So picture this. A man 38 years old, paralyzed,
locked in routine, lying beside a pool of superstition
and stale hope. Then a carpenter turned rabbi
walks up, not with a chant, not with oil, not
with ritual, but with a question that slices
to the soul. Do you want to be healed? You think
this is a sweet miracle story? Think again. This
is holy provocation, a seismic disruption of
dead religion and a full body collision between
law and mercy in the middle of festival fireworks.
Jesus walks right past the altar show to the
blood -stained margins, and he's not here to
play nice. If your faith has grown stale, if
your theology has gotten a little too safe, this
text will punch the breath back into your lungs.
It's about first fruits, but not the ones you
wave in baskets. It's about resurrection breaking
out in real time. Get ready. If you're tired
of sermons that say nothing and spirituality
that costs nothing, this is your sign. This is
your stir. Hit like hit share hit subscribe that
most of all open your ears Something deeper than
the water is about to move. I'll see you on the
other side Church last week if you recall we
were in Cana You might remember it a wedding
feast It's about to end in shame stone jars standing
empty the joy running out the family's honor
on the line. And in that quiet, tucked away corner
of celebration and tension, Jesus turned water
into wine. That was the first sign in John's
gospel, these book of signs that proves Jesus
is who Jesus says he was. That was the first
one. Not an announcement, not a spectacle, just
quiet abundance. Glory! Red and rich poured into
clay cups. Now, what happened next in the book
of signs, the part of Gospel of John we're in,
we see Jesus healing an official's son in Capernaum.
A fever was burning through the child's body,
his breath shallow, his mother hovering helpless
over him with a single word by Jesus spoken from
a distance. Jesus healed him. Second sign. Distance,
geography, even time. None of it. Restraints
for the Word. And now, today, we're not in Cana.
We're not in Capernaum. We've actually followed
with him from the Galilee down to Jerusalem.
And it's not just any day in Jerusalem. It's
Pentecost. The city is swelling with pilgrims.
Roads are packed shoulder to shoulder with travelers.
Songs from the Psalms of Ascent echo off stone
walls. Families carry lambs on ropes. Fathers
carry their children on shoulders. Women lift
baskets of bread wrapped in linen. Now, time,
real quick. I just said something that might
sound confusing. Pentecost, that's a Christian
tradition. That's a Christian holiday. It's when
the Holy Spirit descended upon them, right? Right.
But it happened on a festival called Pentecost,
which is a Jewish celebration. It's also called
Shaviyot. Shaviyot, it means the festival of
first fruits. Okay, and the word Pentecost is
the Greek way to say Shavuot. 50 days, Pentecost,
50 days after Passover, they come back to Jerusalem,
the pilgrims come back, they offer first fruits
as a sacrifice of the early returns of the harvest,
right? And the point of that is when we tithe,
we're supposed to give the first 10%, not what's
left at the end. Because that shows and demonstrates
real faith, right? So that's why they did this.
Now, also were they giving their offerings? But
when they came back for Shaviyot, when they came
back for the Pentecost festival, what they were
remembering in their history was when God gave
the law, the Torah, to Moses on Mount Sinai.
So in the cosmology of the Jewish tradition,
what's happening at Pentecost is people are coming
back to Jerusalem to celebrate the giving of
the law, the Torah, to Moses. And the way that
they celebrate it is offering the first fruits
of their harvest. Okay? That's what they're doing
and why they're doing it. And that's where we
are. Okay? Pentecost shall be owed. 50 days after
Passover, the day the law was given on Sinai,
the day the wheat harvest was dedicated to the
Lord, first fruits waved before heaven. The Torah
remembered, the covenant recited, and you, disciple,
follower, new to this, you've never seen anything
like this. You walk beside Jesus through a river
of humanity. Your eyes dart between the spectacle
of the temple and the lamb walking right next
to you. And he doesn't join the celebration.
He doesn't go into the inner courts of the temple.
He turns and goes a different way. And you follow.
So. Open your ears like the gates of the city.
Tune your spirit like an instrument waiting for
the hands of the master. The gospel according
to the apostle John chapter 5 verses 1 through
15. After this there was a feast of the Jews.
Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there in Jerusalem
by the sheep gate is a pool in Aramaic called
Bethsaida. which has five roofed collidates.
In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind,
lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had
been an invalid for 38 years. When Jesus saw
him lying there and knew that he had already
been there a long time, he said to them, 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. While I am going, another
steps down before me. Jesus said to him, get
up, take up your bed and walk. And at once the
man was healed. And he took up his bed and he
walked. Now, this is a hinge to the story, that
day was the Sabbath. So the Jews said to the
man who had been healed, It's the Sabbath and
it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.
But he answered them, the man who healed me,
that man said to me, take up your bed and walk.
They asked him, who's the man who said it to
you? Take up your bed and walk. Now the man who
had been healed did not know who it was for Jesus
had withdrawn and there was a crowd in his place.
Afterward, Jesus found him in the temple and
said to him, See, you are well. Sin no more that
nothing worse may happen to you. Man went away
and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed
him. The word of God, spoken, preserved and still
alive, still healing, still confronting, still
calling us to rise. You walk with the dust of
the Galilee on your ankles. You're not from the
city. You actually come from the northern hills,
where fig trees grow wild and soil clings to
your sandals. Your village is tiny. Your synagogue,
barely large enough to hold the elders. And the
scrolls are kept locked in a wooden box behind
a cloth curtain. You know the rhythms. Sabbath
there, the lighting of the lamps, smelling of
lentils, the voices rising in familiar chants.
This, this is overwhelming. Now, how did you
get to Jerusalem? You were there that day on
the shore of the Galilee when he turned to his
disciples and to the crowd and asked them, will
you stay? You didn't understand it all at the
time, but when you heard Peter's response, to
whom should we go, Lord? You couldn't quite explain
it, but somehow you felt in your heart those
words were spoken by you yourself. And you decided
in that moment your life could never be the same
again. And you just started walking with Jesus.
And now you find yourself in Jerusalem. You don't
understand it, you still don't. There was something
in his voice that held you. Something in his
eyes would not let you walk away from him. So
now here you are, wide -eyed in a city that doesn't
know your name. Jerusalem at Pentecost is a storm
of memory and movement, a wave of holy history
crashing into the present moment. Smoke from
burnt offerings climbs like living pillars in
the air, mixing with the scent of bread, sweat,
animals, and incense. Psalms are chanted in a
dozen different languages. Some you recognize,
some you don't. Priests shout, vendors yell,
pilgrims sing, and it's loud. It is so loud.
And you're caught up in it, and yet somehow not
a part of it. You walk beside Jesus through the
press of people. feeling the heat of bodies,
the weight of holiness, watching him walk with
a deliberate pace. Not towards the center of
the temple, but towards the edge of town. Not
towards the spectacle, but toward something quiet,
toward something wounded, and you follow. Because
Jesus isn't stopping. He's weaving through the
city, not towards the center, towards the edge.
Toward the place where the pilgrims don't go.
Past the shops, past the singers, past the trumpet
calls, toward the sheep gate. The air changes.
It thickens with a scent of iron and blood and
wool and smoke. This is the gate where the lambs,
the sheep are brought in. This is the gate where
death makes life possible. You watch a young
boy try to tug a stubborn lamb through the gate.
The animal resists, it bleats, confused, while
the father gently places his hand on the boy's
shoulder and urges them both forward. And you
realize something. Jesus has chosen to bring
you here first. Not to the spectacle, but to
blood. Not to the priests waving woes, but to
the slaughter path. of the lambs. You walk with
him past the flow of sacrifice, past stones darkened
from years of splattered offerings, and you arrive
at the pool of Bethsaida. Five cauldates, five
porches, each one brimming with brokenness. This
is the house of mercy, but mercy here feels delayed,
like it's been rationed, like it only drips wood
-stirred. Under the arches lie the forgotten,
the blind whose eyes have turned gray, the lame
with legs curled underneath them, the paralyzed
who just stare at the ceiling all day. You can
smell the mixture of sweat and mildew. You hear
the groans and the coughs. Hope flickers in some
eyes, but in many, it's gone. They're waiting.
They're waiting for the ripple in the stillness.
Waiting for the myth. The old tale passed down
like scripture without a scroll that an angel
of the Lord would descend invisible and holy
and stir the waters Some say that it only happened
once long ago during the festival season Others
claim they knew a cousin or a neighbor who had
seen it Maybe it was just a story that was started
to give hope to the hopeless A way to tell the
suffering that they hadn't somehow been forgotten.
Maybe there was a healing once. Maybe something
did move the waters and people turned it into
a liturgy, into legend, into law. And now they
wait for a breeze, a wind, a flicker, for some
holy disturbance in the pool, waiting for someone
stronger not to get there first. waiting for
something that seems like it always happens to
somebody else. Jesus stops. You don't know why
at first, but then you do. A man, older than
most, eyes sunken, body thin, skin dry. He's
not new here. He's not even hoping anymore. He's
just part of the scenery now. 38 years he's been
here. He's part of the stone and the shadow.
And Jesus kneels. Do you want to be healed? The
question slices through the silence. And the
man's answer is not a yes, not no. It's a list,
a defense, a wound on repeat. I have no one.
Every time I try, someone else gets there first.
You've heard that voice before. Maybe even in
yourself. Maybe in someone you love. It's the
voice of despair dressed up as reality. It's
the sound of someone who has stopped believing
that change is really possible. Jesus doesn't
argue. He doesn't say, you have me now. He just
speaks. Get up. Pick up your mat. Walk. That's
it. Just a word. And the word does what it says.
Muscles twitch. Joints stretch. The mat, once
his world, now becomes a rolled up witness in
his hands. And he walks. Gasps ripple through
the porches. Heads turn. For a moment, silence.
Then shouts a rush. No one saw the water move,
but they all saw the man move and that day Was
the Sabbath He's walking the street now still
holding his mat not dragging it not hiding it
holding it like a banner Like a sign that says
something in my life has changed But not everyone
sees that. Temple leaders see him and they don't
see legs moving. They don't see the new life.
They don't see restoration. They see a breach
of protocol, a violation, the letter of the law.
It is the Sabbath. It is not lawful. for you
to carry your bed. The irony echoes. On the very
day they celebrate the giving of the law, they
weaponize it to deny its fulfillment. Shavuot
commemorates the moment God spoke from the mountain.
Thunder and fire and tablets of stone. And now,
standing in the shadow of that memory, they reject
the living word walking in the streets. The law
was meant to point towards God's heart, towards
life, towards justice, towards mercy. But here,
the law has become a lid, a lock, a leash. And
he tells them the truth. The man who healed me
told me to do it. He doesn't know the name yet,
but he knows the authority. There was something
about that voice that made the impossible possible.
Something about that command that didn't just
suggest, it created. Like that very same voice
that once said, let there be light. But Jesus
had already slipped away. He's not there to argue
over definitions. He's here to fulfill what the
definitions could never deliver. The word that
heals doesn't need to debate. It transforms and
it moves on. Later, though, Jesus finds him again
in the temple now. He's standing, not lying.
He's no longer a man of porches. He's a man of
worship. And Jesus looks at him. You're well
now. Don't go back. Don't return to what broke
you. Something worse waits in the shadows of
old sin. And now the man knows and he tells.
It was Jesus, Jesus who healed him. Up in the
temple, the priests wave bread. Down here, Jesus
raises the broken. Up in the temple, the law
is recited. Down here the law is rewritten in
flesh. The Word of God walks through the city
not as thunder, but as healing. Not as stone,
but as spirit. Not as judgment, but as new creation.
This is Pentecost fulfilled. not with stone tablets,
but with transformation, not with ritual, but
with resurrection. The man is the first fruits,
not of wheat, but of restoration, a taste of
what is to come. So here's the big question as
we round third base. Do you want to be healed?
Not do you want for things to feel better? Not
do you want people to stop judging you? Not that
you want to somehow get out of trouble Do you
want to walk again? If so Faith starts when excuses
stop. Faith begins where the story shifts from
the pool to the word. Faith begins when we stop
rehearsing all of the reasons why and just respond
with yes. So here's the truth, church. You don't
need another helper to drag you into the pool.
You don't need a stronger friend to shove others
out of the way. You don't need one more chance.
You just need the word. You need the one who
walks through the very gates of sacrifice, who
sees what the world steps over, who asks what
no one else dares to ask, and who speaks what
no one else can speak. You need the one who turns
mats into testimonies. You need Jesus. So listen
right now in this place. Do you want to be healed?
Then get up, pick up your mat and walk. Amen?
Amen. Listen, if you ever thought the gospel
was just good advice with soft music behind it,
I hope today you've dismantled that. This isn't
hallmark theology. This is a Jesus who steps
over institutional barriers and dead traditions
and stares into the eyes of a man who's given
up and says, move. If he did it for him, he can
do it for you. But don't sit there. Don't wait
for the perfect ripple. Don't excuse your paralysis.
He's not asking for your resume just your response
So if this stirred you moved you or smacked you
upside the spiritual head. Don't keep it to yourself
Like it share it send it to someone else who's
stuck Subscribe so you never miss the word again,
but more than that believe it Let the word move
in you like it moved in Bethsa that Let this
be the Sabbath where we finally stood up and
if you do you won't just walk You'll walk differently
grace and grit until next time friends be blessed