Wulf's Webden

I realise I haven’t posted the talk I gave at St Theo’s last Sunday. It was on the passage John 5:1-9, which seemed to me to have rather questionable starting and ending points if we wanted to go beyond an elementary ‘Sunday School’ level of understanding.

Do any of you remember Johnny Nash’s 1972 hit There Are More Questions Than Answers? Is the statement of that title true? Yes and no. Yes, because sometimes asking a question leads to further questions and there are plenty of mysteries we can’t figure out. No, because sometimes we can figure things out and, from one question, I’ve already managed to give you two answers!

Figuring things out is the process of asking good questions. Put a child with a suitably knowledgeable adult and they can get a long way just asking, “But why? But why? But why?”. Or, in a more abstract way, you could see woodwork as a process of the woodworker asking questions of the wood: How can I divide this piece? How can I combine these pieces? If you know a woodworker, you might have in mind their workshop full of tools but each one is just a particular way of raising these two basic questions, or perhaps three, if you want to count, shaping, or cutting off a small amount of wood and discarding it, as a separate category.

Perhaps a better example of where we use questions is when we are trying to understand stories. For example, I would be surprised if I am the only person in the room who enjoys “Who Dun It” detective stories. Take a programme like Death in Paradise. At the start of an episode, you will be introduced to a group of people with a web of relationships and tensions between them. The first question to ask is, “who is going to be the first victim?” It often seems obvious but you are likely to have a definite answer within the first five minutes. Then, alongside the familiar police team, you can spend most of the rest of the show figuring out who is the killer. In my experience, you have normally met everyone who is in the frame before the murder happens. A good question to ask is “who seems the least likely suspect”, although you might need a bit more leg work from the team and the spotlight being shone on everyone else before you get a chance to confirm your guess.

Studying the Bible is also helped by having a few good questions up your sleeve. For example, a very basic one is “what is this passage about?” Cast your mind back to John 5:1-9 or, better yet, if you have some kind of Bible with you, cast your eyes back over it but don’t shout out your answer. What do you think it is about? You might consider that the answer is obvious. The passage is clearly about Jesus healing an invalid at the pool in Jerusalem known as Bethesda. In fact, most passages will helpfully insert a title to that effect, along the lines of “The Healing at the Pool”. However, remember what I mentioned last time I spoke here – those headings aren’t part of the scriptures but are just there to make it easier for us to find our way around.

As I studied the passage, I’ve become convinced that it is more than just a story of a particular healing, or even an account that illustrates the wider topic of divine healings. This morning, I am going to make an argument that we need to look a little harder and little further than theses nine verses but let’s start with them.

Last year I was introduced to ‘Discovery Bible Studies, ‘. This idea, as I’ve been taught it, involves a small set of questions that can be used to dig into a Bible passage. You could even use them with people who aren’t Christians, which is part of the “Discovery” opportunity in the title. Even for Christians, they can help open up understanding. The four Discovery Bible questions are: what do I like about this passage; what do I dislike about it; what does it tell us about God, and; what does it tell us about people. As a critique of the method, it can be subjective and shallow, but these questions aren’t a bad starting point for engaging with a portion of God’s Word. What is more, it is an interactive process… so let’s do a quick Discovery Bible study on this passage together.

I will read the passage again then, for each question, take one answer and tell you if I put anything different. In a smaller group though, you’d want to give each person a chance to respond to each question. [Read John 1:1-9]

Like: It is about Jesus, showing him demonstrating mercy.

Dislike: the man had to wait 38 years and nobody had helped him (NHS waiting times?).

God: steps in to bring hope, where there was no hope – a light in the darkness.

People: can look for hope in the wrong places and don’t always understand when hope comes.

On the last point, I’m getting ahead of myself because I’m looking on a few verses beyond the passage. I can’t resist though because there are another couple of questions near the top of my ‘tool kit’: what came before and what comes after. Keep the questions from the Discovery Bible study in mind – what do you like and dislike and what you learn about God and people – but we’re going to explore further.

To my mind, the word ‘after ‘shows that what was before must have been important. Without looking, does anyone know what came before? It was what was described as the second sign Jesus performed – the healing of the son of a royal official. The details would be another Bible study in themselves, but for our purposes, it is enough to observe that Jesus is working on a strategy. What happened at the pool wasn’t just because Jesus happened to be passing by but was part of a bigger plan. By the way, can anyone remember what John described as the first sign Jesus did? [water into wine – qv.2:11]

If the word, ‘after ‘showed us that we needed it to look before, is there any clue that we need to look at what came after? I think that odd ending, “now it was the Sabbath on that day” is a pretty big sign that, yes, we do need to look forward as well.

I will summarise for you. The religious authorities got very upset when they saw the man that was healed working “by carrying his sleeping mat on the Sabbath”. They completely miss that he has been healed! That would be about as mad as if someone had come up to me before the service and said, “oh, have you not brought your guitar to play today then?” The former invalid is just following what the person who healed him told him to do, but it turns out he had no idea it was Jesus!

Later, Jesus comes back and reveals himself to the man, and the man passes that information on to the religious authorities. It stirred up those religious leaders against Jesus, and I haven’t figured out if this was a sinful move on the part of the man? Honestly, that is a question for which I can’t find a clear answer. However, it does seem to be a part of the bigger plan Jesus is following, revealing the kingdom of God and setting up the path that would lead to his own death… and then to his resurrection. I don’t think it is necessary for us to sit in judgement on the healed man and I don’t believe Jesus was either surprised or regretful about the outcome.

If you ask for my conclusion on what John 5:1–9 is about, I will say it is so much more than “just” a miraculous healing, wonderful as that was in its own right. It is about the Son of God, doing the will of God and establishing the kingdom of God. It is the power of God making plain the love of God. In a word, it is all about Jesus.

So perhaps Johnny Nash was right after all? After all those questions, I have arrived one answer. If you are doing the maths, that would mean that there are more questions than answers! More importantly, because of who that answer is, and what I have learned here and through many years of following him, I am confident to trust him, even when periods of waiting seem to go on and on or trouble unexpectedly raises its arm. Praise the name of Jesus, who knows how to wait and when to act, who is not afraid of trouble, and who shows us the love and mercy of God.