John 5:9b-13 - It is the Sabbath

5:9b,10

All this had taken place on the Sabbath. Now the Jewish Law, including one of the ten commandments, said they were not to work on the Sabbath (Ex20:8-11), and this applied to everyone, including servants and foreigners, and the animals. Now the sensible interpretation was that this applied to their normal employment, and was meant to apply to everyone so that no one could be exploited. So it was of benefit to you as an individual, ensuring a proper balance between fulfilling our human responsibilities, and trusting in God. It was meant to bless, and this interpretation seems to be in line with Jesus’ approach to the Sabbath. However, the teachers of the Law had got the wrong end of the stick and all the focus was on “doing no work”. So they produced incredibly detailed rules on what constituted “work” and so ended up making the Sabbath a burden. We still suffer from this today. There are one or two churches that still have very strict sabbath rules. However, the main way we suffer from this today is that we do not appreciate the value of the Sabbath. When we read bits in the Old Testament that attach great importance to the Sabbath our minds shut down thinking “this doesn’t apply now”. This is a great pity. So instead of rejoicing in the man being healed of his thirty eight year old affliction, the Jewish leaders focused on the fact that the man was carrying his mat, and so was “doing work”. They were blinded to the truth, we always need to be on our guard so that we do not fall into a similar trap.

5:11-13

The healed man replies that the man who healed him and told him to take up his mat. The Jewish leaders then wanted to know who this man was. They apparently were not aware at this point that Jesus was around healing people. The healed man himself did not know who had healed him, he just knew he had been healed. He apparently had not had much in the way of faith in Jesus, not knowing who it was, he had simply obeyed what Jesus had said. Jesus had then withdrawn, not wanting to make a spectacle of the situation.