Wednesday, April 24 - John 5

THEY MISSED THE POINT

   In today's lesson, Jesus heals a lame man and enables him to take up his mat.  The Pharisees, wrapped up in their rituals which they think justify them before God, condemn the man for carrying his mat on the Sabbath day.

   Later on (v. 16) we learn that the Jewish leaders and other Jews persecuted Jesus because He was daring to show mercy and compassion on a day when their dogmatic laws and traditions required no activity.

  To this, Jesus replies, "My Father is always at His work to this very day, and I, too, am working."

   After this, the text says, "the Jews tried all the harder to kill him;  not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calliing God His own Father, making Himself equal with God."

   Imagine the riduculousless of valuing Sabbath rules over showing mercy and compassion -- making the rituals of faith more important than faith itself.  These religous leaders, in their attempts to turn faith into something you could quantify, managed to miss the point of God's law entirely.

   And don't we often do the same thing?   We get the mistaken notion that following God's laws actually contributes to our salvation -- that doing the things we deem godly somehow make us godly.

   Consequently, we judge our own (and others') righteousness based on our success or failure at keeping the laws we deem to be commanded by God.

   But Jesus declares emphatically:  "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned."  In short, our holiness is based not on what we do, but solely on our relationship with Him who makes us right with God by His sacrificial death on the cross.

   The law of God is intended primarily to make us realize how much we need this relationship -- not to be interpreted as our ladder to climb to make ourselves right with God.  The religious leaders, instead of pointing out anothers failures, should have been on their knees seeking forgiveness for their own failures -- and finding, in Christ, the relationship between God and man.

   That's what we need, too.  Not a whole new set of rules and laws and traditions.  Faith in Him.