John 5:1-18 (NRSV)
1 After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2 Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. 3 In these lay many invalids-blind, lame, and paralyzed. 5 One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be made well?" 7 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 making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me." 8 Jesus said to him, "Stand up, take your mat and walk." 9 At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a Sabbath. 10 So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, "It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat." 11 But he answered them, "The man who made me well said to me, 'Take up your mat and walk.' " 12 They asked him, "Who is the man who said to you, 'Take it up and walk'?" 13 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. 14 Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, "See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you." 15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. 16 Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath. 17 But Jesus answered them, "My Father is still working, and I also am working." 18 For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.
Jesus heals on the Sabbath. Many use this story as a proof text that Jesus brought new ways for us to follow. We don't have to live under the old rules any longer. Then they take the next jump in logic to state that Jesus is open to any changes we come up with today.
What they fail to recognize is this statement in verse 14, "Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you." This statement is similar to the one Jesus gives to the woman caught in adultery. He tells her to go sin no more.
Go sin no more. That is quite a challenge for anyone. I quess it would be possible to sin no more if we redefine what is sin. If my sin of choice is say, lieing, and we come to the enlightened postition that lieing in no longer a sin, then it would be easy for me to sin no more.
1 comment:
How true. The first thing that revolutionaries do is change the vocabulary so you can change practice. Don't like sin, there is no sin. Don't like duty, there is no duty. Don't like authority...you get the idea.
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