MPC
19th February 2017.February 19 - John 5 - "Religion Judges Jesus"
MPC
19th February 2017.
Phil Campbell
According to news reports, if you're not careful to do the right thing in Tehran you're likely to be confronted by a member of the Islamic religious police.
Apparently there are 7,000 undercover morality agents, whose job is to crack down on women who are breaking dress rules. Not wearing the hijab; taking off your headscarf when you're driving the car. Trousers too short for men, overcoat too tight, hairstyle too glamorous, men with necklaces. Or walking the dog.
If the religious police spot you driving past with your scarf off, they'll write down your rego number and you'll get a summons in the mail. And if you ignore it, the details go on a database and you won't be able to sell your car. Until you get things sorted with your headscarf.
Religious police. On a morality patrol. To make sure everyone's doing the right thing. And keeping the right religious rules.
Now that's Islam. And the question is, are Christians any different?
I was watching The Project on Thursday night, a story about Christian religious instruction in schools in NSW. They interviewed a mum who's trying to get it banned. Because, she says, her daughter came home from school one day and said the Religious Instruction teacher told another girl her mother was going to hell because she was a single mum.
Which is odd when you think about it. Given that the bible says Mary was a single mum.
But look, after the show there was a huge string of comments online. Like this one from Kerry, who said,
My daughter was told that animals have no soul and that she was going to hell because she had a naming ceremony not a christening. I took her out of that class the next day, she was so upset because she loves her animals.
Religious police. In the name of Christianity.
Let me tell you, I'd get my kids out of a class like that too!
But look, you might have experienced that kind of thing yourself. a Christianity, or a form of it, just full of rituals and rules and right ways of doing things that get rammed down your throat. And all the time used to judge and condemn.
According to Facebook, that's pretty much most people's experience of Christianity in Australia.
Which is kind of interesting when you come to John's gospel; and you can't help noticing that it's exactly that kind of religion - that's judging Jesus.
That it's that kind of religion - that wants to put him to death.
That it's precisely that kind of religion that judges and condemns Jesus at the slightest excuse.
Here in John 5 you can watch it unfold as Jesus with a word performs an incredible healing. Which doesn't have the effect you'd expect. The punchline doesn't come until right at the end of the action, but I'll give you a heads up. When it comes to Jewish religion, one of the religious rules they're fixated on is the Sabbath day.
God told them through Moses to take a day off. And give their slaves a day off. Every Saturday, the seventh day. The Sabbath. The nation of Israel was going to be a place that wasn't driven 24/7 by the need to make a buck. Or a shekel.
Now that, over the years, got surrounded by more and more detailed rules. Things you could do on the Sabbath Day, things you couldn't do. It's a law that started with the Old Testament law of moses. But religious police like the Jewish pharisees and law teachers have made up more and more rules.
Rules that if you're Jewish they're still making today.
We were looking at a new oven at Harvey Norman. We noticed it has a Sabbath setting for the Jewish market - on Saturdays, it'll turn on and off by itself because pressing buttons is defined as working on the Sabbath day.
But it's okay to put your dinner in the oven if the oven just happens to turn itself on.
And look, the religious police were always out there looking for Sabbath breakers.
Hold that thought. Because the way John tells the story, you don't need to know that stuff until you've seen what happens first. And you're meant to be impressed by it.
It's Jesus. Coming to Jerusalem for a festival. Stopping in at the pool by the sheep gate; according to local legend it's a healing pool; crowds of people with all kinds of disabilities ready to fight their way in, because according to the legend every now and then the water bubbles up. And first one in, so they said, would be cured.
There's a guy who's been an invalid 38 years. He's just lying there. Paralysed.
Jesus says to him in verse 6, do you want to get well.
To which the guy says in verse 7,"Sir, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me."
I mean, what a bind. If this pool really is the water of life, somehow you've got to get yourself into it, and you've gotta be first. Push everyone else out of the way.
Both tough. When you're paralysed.
And Jesus just says to him, get up. pick up your mat. and walk.
Now the get up bit's okay. It's the second sentence that's the problem. pick up your mat and walk.
Verse 9. At once. The man is cured. At once. He picks up his mat. And walks. Which is astonishing, after 38 years of not walking.
You'd think, wouldn't you, there's be a celebration.
But here's where we run into problems
Because according to verse 9, it's the Sabbath day. The day of rest. And the morality police are watching. The Jewish leaders say to the guy who's been healed, what do you think you're doing. Carrying your mat like that. Don't you know what day it is?
"It's the Sabbath. The law forbids you to carry your mat."
Verse 11, he says, "the man who made me well said to me, pick up your mat and walk."
I mean, do you see what's happening here? The fact that a guy who's been lying there for 38 years is up on his feet; that someone's got the power to do that with a word. The delight you'd be feeling for a fellow human being at a point like that. The astonishment that it's actually happened. None.
Just the complaint. That he's been healed on the rest day. Which is breaking their rules.
So verse 12 they ask him, who is it? Who is this fellow who told you, not, "who told a paralysed man to get up?" But who is it who told you to pick it up and walk? On the Sabbath!
I mean, what kind of people are these? That they're missing the forest for the trees? That they're straining out the mosquito and swallowing the camel?
Well, the guy's actually got no idea who it was, because Jesus has just healed him and slipped away.
But later on Jesus finds him. At the temple. Makes a cryptic remark. Stop sinning or something worse might happen to you. Worse than lying there paralysed for 38 years. Which is hard to imagine.
And the healed man, get this, goes, Verse 15,
The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.
and reports on Jesus to the religious police.
What on earth is he thinking?
You know, in a couple of weeks time we're going to see a very similar story. Of a blind man. Healed by Jesus on a Sabbath day; up against the same religious police. Who threaten to exclude him from the synagogue. And he backs Jesus all the way.
This guy, I reckon, is making the opposite choice. Healed and all. There's too much to lose. It's that guy. Who told me to carry my mat on the Sabbath day.
And so, verse 16, because Jesus is doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders start to persecute him.
Remember last time I said John maps out his gospel story like a court case? Here it is. The Jewish leaders. Against Jesus.
And before Jesus even launches his own defence in verse 17, they've arrived at their verdict already. Persecute him.
Verse 17, the defence starts. But it's not going to help.
Jesus says, I'm just like my father.
Do you reckon he takes the day off on the Sabbath?
Do you reckon he stops caring and healing and providing? Just because it's the seventh day.
I'm just like him.
My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.
Which irritates them all the more; we've got to kill this guy, verse 18; listen to him now. He's even calling God his father. Making himself equal with God.
That's religion. Judging Jesus. We'll persecute him. And we'll kill him.
And we'll think we're doing God a favour. Because we know all the rules.
Works pretty well for them. Until God himself comes in person. And is bigger than their rules. And is more loving than their rules. And is more concerned for the little guy, for the sick guy, for the crippled guy by the pool. Than he is for whether they press the buttons on the lift on the Sabbath day or not.
The God who in the first place just wanted them to take a day off and have a break; the Sabbath was always meant to be for them, not against them. And all they want to do is play religious police. And get rid of him.
It's interesting, there's a long tradition of putting critics to the test; usually in embarrassing ways. Usually the more pretentious kinds of critics. Like professional wine tasters. Or art critics.
In one blindfold test, it was actually proved that professional wine judges could only pick the difference between red and white wines just over 50% of the time. Only slightly better than random chance.
Then there's art. When the paintings of the newly discovered artist Aelita Andre were featured in a Melbourne exhibition, the critics were raving.
The art critic for The Age said that her works were "credible abstractions, heavily reliant on figure/ground relations."
Turns out Aelita was only 22-months old. She'd smeared the paint around with her hands, and her mum had submitted the painting as a joke.
Now it's one thing when you fool judges by passing off rubbish as something really good.
But it works the other way as well. Sometimes, you can make the wrong call on something that's more valuable than you can imagine.
Like Dick Rowe, from Decca Records. He listened to the Beatles. Then he turned them down. With a polite letter to their manager that said, "Guitar groups are on their way out, Mr Epstein."
In cases like that, the judges become the judged. The tables are turned.
Which is exactly what Jesus goes on to say next.
In that long chain of statements from verses 19 to 30; his critics have judged him and want him sentenced to death because he's claimed to be equal with God.
But the reality is, says Jesus, i'm the one who's going to be judging you! I'm the one... who gives life. Just like the father.
I'm the one. Who's given authority to judge. Given it by the father.
Just take a look at two key sentences. Picking up from verse 22. Then verse 26. We'll put them on the screen.
22 Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honour the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.
26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.
Now if you reckon last week had some big claims from Jesus, this is even bigger.
That he's come from the father and he speaks for him. That he's somehow life giving. As I guess he's just demonstrated with the guy who's been lying by the pool for 38 years. That he's overturning all their rules and regulations and religious policing.
And that he'll be the judge. Not them.
And that honouring him. Means honouring the father. Dishonouring him. Means dishonouring the Father.
Religious police types, they think they're honouring God by being sticklers for the regulations. The Islamic Moral Police. They're the same. They genuinely think they're honouring God by making sure women have got their scarves right.
The Jewish Moral Police. They genuinely think they're honouring God by making sure you don't press your oven buttons on a Saturday.
The so called Christian moral police genuinely think they're honouring God by setting all kinds of rules and calling people out who don't follow them.
And Jesus says... I'll be the judge. Not you. So honour me. And when you do that. You're honouring my Father who sent me.
Now I wonder how that plays out in your own thinking about Jesus?
In your own judgement. Your own assessment. Of his scale and magnitude in the scheme of things. Of his scale and magnitude in your life?
That he's the one. Who's not interested so much in your religious rules and rituals; as whether you honour... him. In what you do. As whether you honour him. In the understanding that it's this historical flesh and blood man Jesus who both shows us the Father. And sits in judgement. Of your every thought and word and deed.
Who sees and knows. Your every dark word. And dark thought. That he's the one you'll one day meet when time is over and done with; he's the one who'll be judging you. And a key question will be, how have you judged him? And what have you done about it?
Judged him as an afterthought maybe? As an interesting religious teacher? As a niggling kind of pesky blowfly that keeps buzzing at the back of your mind but you'll just brush him away and ignore him?
Or the one from God you'll actually shape your life around. And your priorities around. And your attitudes around.
Look it's interesting; the way Jesus sums up the whole judgement thing, it's important you get the full picture.
Because if you read verses 28 and 29 without an eye on what's been going on, you'll miss the point. He says, after death, comes judgement. And he seems to be saying in verse 29 the sort of thing that everyone just automatically thinks. If you've been good. And religious. But you've got to read the rest as well.
He says, those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned.
But you've gotta understand the good and the evil he's just been talking about. In the verse immediately before.
He's not talking about doing a good job of keeping their laws. Not even the Ten Commandments. They're great at that. He's not talking about their religion. They're experts at that.
Here's the good. He's just said it. Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has got eternal life and won't be judged. You've crossed over from death to life.
Here's the wrong way.
Not whether you've been baptised or dedicated. Not if you're a single mum. But the opposite of what he just said.
This is the Pharisees. Jesus says, you've got the scriptures that are all about me. But you refuse to come to me to have life.
And he's qualified to give it.
Look, the chapter closes on that same legal idea we've been tracking with; that we're kind of sitting in on a court case. That's the way John's framing his gospel, the way he's unpacking the story.
That even before Jesus is formally arrested later on, he's on trial already. When the reality is, he's the judge.
From verse 31, we're back at the immediate reality of Jesus on trial.
Talking. About his own testimony.
And listing four other key witnesses on his behalf.
He says it's not just me. Talking myself up. There's another as well.
Here's the list. From verse 33,
There's John. The Baptist. Who we saw last week. Israel's most popular prophet. Saying don't look at me, look at Jesus. You enjoyed his light for a while. Verse 35.
But here's some more testimony. Verse 36.
The works I'm doing. I've just healed a guy who's been crippled 38 years and you didn't even notice it because you're so worked up that I told him to carry his mat on the Sabbath. He wasn't carrying anything on any day before. Just lying there. Can't you see that the very works I'm doing testify that the father has sent me?
Speaking of my father... he testifies about me as well. Verse 37.
Except you don't know him. Because, verse 38, you don't know me.
And finally, the scriptures. That you say you know so well. Except you miss the whole point. The old testament scriptures. All the laws of Moses. All the words of the Prophets.
It's another big claim, isn't it? Jesus says the scriptures... they're all setting the scene, they're all meant to lead you... to me.
Yet you refuse to come to me, says Jesus, and have life.
See, it's quite possible to read the bible all your life. And miss the point. The Old Testament Laws and Rules. The Old Testament story of Israel. The Old Testament Psalms.
If you've been here at MPC even for a few months, you'll have had some taste of the way the Bible's undergirded by a sweeping story that right from the start is heading towards Jesus. And we need to keep making sure we're reading it that way.
And yet the zealous religious rule keeping Pharisees. Won't have a bar of it. Jesus has come from the father. And they reject him point blank. For which, says Jesus, the law of Moses who you set your hopes on. Will condemn you.
Religion. Judges Jesus. And condemns him. Thinking that they're pleasing God. And yet rejecting him. Teachers of old testament law. And yet missing the fulfilment of it.
And Jesus the judge says, in the end, your own scriptures' will condemn you.
I guess it's worth checking where you're standing this morning.
Because it would be just dumb to make the same mistakes as the Pharisees, wouldn't it. And think you can just somehow ignore Jesus and think everything's okay because you keep a few commandments. And yet I know people like that. That kind of religion, it's just a distraction from the main game.
And the sad thing is, they're the ones who keep going round like moral police trying to make everyone else feel bad for not keeping their own version of the rules. And so the tragedy is, the world's seeing that. And thinking it's Christianity. Seeing that and thinking it represents Jesus. If you don't believe me, get online and check out the comments in the discussion I mentioned on Facebook.
And if you're still making your mind up about Jesus yourself, what a huge mistake it would be to mix him up with the rule guys. Please don't confuse him with the Pharisees. Because in the end, he couldn't be more different. He's the one who says to all kinds of broken people, get up, pick up your mat and walk. I'm the one who's come to bring life. No matter what day it is. And so the big question for all of us is, are you going to honour him. Or not?