1. The Lost Meaning(s) of the Seventh Day
A-level amphitheater
January 21, 2012

2. 8. Sabbath and the Revealer – 3

3. Wilting Hope, Few Options
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?"
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." (5:6-7)

4. Narrative Time vs. Actual Time
Narrative time: The time it takes to tell or read the story (vv. 1-9 takes less than a minute to read).
Actual time: The length of time Jesus actually spent with the paralytic up to this point in the story – seconds, minutes, hours?

5. First Sabbath Healing: Crucial Detail
Jesus said to him, "Stand up, take your mat and walk." (5:8)
At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. (5:9)
Which is the important detail?

6. The Mat and the First Sabbath Healing
"Stand up, take your mat and walk." (5:8)
He took up his mat and began to walk (5:9)
"It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat." (5:10)
"The man who made me well said to me, 'Take up your mat and walk.'" (5:11)

7. First Sabbath Healing: Reaction and Reversal
“Now that day was a sabbath.” (5:9c)
“Now that day was the Sabbath." So if we read farther, the text is no longer soaring aloft on wings of hope: by verse 10, it has plummeted to the ground with a decided thud.” - Karen Pidcock-Lester, “John 5:1–9,” Int 59 (2005): 62.

8. Reaction and Reversal Now that day was a sabbath. (5:9c)
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." (5:10)

9. Reversal
“The timing of the event now stands at the center of the reversal.” - Jo-Ann Brant, John (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 104.
“This is the point of the story for John [in ch. 5], as also at 9:14 where Jesus healed the blind man.” - J. H. Bernard, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. John, vol. 1 (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1928 [repr. 1993]), 232.

10. Alternative Course of Action
Heal the man but tell him to leave the mat.
Heal the man later.
Other
And we can't help but wonder, "Why does Jesus heal this man on the Sabbath? Couldn't he have been more politic, more discreet? Why did he not wait just one more day?" - Pidcock-Lester, “John 5:1-9,” 62.

11. The Story So Far It happens by intent and not by accident.
It happens on the Sabbath by intent and not by accident.
The mat is part of the intent – the mat and the Sabbath.

12. “It is astonishing that the Jews are unmoved by the miracle, either at this point or in what follows.” - Ernst Haenchen, John 1: A Commentary on the Gospel of John, trans. Robert W. Funk (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 246.

13. First Sabbath Healing: Accusation and Interrogation
John 5:10-13 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.” But he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take it up and walk’?”
Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there.

14. The Healer Revealed
John 5:14 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.”
John 5:15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

15. First Sabbath Healing: Persecution and Defense
Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath (5:16).
But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.” (5:17)
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. (5:18)

16. Sabbath Healings and the Plot of John
John 7:1 After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He did not wish to go about in Judea because the Jews were looking for an opportunity to kill him.
ἐζήτουν αὐτὸν οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι ἀποκτεῖναι (7:1)
ἐζήτουν αὐτὸν οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι ἀποκτεῖναι (5:18)

17. Sabbath Healings and the Plot of John
Jesus answered them, “I performed one work, and all of you are astonished. Moses gave you circumcision (it is, of course, not from Moses, but from the patriarchs), and you circumcise a man on the sabbath. If a man receives circumcision on the sabbath in order that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because I healed a man’s whole body on the sabbath?” (7:21–23)

18. Sabbath Healings and the Plot of John
Many of them were saying, "He has a demon and is out of his mind. Why listen to him?" Others were saying, "These are not the words of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?" (10:20-21)
Jesus replied, "I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?" The Jews answered, "It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God." (10:32-33)

19. Jesus, the Father, and the Sabbath
But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I also am working.” (5:17)
Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.” (5:19)

20. God and the Sabbath at Creation
Genesis 2:2 And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.
Genesis 2:3 So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

21. God and the Sabbath in Exodus
Exodus 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.
Exodus 31:17 It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed."

22. Sabbath Verbs Sabbath Verbs in John “My Father is working”
“I am working” (5:17)
Sabbath in the Torah
God rested on the seventh day (Gen 2:2)
God rested from all the work (2:3)
The Lord …rested the seventh day (Ex 20:11)
On the seventh day he rested (Ex 31:17

23. Questions
Does the rest of God in the Torah and the work of Jesus in John expose a conflict in the very heart of the Sabbath?
Could the rest of God in the Torah and the work of Jesus in John signify something other than a contradiction?

24. What It Does Not Mean
Since the authorities of this world ask, with reasons of their own, "Why did he do it?" Jesus must explain himself. In doing so, he does not abrogate or contradict Sabbath law. Anyone who looks for justification of a casual observance of the fourth commandment will not find it here. The Sabbath is written into the order of the universe, and Jesus does not challenge or change that order. (Pidcock-Lester, 62).

25. 44 You belong to your father, Satan, and you want to carry out your father's desires. From the start he was a murderer, and he has never stood by the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he is speaking in character; because he is a liar -- indeed, the inventor of the lie! 45 But as for me, because I tell the truth you don't believe me.