“Jesus is Healer”
By Rev. Dr. Jason Byassee
Sunday, January 26, 2025
Reading: John 5:1-18
I like preaching through series: to have all our attention focused on a single topic for a stretch. It allows you to know what’s coming. It allows our musicians to build the service in advance. Visuals allow our tech folks and marketing to plan. Series enable our Sunday School and youth to know what’s happening. I love series. The problem is, we’ve been in a series for nearly a month now and I’ve failed to tell you what it is.
Sorry.
Rabbi Yael Splansky of Holy Blossom Temple asked me once:
“You Christians are big on Christmas.”
“Yep.”
“You like Easter too, right?”
“Sure do.”
“Well, what about all the stuff in the middle?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, Jesus’ life and miracles and teachings and death. We Jews relate to all that more easily than to his virgin birth or resurrection.”
So, I’ve been calling this series “the stuff in the middle.” Sort of like an overstuffed sandwich. Christmas and Easter are the bread, this series is the filling in the middle. From several weeks ago till just before Easter, let’s attend to Jesus’ life and its saving significance. I’m only doing it because my rabbi told me to. That is, my number two rabbi.
I often say that Jesus’ business card says: “first century Jewish exorcist and faith healer.” That’s what he goes around doing. But today’s story is from the Gospel of John. And in John, nothing is ever simple. The story of this paralytic opens up a deeper question. Are you ready for this?
What is the relationship between faith and healing?
One of the most basic things we human beings do is pray. Almost no one refuses prayer when they’re sick. Last week and this morning I anointed the children with oil at 9:15 and asked them to pray for two of our longtime beloveds by name. For every two willing to let us name them publicly, there are, what, 200 more who need prayer for healing? 2000 more? Try 8.2 billion more. We all have a mortal condition called being alive. Do the math: we all pray for healing, so someday, all of us get disappointed when that prayer isn’t answered.
Someone wise said ‘for every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.’ Maybe when prayer for healing “doesn’t work” it’s the fault of the one who’s sick. Blame the victim. If she had more faith or prayed harder, or her family did, it would’ve worked. I’ve had friends subjected to that sort of spiritual abuse. Even Jesus sounds this way in our story:
Jesus said to him, “See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.”
Ouch. Harsh. Some think Christianity is all about being nice. If so, Jesus missed the memo.
There is a relationship between faith and healing, it’s just really hard to pin down. If I ate better and exercised more, perhaps I’d live longer. If we prayed better, we’d also live longer. But there are outliers on actuarial tables. Every tobacco farmer I knew had a story of a relative who smoked daily and lived to be 100. So, there is a relationship between doing right and living long, but it’s loose.
Prayer is good for you. But I’ve prayed before 1000s of surgeries. And sometimes when someone is too grateful, I say ‘you’re welcome, this is what we do. You want me praying but not operating on you. I’m not that kind of doctor.’ Faith/healing... looser still.
I’ve had two back surgeries. Before one, the surgeon prayed with me. His family later joined my church. Before the other, I asked the anesthesiologist how messed up I’d feel. “Well not nearly as messed up as I got last night.” And when it was time to put me under, he asked, “Can I interest you in some drugs?” Gen Z is coming y’all. I’m not telling you which surgery went better.
When I lived in fundamentalist land, I heard a Southern Baptist preacher tell this story. ‘If I got drunk, and went out drunk driving and got in a wreck and lost an arm, God would forgive me... But I’d still be a one-armed preacher.’ In his language, sin has consequences. In ours, don’t blame God for your own misbehaviour. And pray though we might, regenerating an arm is an exceedingly rare miracle (unless you’re a starfish or octopus). That said, there is scientific evidence that people prayed for heal better than those who are not prayed for in the study. That’s not religiously specific, but it is demonstrable: prayer can help you heal. And if you can explain that, then you’re doing better than I can.
But then again, who’s not prayed for? We pray for the whole world here every single week! That’s kind of the church’s job—to pray for the world.
All cures fail eventually. No one gets out of this life alive. Some die younger than we’d like. Some live longer than we’d like. Without modern medicine I’d have been completely disabled from age 18 and my first back injury. And my wife likely would be dead from childbirth and our kids wouldn’t exist. Cemeteries older than, say, the year 1900 are often dotted with graves for infants and mums with the same death dates. Even today, for all our technical wizardry, life and death are not fully in our hands. They’re in God’s. And God’s hands have these holes in them.
Our story has so much in it. They’re in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate. You can visit that place today. Some more skeptical scholars have thought these stories made up. But archaeologists in the early 1900s found the five porches mentioned in John. Here’s a glimpse. There’s a Byzantine-era Basilica beside the pool of Bethesda. There’s a crusader-era chapel on the other side of it. Then this: “There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up.” The description “the Jews” is used hundreds of times in the gospel of John. Sometimes the Jews are the villains. But John makes clear that Jesus is Jewish: “salvation comes from the Jews,” John 4:22. No Jews, no salvation. I prefer to translate the Greek ‘oi Judiaoi as “Jesus’ own people.” Anybody ever had a family feud? The God who blesses enemies does too.
Has anybody’s family ever experienced a faith healing?
Mine hasn’t that I’m aware of. But listen to this:
“An angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had.”
That verse birthed one of the best spirituals we have. The problem is, John 5:4 doesn’t show up in our best ancient manuscripts, so today most translations leave it out. Verse 7 suggests it could be there though. The paralyzed man says to Jesus:
“Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”
So even if verse 4 isn’t original, it’s not contrary to the original. Plus, without those freedom songs, the black church would have died. The verse is sort of strange: a race of the sick, blind, lame, and paralyzed, and the one who gets to the water first gets healed? Well, the winner of that race probably doesn’t need healing so much as the others, right? This poor guy has been ill for 38 years and did you hear the most heart-crushing part?
Sir, I have no [one] to put me into the pool.
I have no one. I have no one. I keep meeting people who have no one. Kids, parents, friends, work, partner, God. Life is not meant to be lived that way. Church: can we be someone for those with no one?
Jesus commands the healed man to take up his bed and walk. This is not like rolling up your yoga mat. Nope. The icon makes it clear: this is a bed laid-in for 38 years. Not intended to be easily transportable! There are psychosomatic cures. The ancient world knew that. Fraudsters and shysters do too. That’s not what this is. Dude went from quadriplegic to furniture mover in an instant.
And it’s the sabbath.
This is where things get interesting. Some in my Tuesday Bible study asked why our Protestant forebears fought so hard for Sabbatarian laws. If you grew up here in Ontario in the 50s or 60s, you remember when businesses closed on Sunday not because they were religious, but because the law mandated it. Before we Protestants gave the world prohibition, we gave the world blue laws (you’re welcome). We’re embarrassed by that now. But I don’t know, should we be? Businesses that close on the sabbath often make more money in six days than rivals do in seven. It’s not hard to show that strict sabbath observance makes you more prosperous: just ask conservative Dutch Reformed folks in southwestern Ontario. But that’s not why you do it. You keep the sabbath because in Pharaoh’s economy of slavery in Egypt, there is no sabbath. We are all worked to death. In God’s economy of grace in the promised land, sabbath shows all creatures have dignity: even farm animals get the day off. In my neighbourhood, there’s a pot shop with a neon sign: now open Sundays! I’m sort of disappointed in the cannabis place for not respecting the sabbath. More seriously, when I see a business bragging about being open seven days a week, 365 days a year, I think, wow, Pharaoh won after all. It’s as if the Exodus never happened.
In Jesus’ time, his fellow rabbis had a saying: if all Israel would keep the sabbath perfectly just twice in a row, the Messiah would come.
So, Jesus breaking the sabbath isn’t just bad form for one person. It hurts all Israel and so the world. Unless, as Jesus claims, he is Lord of the sabbath. The fourth commandment is the one that Jesus flaunts the most. He never worships idols, never commits adultery, never covets, never dishonours parents (can you imagine?). The Sabbath, Jesus often goes out of his way to bend that rule, if not break it. Why?
Maybe because he is all the rest there is or ever will be.
Jesus says: “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.”
Rabbis in that day debate this question: does God still rest every seventh day? God creates the world in six days and rests on the seventh, sure, just like Genesis says. But most rabbis at Jesus’ time also argued that God works on the sabbath. I mean, God doesn’t get tired. Only creatures have bodies and get tired, not the Creator. So, the rabbis figure, and rabbi Jesus agrees, God rests on the first sabbath, day seven of creation, the first shabbat. But God does not rest every sabbath. Why? Well, grass grows on Saturday. Babies get born. Your fingernails and hair get longer on Saturday. Food tastes good on Saturday (hopefully). Cats still chase mice rather than the reverse. If there’s life at all, ever, it means God is working. That’s exactly what Jesus says here: ‘my dad works Saturdays, so I work Saturdays.’
One of the first things we Christians had to figure was this: what exactly is the relationship between Jesus and the God who sends him? Is he like God? Sure, but so are all the rest of us. Is Jesus part of God? Well, no. God has no parts. What’s God is altogether God. You can’t divide up God, add to God, take away from God. So, Jesus can’t be part of God. But this word is more promising: Jesus is a mediator between us and God. A bridge. Someone who makes traffic possible in both directions. That’s good, we use that word “mediator.” And yet, God is not so tragically removed as to need help reaching us. People prayed before Jesus came, and they pray now, without reference to Jesus. Does God refuse to hear or be merciful? So, Jesus as mediator is not quite enough.
In the year 325 AD, a nice round 1700 years ago, we realized this, though the church had taught it since Jesus’ day and honestly long before in Judaism: God’s Son is just as much God as God is. Not less, not more. Sort of like creatures: parents and children are the same species. But also not: with human parents and children, one is older and more powerful. There’s sexual generation required. Muslims still accuse us Christians of thinking this about God. We never did, ever. You’d think we could have a big meeting together and clear that up. Maybe one day. The big meeting we Christians did have at Nicaea in 325 said this: Jesus has to be altogether God, or we are altogether lost. And that comes from passages like this:
“My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.”
So... if Jesus does God things without pause or fail, then that makes him God, without parts or greater or lesser. I don’t just mean that Jesus does God things occasionally. Anybody can heal. Anybody can cast out a demon or two. Not anybody can make a universe or reverse death. Jesus is not just a witty, challenging rabbi, though he is. He is the author of life and more importantly for us: the author of a new creation without death. That’s why we worship him. And if you worship something that’s not God, that makes you an idolator. That would mean every single act of Christian worship since the day of Jesus’ resurrection would be blasphemy and we should stop right now and close up church for all time. Not just this church, but every church.
Napoleon once gathered the French Catholic cardinals to tell them his plans: I intend to destroy the Catholic church! When dictators speak don’t listen. Watch what they do. And don’t be afraid. Tyrants have no lasting power. That’s why they rage. Tyrants can frighten and do real harm. But every tyrant falls. Napoleon included. Pharoah too. The devil not least. Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao, all remembered with ignominy. But I digress. Napoleon tells the cardinals he intends to destroy their beloved Church. And one brave cardinal objects: But sire, not even we have been able to do that! The threat to the church of Jesus Christ is not wokeness. Or Trump. Or conservatives or liberals. It’s this: How come we are not the church Jesus expects? The threat is not out there. It’s not even in here. It’s in each one of our hearts. And only God can change those.
Okay, running out of time, sum this up. Jesus’ business card says, “first century Jewish exorcist and faith healer.” But turn the thing over and it says this: “I only do God things.”
Friends of mine have been accused of miraculously healing people. They prayed and someone got well who was not supposed to. They’re very nervous about such a claim. But you can’t say “no that’s not true.” I mean, it could be true. God has done greater things through worse people. We Christians are commanded to continue Jesus’ healing ministry. That’s why we invented the hospital. We built a medical system in the west that the world has envied and emulated. Today we’re rightly skeptical of claiming too much for modern medicine. Though, few of us would dare go without it.
So, here’s a dare: Let’s pray for healing. Right now. Dayle will lead us in a prayer, and those of us who love someone who needs healing may come up. One of us clergy types will anoint you with oil, make the sign of the cross on your forehead, and you can pray for the one who needs healing (if your bangs cover your forehead, help us out—lift ‘em up!). The oil is a sign of the Holy Spirit who is the truest healer there is. Don’t feel obliged to come up, I know this is strange. But where else us does God meet us except in the strange, the surprising, the resurrection, all creation healed? Amen.