Sabbath was not an isolated event but Jesus' habitual practice. The other gospels record several other Sabbath healings.  This, Sabbath breaking is strictly against the rules to the religious authorities.   Healing is work and work is forbidden.

       So is driving a car.  In fact, in modern Jerusalem if you drive a car on the Sabbath in the wrong neighborhood, some of the ultra-orthodox Jews will throw stones at your car.  That’s not death by stoning but certainly dent by stoning.  I don’t know why throwing a stone isn’t considered work but it’s not.  It’s worship.  In fact, the most accurate throwers are treated like ultra-orthodox rock stars.

       It would seem on the surface that this whole confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees was unnecessary. This cripple had waited for thirty eight years for the Bethesda bubbles and could certainly have waited one more day. But Jesus wants to makes a clear statement about the purposes of the Sabbath which He then follows with a clear statement about His identity and power. 

       First, the Sabbath.

       In Mark 2, Jesus declares that people weren’t made for the Sabbath but that the Sabbath was made for people.  The Sabbath was designed as a blessing, not a burden.  The Sabbath was given to insure that there will be a pattern between work and relaxation. It was to insure that even the harshest or greediest boss has to give his employees one day out of seven for enjoyment.  The Sabbath rest was established as a provision of God's labor laws like many of the other Old Testament laws which intervene on behalf of the weak and the powerless,

       The Sabbath isn’t about rules.  The Sabbath is about rhythm.  But the Pharisees, using the work of the Rabbis, had made the Sabbath into a burden instead of the blessing God intended. Jesus heals on the Sabbath to show that that the Sabbath is meant to be a day of mercy and refreshment.

       Jesus heals to make a statement about the Sabbath.  But beyond this, Jesus uses this latest confrontation with the religious leaders to make a series of powerful statements about Himself -- statement which lead the religious leaders to seek to kill Him.

       First Jesus says in verse 17, "My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working."

       That doesn't sound like a very shocking statement to us but the Jewish leaders recognize what Jesus is saying. 

       Jesus is saying is that God doesn't cease to be God on the Sabbath. He continues to sustain the universe.  In the same way if Jesus, God made flesh, heals people the first six days of the week, then He has to heal on the seventh as well.  Working full time is what God does.

       A Jewish writer named Philo of Alexandria who also lived at this time wrote: "For God never ceases creating, but as it is the property of fire to burn and snow to be cold, so it is the property of God to create."  Philo also explains that the Sabbath rest of God does not mean that God abstains from the higher works of mercy, compassion, and judgment." 

      This is the status Jesus claims for His own acts of healing -- that they are a necessary part of His union with the Father. If the Father does not stop being merciful, neither can the Son.

       This statement points Jesus down the long road to the crucifixion. The religious leaders recognize the impact of what Jesus is saying although they don’t recognize His right to say it.  They seek to kill Jesus because, to their minds, He is violating the Sabbath. They want to kill Jesus because He calls God His own Father -- something no pious Jew would never dream of doing. They want to kill Jesus because, they say, He is “making Himself equal with God.”

       When the religious leaders accuse Jesus of making Himself equal with God they are accusing Jesus of separating Himself from God and trying to stand on His own authority.

       But Jesus says that it’s the exact opposite.  His equality with the Father is not an equality of separateness or rebellion but a equality of perfect obedience.  He says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in the same way."

       Then He tells the Pharisees that in. their zeal to protect God's reputation and honor, they are actually rejecting the God they think they are serving -- for the Father loves the Son, works through Him, gives Him the power of life and judgment for the express purpose of insuring that the Son is honored as much as the Father.  In verse 23 Jesus tells us, "The person who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him."  That’s the verse I want to focus on.

       In a national religious survey we took part in about eight years ago, one of the questions was whether or not we agreed with the statement that “All the different religions are equally good ways of helping a person find ultimate truth.” Thirty five percent of the people who completed the survey here at Moorpark Presbyterian said that they either agreed with the statement or were neutral or unsure. 

        If those numbers still hold true, that means that I am about to make roughly one third of you think that I am narrow-minded and unenlightened. But I’ll say it anyway.  All the different religions are not equally good ways to help a person find ultimate truth.   "The person who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him." Jesus is the only way to God. 

       I certainly respect freedom of religion. But just as freedom of speech doesn’t mean that all opinions hold water, freedom of religion doesn’t mean that all religions are true. It’s just that here in America you are free to be wrong.   But America isn’t heaven.  And, according to Jesus, some people are not just wrong but are, at least potentially, dead wrong. 

        Jesus declared in John 14, “No one comes to the Father except through me.”  Now, here in this passage Jesus says that the person who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father.  And He says that that God has willed that each and every person’s person's relationship to God depends entirely on how he or she responds to Jesus. That’s true whether a person is a Jew, a Muslim, a Christian, a Hindu or a nothing much in particular.  No matter what the label, it all comes down to Jesus. 

        Now this doesn’t mean that no Jew or Muslim or whatever can be saved. Jesus is the exclusive way to God but Jesus also has the right to be as inclusive as He wants to be.  Jesus can save anyone He chooses to.  He certainly knows and loves all those Jews, Muslims and Hindus much more than I do.  But if they are saved it will be because they are saved by Jesus -- not by Islam or Judaism or Hinduism.       

       Some people have a real problem with that.  We have even had people come before our Presbytery to be pastors who are glad to proclaim Jesus as their Lord but who are not willing to affirm Jesus as the Lord – the Lord even of people who don’t believe in him.  I even heard one pastor say, “Jesus is great for us but other people have their own roads that are equally valid.” 

        But that’s not what the Bible says. Not at all.  The Bible says it all comes down to Jesus.  As Dr. William Barclay comments on this verse, “A man’s fate, in judgment depends on his reaction to Jesus. If he finds in Jesus, the one person to be loved and followed he is on the way to life.  If he sees in Jesus an enemy, he has condemned himself.  Jesus is the touchstone by: which all men are tested.  Reaction to Him is the test by which all men are divided."

       This whole passage is about the authority of Jesus.  He has authority over the Sabbath.  He has authority over the Word of God and what it means.  Now He tells us that He has authority over the eternal destiny of every person who ever has been or ever will be alive.  He is the center.  It all comes down to Him.

       In "The Last Battle” the final book in the Chronicles of Narnia C.S. Lewis paints a dramatic picture of this fact of division around Jesus Christ in his scene of the final judgment of Narnia. .  You don’t have to all that has happened in the book to this point to understand what Lewis is saying.  Just recognize that the Lion Aslan is the portrayal of Jesus Christ – the point of division to death or to life.

        Here’s the portrait Lewis gives of the division.  He writes: ”The light from behind them (and a little to their right) was so strong that it lit up even the slopes of the Northern Moors. Something was moving there.  Enormous animals were crawling and sliding down into Narnia: great dragons and giant lizards and featherless birds with wings like bat's wings. They disappeared into the woods and for a few minutes there was silence. Then there came at first from very far off -- sounds of wailing and then, from every direction a rustling and a pattering and a sound of wings.  It came nearer and nearer.  Soon one could distinguish the scamper of little feet from the padding of big paws, and the clack-clack of light little hoofs from the thunder of great ones.  And then one could see thousands of pairs of eyes gleaming, And at last, out of the shadow of the trees racing up the hill for dear life, by thousands and by millions, came all kinds of creatures – Talking Beasts, Dwarfs, Satyrs, Fauns, Giants, Calormenes, men from Archenland, Monopods and strange unearthly things from the remote islands or the unknown Western lands. And all these ran up to the doorway where Asian stood.

       The creatures came rushing on, their eyes brighter as they drew nearer and nearer to the standing Stars.  But as they came right up to Aslan one or other of two things happened to each of them.  They all looked straight in his face; I don't think they had any choice about that.  And when some looked, the expression of their faces changed terribly—it was fear and hatred. 

       And all the creatures who looked at Aslan in this way swerved to their right, his left, and disappeared into his huge black shadow which streamed away to the left of the doorway.  But the others looked at the face of Aslan and loved him, though some of them were very frightened at the same time.  And all these came in the door on Aslan's right.

       Lewis is painting a picture of what Jesus says in this passage. – that He is the point of division for everyone in the world.   In verse 24 Jesus says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my words, and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life, and does not come into judgment but has already passed from death to life."  Those who believe in Jesus have already passed from death to life.  Those who refuse to believe are already condemned unless they come to believe.

       Now you might be offended by that.  But the worst response you could make is to refuse to come to Jesus yourself because of a hypothetical concern about people on the other side of the world you may not even personally know. Because Jesus knows them, loves ahem and has sure done more to save them than you or I ever will.  Jesus also knows you, loves you and died on the cross to save you.  And Jesus is here today talking to you, reaching out to you, and offering new life to you. 

      Suppose you were awakened in the middle of the night to discover that the hotel you are staying in on fire.  You feel the door and it is really hot.  There is no exit there.  You are on the fourth floor and nowhere close to a fire escape. 

      Now if a fireman appeared on a ladder at your window how would you respond?  Would you say, “Wait, I have a few questions I need answered first.   I want to know how the fire got started.   I want to know what you are doing to help the people on the other side of the hotel.”

      That’s not likely.  The fireman would say, “Don’t worry about that.  You grab hold.  You get saved.  If you really care so much about the people on the other side of the hotel we’ll be glad to train you in rescue.  But right now you need to get yourself safe.  This choice is yours.”

       That the choice you face.  If you are not a Christian, what will you do with Jesus, here today?  Now?  Jesus would say that that’s the only question.  If you’d like help answering that question that’s why He brought me here today.  So let’s talk.