Why?

We're back looking at the man Jesus healed. The last time we looked at him I asked a question about what sounded like, and actually was, a threat. 'See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.' Today, I'm going to ask a different question. Today's question is one of those 'Why?' questions. I've mentioned before that asking the text 'Why?' questions can be very helpful. This is one of those times. Jesus healed the man. Why did he do that? I am sure that Jesus had lots and lots of reasons, most of which, I am also sure, I will never know. But I do have a few answers to that question. I'll tell you what they are after I read the text, John 5.1-17.

So, why did Jesus heal the man? Here's one possible answer. He was showing off. I'm going to guess that your first reaction to that is not very positive. Nobody likes a show-off. Usually, those kinds of people are just trying to attract attention to themselves because of their fears. So, the notion that our God is a show-off doesn't feel right. But if we tweak it a bit, I think that it actually does work. Consider what God says in Isaiah.

          I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.

And put that together with this from Deuteronomy.

          For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

'Jealous' is a word we all understand. It's a demand, and in this context it's a demand for attention. 'No, you will not give yourself to idols. It's me and only me.' But 'glory' may not be so clear. So, let's translate it. I'm thinking that in this context the word 'fame' works. God is famous for certain things - or, at least, he should be. And he expects to be considered famous by his creatures. So, the verse in Isaiah becomes something like, 'I am the Lord; that is my name; the fame that I deserve, I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.' And, in fact, God is rather jealous when it comes to his fame. He wants that fame directed to him and to no one else. And why is that? God is not a show-off because of fear, like those people you've known. Rather, he shows off, he is jealous for his fame, because of the nature of reality. All of this was not created by some carved idol. Some god or other does not maintain the universe moment by moment. There is no other deity who loves this creation and runs it. And God wants everyone to understand that. Missing this is trying to live according to what is not real, according to a lie. And life just won't work when someone tries to do that. So, every so often, this God, the real one, shows off. Every so often he breaks the rules to remind his creatures who he is.

You remember what God did when the armies of Egypt were chasing down their recently-freed slaves. He opened the Red Sea so that Israel could walk across on dry ground. Then, he sent those same waters crashing down on the pursuing Egyptians. He rescued his people, Israel. And he was showing off.

And what did Israel do in response? They sang a song that recognized the fame of their God.

I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. ​The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him.

Every once in a while, God does something out of the ordinary. It might have to do with parting water to make a new pathway or it might have to do with healing a lame man so that he can walk. One reason he does these sorts of things is to remind everyone - and that includes us - who runs this place and why he bothers. Jesus' miracle is a reality check. It is too easy for fallen creatures like us to get used to thinking that things just happen. The sun rose this morning. Why? Well, it's just the way things work, isn't it? Or for the more sophisticated, it has to do with Newton's laws of motion.

Remembering why water does what it does - or sometimes doesn't do what it normally does - remembering that with one simple command a lame man walks, remembering who runs this place will lead to a different kind of life. Something from the Psalms fits here.

I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds. Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God? You are the God who works wonders.

So, one reason Jesus did miracles - and still does them - is so that people like us might lift our eyes from our earthbound focus and be reminded of the marvel of who our God is. Understanding that he runs this place - sometimes according to Newton's laws and sometimes not - will change our expectations of tomorrow. Reality is God-centered.

That's one answer to our why question. Let's consider another. Jesus healed the man because he was here - and he still is here - to redeem all of creation. It's about redemption. But 'redeem' and 'redemption' are church words. So, let's translate them. Jesus did that miracle because he intends to fix all of this. It's about getting things fixed. When I was growing up, the focus of the Church was about getting to heaven. That's what the personal evangelism of the day was about. You want to be sure that people make it to heaven. So, they need to believe in Jesus. Now, it's certainly true that people need to believe in Jesus. They really do. And I'm all for heaven. I actually think that heaven is going to be tons better than what I imagine it will be. Tons better. But Jesus came for more than getting some people's souls to live in a nice place later. He came to do much more. He came to fix all that was broken when sin showed up. And that 'all that was broken' really does mean 'all that was broken'. And that's important because sin has broken everything. So, for example, sin has broken all your relationships: your relationship with God, with others, with yourself, and even your relationship with the rest of creation. This brokenness also affects your ability to understand reality and who runs this place and why he does that. It affects your body. It affects lots more. When sin showed up everything was broken. So, the Father sent Jesus so that everything could be fixed. Redemption.

Now, we all know that the problem is sin. But there is a problem behind the problem and that problem is all tied up with the question, 'Who runs this place?' We all know the ultimate answer to that question. God runs this place. But not so many understand that Adam and Eve were given the role to 'run this place' under God's authority. They were to 'run this place' in a creaturely way. God is the owner of the property but humanity was to be the manager of the property.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

God gave Adam and Eve dominion. He told them to run this place for him. But they blew it when they listened to the tempter instead. Adam failed. And so, Satan took dominion instead. He replaced the kingdom that Adam was supposed to rule, the kingdom of God. In its place he established his own kingdom, a dictatorship really, over the rest of creation. But Jesus has come and he has come to do what Adam was supposed to do. Jesus came to re-establish the kingdom of God, to run this place for God. And that's why Paul calls Jesus 'the Second Adam'.

So, before you can fix the problem of sin you have to get rid of the problem behind the problem, the cause of sin. Satan is the cause. Jesus came to do battle with Satan and to beat him, to win the war. Healing miracles are some of the evidence that he actually is winning, that he is beating Satan. By his miracles he is undoing Satan's kingdom, his dictatorship, and freeing those who were enslaved to him. So, when Jesus healed a woman and got flack for it because it was a Sabbath, this is what he said.

Then shouldn’t this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be released from this imprisonment on the Sabbath day?

Jesus freed the woman from Satan's clutches. And that is the same thing that he was doing with the lame man. Redemption.

Eternal life is about more than your soul making it to heaven one of these days. It's about Jesus getting rid of Satan and fixing all of this. And this isn't something reserved for the future somewhere. It's something that he is working on even now. I find that very comforting. Each day there is a little more progress in Jesus' work of fixing things; fixing me, fixing you, fixing it all. And that will lead to the day when everything will be fixed. Everything. The healing of the man is part of the fix and a good reminder of what Jesus has come to do. Redemption.

I have one more answer to our 'Why?' question. Jesus healed the man as an act of kindness. He didn't have to. If you remember, the man did not come to Jesus asking for healing. More or less out of the blue Jesus goes up to the man and heals him. You'll miss the more important aspect of this if you limit this kindness to the man's ability to walk. That certainly was important. But fixing his body was not the most important aspect of Jesus' kindness. More important than that, this kindness was about the man's soul.

Did you notice that there is no mention of the man believing in Jesus? Not even with that questionable kind of believing that John wrote about at the end of chapter two. And what did he say when Jesus asked him if he wanted to be healed?

Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up. While I am trying to get into the water, someone else goes down there before me.

What? The man does not understand what Jesus is offering. There is no, 'If you are willing, you can heal me', or anything like that. And when asked by the leaders about who healed him, the man does not even know. He didn't know who Jesus was - and he evidently wasn't interested in finding out once he was healed. The clincher, of course, is what Jesus says later. The threat:

          Look, you have become well. Don’t sin any more, lest anything worse happen to you.

Because of that threat you get the feeling that things were not what they should have been with this man. As a Jew he was a member of the Church of his day, but it seems that he wasn't a very faithful member of the Church of his day. It seems that things weren't what they should have been between him and his God. So, you see, this act of kindness had lots to do with the man's body, but it had lots to do with his soul also. Jesus intended this miracle as a renewed call for the man to turn from his sin and to be faithful to his God. It's an example of something Paul wrote about in Romans.

Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

Jesus, in kindness, healed this man, who had no faith and was involved in some sort of sin, in order to call him to repentance. Jesus' miracle and words of warning - the threat - go together. And what is sad is that there is no evidence that he ever did repent and believe so that he might be faithful before his God. In a sense, we might say that Jesus failed here. He failed to reach his intended goal of redemption, the full redemption of this man. The man experienced God's kindness, but he did not respond in repentance and faith. What will he say on the Last Day when his life will be evaluated? If, as it appears, the man never repented and never worked at faithfulness before his God, he will face the justice of God in hell forever. In this, the man failed. He failed to live well. And that is so very sad.

Now, how does this speak into your lives? I've given you three answers to our 'Why?' question, and those answers can be summarized by three words: reality, redemption, kindness.

The first word is reality. God runs this place. And he runs it in a particular way. And it is to your benefit to recognize that. He is God, and you are not. And that is reality. But as you see reality with more and more clarity, life works better. What decides what happens to you day by day is not the laws of motion or the laws of economics or any other set of laws. Jesus runs this place. He decides what happens to you. Isn't that good? Your Savior and Lord, the one who has proven his love for you, runs this place. He decides what happens. And every once in a while, to remind you that he really does care for you, he breaks his own rules. He does a miracle. Reality.

The second word is redemption. We are broken. All of us. We are broken in different ways. Those different ways all too often trip us up as we try to navigate life here among other broken people in a broken world. And at times it feels like a bit much. But our God has decided to redeem all of this. Why? When I come up with a good answer to that 'Why?' question, I'll let you know. But the Father has sent his Son. Jesus has come to redeem us, to fix it all. The key turning point was achieved when he was here. The Cross. And now, the Spirit continues that work, the work of fixing your life, each and every day - until the Last Day, when everything will be fixed. This can help you to understand your life a little better. It gives you hope as you deal with the brokenness, your own and that of others. The Spirit is at work fixing things, and he will not fail to fix it all. It might take a little time, but the wait is worth it. Our God is the God of redemption and that gives us hope.

Last word is kindness. Your God extends himself to you in kindness. He does you good. And sometimes that includes doing a miracle. He does this because he wants a relationship of love with you. Your God shows his true colors to you in his kindness. He certainly is the majestic ruler over all, but we sometimes fall to the temptation of seeing that in harsh colors, making him seem distant and strict and even harsh. But even in your sin, maybe better, especially in your sin, he extends himself to you in kindness. And he does not ask for you to do the impossible. All he asks is that you acknowledge your sin and entrust yourself to him. Repentance and faith. Consider the gentle kindness of your God.

Today's sermon has been about that 'Why?' question. Why did Jesus heal the man? But it has also been about a different question. Looking at Jesus' reasons for healing the man can also help you to answer this question: Who is your God? When you understand why God does what he does, you get to understand him better. You get to know him. And knowing him is what makes life work.