Why the Fuss Over Jesus?

John 5:18  - This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

Jesus can polarize. Talking about Jesus with others can bring one of three reactions: love, hostility, or tempered complacency. The last option comes from those who acknowledge many good things about Jesus – like his commands to love another and help the marginalized and his helping the hurting like the man he healed in John 5 who provoked this conflict. People in the third category like to say Jesus was a good man, but they struggle with what they see as the arrogant claim of Christians that Jesus is the only way to God and eternal life. Although people in the third group try to rewrite history and say Jesus’ exclusiveness was an addition of his later followers, people in the second group get it right. They understand you cannot separate Jesus’ ethical teaching and good works from his claims even if they do not like it.

The Jewish leaders in Jerusalem were in that second group. They understood that Jesus claimed to be God. They understood Jesus considered himself above their law that forbade carrying a sleeping mat on the Sabbath day – an added interpretation of God’s law that missed the point. They understood that even though a man who had been crippled for 38 years was able to go to the temple completely healed for the first time in his life, this Jesus who healed him challenged their entire system, and they were not willing to accept him.

Where do you fall in those three groups? Do you resent this Jesus like the Jewish leaders did or do you just consider him a good man while rejecting what he said about himself? Either of those options has the same bad result. Look what Jesus told them a few verses later: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” (John 5:24) Jesus explains here that he has the unique role of eternal judge and the ability to set free those who believe in him. As good as his teaching and benevolent actions were, the main reason Jesus came is to change our eternity through his death in our place on the cross. That required him being the only begotten Son of God the Father. It is not our arrogance as Christians to claim Jesus’ exclusivity. It is his nature. He is the only one. He is the way to eternal life.

Whichever of the three groups you started today in, I pray you believe that Jesus was more than just a good teacher. You eternal destiny is at stake. Receive him as the Lord that he is.

Why That Guy?

John 5:6-7 -When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.”

There were a lot of sick and lame people by the Pool of Bethesda the day Jesus showed up. We know he had the power to heal them all, but, based on John’s account, it sounds like only one was healed. He was not the prime candidate for a miracle. He had suffered with his physical issue for 38 years. When Jesus asked him if he wanted to get healed, he didn’t even say yes. Instead, he whined about why he could not get healed. In most of Jesus’ healings, the faith of the one asking and receiving – or at least his or her friends – was specifically stated as the reason the healing happened. That man uttered no words hinting any kind of faith in even the remotest sense. Why did that guy get healed and no one else?

Even after the healing took place that guy manifested an attitude. He blamed Jesus for his own ”breaking of the Sabbath” (by the Pharisees’ definition) through carrying the pallet he lived on for those 38 years (5:11). Then, after at first not knowing who Jesus was then being checked up on by Jesus, he turned him in to the authorities (5:15-16). Certainly, there had to be a nicer, more deserving person Jesus could have healed that day by the pool. Why did he pick that guy? Perhaps a related question more relevant to us is, “Why does Jesus do some really good things for some really (seemingly) undeserving people?”

If you took five minutes, I am sure you could put some names on that list: the high school deadbeat who is now a millionaire business owner, the jerk who dumped you but now has a happy family, and that guy who cut you off in traffic this morning and beat the red light you did not. Why is God so unfair?

The answer is that we are upset when God does not meet our own definition of fairness. Look closer at the text and you can see that Jesus knew that man had been suffering a physical distress for 38 years. Can you imagine that? That is almost a lifetime. Perhaps he had been suffering longer than all others. Maybe that’s why he had such a bad attitude.

Also, he probably did not know who Jesus was when he gave that initial hopeless response. Yet, notice what he did do. He obeyed Jesus when the Lord told him to pick up his mat and go home. That took real faith. It was in his action the healing came. What looked like a man lacking faith was not so lacking after all.

It may feel like it is easy to judge the fairness of what happens to others. In some cases earthly benefit is not well earned, but we do not always get to know why God does what he does. Let us not be too quick to judge God’s fairness since he knows and see so much we do not. I know I have been that guy more than once.

On Whose Terms?

John 4:49-50 - The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way.

A lot of us think we know how things should be done. We are convinced that if we push the right buttons - or if the right other person pushes the right buttons – we will get the desired outcome. The government official in the town of Cana was like that. He had a problem. His son was dying. He had heard what Jesus had done for others. Perhaps he had been at the wedding where Jesus changed the water to wine in his town. He believed Jesus had the power to heal his son, but he believed it would happen a certain way.

So, the official came to Jesus and asked him to come down and heal his son before he died. (John 4:47) After Jesus did not say he would come, the man asked again, “Come down before my son dies.” (vs 49) The man believed Jesus could heal his son but only if he was there.

Jesus did not follow the man’s terms. He did not go down. However, Jesus did care, and he did act. He told the man, “Go; you son will live.” At exactly the moment he spoke those words, the official’s son got healthy. (vv 51-53) It did not happen the way the man expected. It did not happen the way he was convinced it must happen, and yet it still happened. It happened on Jesus’ terms.

Often God will do exactly what we in just the way we ask, but quite often he will achieve what it is we really want or actually need in quite unexpected ways. Let’s let him act on his terms and not always expect him to comply with ours.

Steps to Believing

John 4:39-42 - Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”

How do you believe? Believing is the core action in becoming a Christian. In the most quoted verse of the bible, Jesus said, “Whoever believes in him (Jesus) will receive eternal life.” (John 3:16). That means those who do not believe in Jesus do not receive eternal life. There is a lot at stake in this thing called believing. Yet, many people struggle believing. “I can’t believe it.” “It is hard to believe.”

Believing and seeing others believe does not have to be that difficult. We may feel that we have to understand perfectly before we believe in Jesus. We may think we have all our questions answered before we can even take the first step. Thank God that is not the case. We simply need to respond to what we know, however small that amount is, to begin this process of believing. (Matthew 13:31-32)

The people of the town of Sychar in John 4 show us how belief starts and develops. The story begins with a rejected woman who had a conversation with Jesus in which “he told me everything I ever did.” Jesus showed his transcendent knowledge to the woman to prove himself to her. He did not answer every theological question she had. He did not perform every miracle he could have. He simply showed her he knew some of her life struggles and challenges and that he offered a better way – “living water.”

This woman’s response was to run back to town to the people who had rejected her and invite them to come meet Jesus. She was not an eloquent speaker with a PhD in Theology. She had just met Jesus and invited others to do the same, and they came. They believed Jesus first because they saw a change in her. They were willing to drop the important things they were doing to see this man who had changed the town reject’s life.

The townspeople, too, did not get all their questions answered immediately, but over the next two days spent with Jesus, they came to believe in him on their own. Their faith developed step by step: 1) Hearing the woman’s words about Jesus, 2) Coming to Jesus, and 3) Getting to know Jesus. See what they said in verse 42: “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”

Where are you in the process of belief? If you have made it this far in my blog, you are at least at step one. You have heard my story of faith. If you would like to hear more, please reply to me. However, the better step is to come to Jesus. Spend time with him and his people and let him reveal himself to you. As that happens, you will experience what the people of Sychar and over a billion others through history have: you will know indeed this Jesus is the Savior of the world.