Jordan Byrd
God On Mission Through Jesus (John 5:16-30)
A couple of weeks ago, we were sitting on the front steps of our house, and we heard this tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap sound. We eventually realized that it was a woodpecker bird. We could hear the sound of the tapping on a tree, but we couldn’t figure out the exact location of the bird. We narrowed down that the sound was coming from our neighbor’s tree. And one of us faintly saw a bird on a dead branch of the tree. But, the color of the bird’s feathers made it very difficult to see, as it blended-in well with the color of the tree. The bird was also positioned where it was difficult to see it stand out from the tree. All that could be seen, was the bobbing up and down of the bird’s head, as it hammered a hole into the tree.
Eventually, I got my binoculars to get a better look. And while the binoculars helped to see closer, it’s zoomed-in focus made it difficult to find the bird amidst the branches and leaves of the tree. So, we’d each be directing each other: “Look up the center of the tree.” “Start from the top.” “Look down part way.” “Move back and look.” “Move to the right to get a better look.” Eventually, we’d each locate the bird through the binoculars.
We often want to hear from God, but we’re unsure how to notice God’s presence and activity in our lives. This past week, I sent out a request to see if any of you were able to help provide a vehicle for a different mission partner, who’s also visiting this week. On my end, I had been praying for this need for weeks, and the initial answers to that need, kept falling through. The need was ultimately met, thanks to the generosity of many of you! The need was ultimately met. But, If I’m honest, as much as I’ll say that I believe God was present and actively working to meet this need, it was tempting to believe God was aloof, and only popped-in, at the last minute – to meet the need. So, while I believed God would meet the need, that belief was still tainted by a worldview – that has God popping in-and-out of situations. Rather, than a worldview – that has God actively making way for the need to be met.
On my end, I was obscured from noticing how God was at work. But, the obscurity is on my end, not God’s end. God was present and active the whole time. I just couldn't see it clearly. My worldview was still clouded by other influences.
The harder it is to notice God’s presence and activity, the more we’re tempted to give our attention to: our worries, fears, anxieties, desires, and longings. Or we give our attention to other powers: politics, wealth, and positions of influence. All of which seem to be more clearly present and active and available than God in the moment.
In a world with so many vying options to replace God, we’re constantly blinded to God’s presence and activity in our lives. Wordly gods and powers and evils are constantly obscuring God’s presence and activity.
God’s word doesn’t disagree with this assessment. But instead of being content with this reality, God’s word does give testimony that There is a way to see God when God is difficult to notice. Good news that we encounter in John 5, of God’s word is that Jesus helps us notice God’s presence. Jesus helps us see God’s presence and activity, amidst the many factors that blind us from noticing God.
God’s word in John 5, invites us to see the world through the lens of the life of Jesus. God’s word in John 5, invites us to Focus on Jesus to help you notice God’s presence.
We’ve been following the narrative of Scripture to see that missions work originates with God before creation came to be. How missions originates in God’s nature of love – that ceaselessly spills into the lives of others, wave after wave: first into his Son, Jesus, and then into all of creation to bring it into existence, including you and me, today. But, we have not always been receptive to God’s love and life. Rather, we, like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, have jumped-off board of God’s wave, and instead, try to go against it, to do our own thing, apart from God.
But, even though we’ve gone against the wave of God’s love, God has never stopped spilling his love into our lives. God has never stopped making himself known, to his creation. We’ve seen this with Abraham in Genesis 12, then through Abraham’s descendants, the people of Israel (Deuteronomy 4). And today, we see it through Jesus (John 5), God’s Son, come to earth, and born into the family line of Abraham. Through Jesus, we encounter the clearest experience of God’s presence and activity in the world, as Jesus reveals God to us in a flesh and blood life.
In John 5, we encounter that Jesus helps us notice God’s presence. Jesus helps you notice God’s presence.
When considering the challenge of recognizing God’s presence and activity, the context of John 5 shares dynamics similar to those we face today. John 5:16 introduces us to a situation, that happens in John 5:1-15, where Jesus heals a paralyzed man on the Sabbath day. The paralyzed man, along with other disabled persons, sat around a pool, that was believed to heal ailments, when it was stirred-up by spiritual forces. The paralyzed man was seeking to encounter God, and God’s healing, but was unable to encounter it. That is, until he meets Jesus. So, the background of John 5, has a paralyzed man who needs struggles to notice God’s presence in his life. He’s possibly doubting God’s presence, due to the paralysis’ impact to the flourishing of his life.
Beyond the paralyzed man, the religious leaders who confront Jesus, also struggle to notice God’s presence and activity. At this time, Israel was an occupied nation, under the rule of Rome. Rome was ultimately the authority over Israel at this time. But Rome also allowed the Jewish leaders of the day, to maintain some secondary authority, to help maintain order and stability. This arrangement, places the religious leaders of Jesus’ day in a precarious situation: If they recognize Jesus as God, as the promised Messiah. If they recognize Jesus as Lord, then they’d have to give-up loyalty to Rome’s Lord, Caesar, and jeopardize the authority they’ve been given through Rome. The religious leaders are from the line of Abraham – who’ve sought to follow God’s presence and activity on behalf of Israel. But, now that Israel is occupied, it’s more difficult to see God being present and active. For, Caesar acts like God, and is the one who’s presence and activity is readily noticeable. And the position of authority that they still have within Rome’s system, blinds them to be able to see how else God was present and active in Israel at that time. It blinds them from being able to clearly see God’s presence and activity in and through the life of Jesus.
The very clearest revelation of God was blinded to the religious leaders. It wasn’t that God wasn’t present and active. Rather, God’s presence and activity was obscured by: their worries, fears, insecurities, and desire for power and authority. It will eventually take the death of Jesus, to get the attention of religious leaders and other people within Israel to see that Jesus reveals God’s presence. To see that Jesus helps us notice God’s presence. To see that Jesus helps us notice God’s presence.
I grew up in a rural setting in north, central Ohio. My dad’s pre-cast concrete business was a half-mile down the road from my parent’s house. I constantly saw machinery being operated: farm tractors, combines, trucks with trailers, lawn mowers, skid steer loaders, forklifts, semi trucks, pickup trucks, and my parent’s own vehicles. From a young age, I was familiar with the general operation of many of these machines, just from watching them be operated by my dad or grandpa. I became even more familiar with them, when my dad let me ride along with him. I became even more familiar with them, as the the Alan Jackson country song says, “when daddy let me drive” the machines. By the time it came to get my driver’s license, I already had quite a bit of experience driving a variety of vehicles. I learned how to drive, by doing what I saw my father doing.
Jesus says something similar in John 5:19b, Jesus explains his healing of the paralytic man on the Sabbath, by saying, “he can only do what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” (John 5:19b-20a)
Previous to this statement, Jesus reveals that God, his Father, “is always at his work to this very day….” (John 5:17)
Jesus reveals a worldview where God is never absent of our lives. Where God does not pop in and out of our lives. Rather, God is always working. God is always present and active. Jesus reveals that the perception that God is absent, or pops in-and-out of our human life, is not a God problem, but a human problem. We see the bridge to this, by how Jesus can notice God’s presence and activity, while in human form. Jesus is able to see God through all of the factors that we allow to get in the way of noticing God’s presence and activity in our lives.
When Jesus heals the paralytic, Jesus is doing what his heavenly Father does. Jesus is revealing how God continues to be present and active. God is not absent of the paralytic man. God has been at work – the whole time – to bring the man into contact with his very self, when he encounters Jesus. When the paralytic man encounters Jesus, he encounters God.
Back to the religious leaders, they bristle at Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath, because of the Sabbath’s connection to God’s resting on the seventh day of creation in Genesis 2:1-3 and Israel’s command to rest on the Sabbath, in Exodus 20:8-11, Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (Exodus 20:8-11)
What do we do with this situation? Genesis 2 and Exodus 20 present God as resting, or ceasing from work. Yet, Jesus says that is always at work. How might we make sense of this?
Any farmer of gardener is aware that the work of planting seeds is a one-time task each season. Meaning, planting seeds is not an ongoing process. There is a completion moment to that work. But, farmers and gardeners are also aware that the work of keeping watch over the garden, or field, is always happening. In farming and gardening, we can see the interplay between ceasing or resting from a task, while simultaneously being actively present and at work.
In Genesis 2, we encounter God resting from the task of creating. But we don’t see him rest from being the life-giver to creation. The Sabbath was a gift of rest to humanity, not a burden to carry. Jesus shows the wisdom of God – for us to rest from an activity, so that we can be aware of God as the giver of life. Which is what Jesus displays in healing the paralyzed man on the Sabbath.
When Jesus heals the paralytic man on the Sabbath, and then goes on to claim to be the Son of God, and claiming to do only what his Heavenly Father does – Jesus reveals the nature of God. Jesus reveals the mission of God. Jesus reveals the mission of God, that has been in motion before creation came to be – God’s mission to share his love with the life of his Son. Which, Jesus references, in John 5:20, “For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.” (John 5:20) and later, in John 17:24, …you loved me before the creation of the world. (John 17:24c)
Jesus reveals the mission God has always been on – to share his love – to share his love with his Son, and to spill that love into creation. In John 5, Jesus is declaring that God is still on that mission. God is always at his work. God is always present and active. God has not ceased in being on mission, even when the world went against the wave of God’s love. Jesus reveals God’s presence in flesh and blood. Jesus helps us notice God’s presence. Jesus helps us notice God’s presence.
The leadership of the church often encourages you to help others to encounter Jesus. I want you to know that I, and the other leaders, we all struggle, as well, in helping others to encounter Jesus. There’s a person in my famil’s life right now, that we’re trying to be intentionally invest in – to help guide them to Jesus. And I frequently find myself internally face-palming, about opportunities I missed to say something further. Part of the problem, is that I’m realizing that I’m still very temped to functionally live in a worldview, where, yes, God is active, but, only selectively. I’m constantly needing to remind myself that God isn’t just encountering this person’s life, right now. Rather, God has been present and active in spilling his love and life toward the shore of their life since they were conceived. My participation in God’s mission to bring them into his life of love is one sliver of that process – that God has been part of for years.
On one hand, I need to adjust my perception of God’s presence and activity in the world – to trust that God is always at work, even when it may be obscure to me. I also need to rest in the good news, that all people being guided into abundant life in God’s life through Jesus, is not my mission to start or finish. I do not have to take on that weight of the mission. I simply need to be more and more aware of God’s presence and activity, and how I can jump on board with what God is already doing – to bring others into his abundant life.
For me, Jesus’ words in John 5 are like when we were trying to guide each other to see a woodpecker through binoculars. We are often blinded to seeing God clearly. But, Jesus has made God known, and given us testimony to his life, through the Bible, to help us notice what God’s continual presence and activity looks like. It looks like the abundant life that comes through following Jesus by faith. Jesus affirms this in John 5:24, “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.” (John 5:24)
Jesus help you to notice God’s presence, and respond to it in faith. Jesus helps you notice God’s presence.
Lastly, while God’s word, like in John 5, helps us to notice God’s ongoing presence, we, who are disciples of Jesus, have the privilege of helping others notice God’s presence too. When people are doubtful of God’s presence in their life, you have the opportunity to offer them an alternative to consider: “Do you think it’s possible that God might be at work this way?” “What if God is trying to get your attention this way?” “What might be different about this situation, if God is actually at work, and you just can’t see it on your own?” We don’t have to drive the mission, but we get to be guides, while we ride the wave of God’s mission. Jesus helps you notice God’s presence. You have the opportunity to help others notice God’s presence too.
Ask God to help you see Him more clearly through Jesus in the Bible.
Today, do you struggle to notice God’s presence? If that’s you, I invite you to ask God to help see him clearer, through the life of Jesus in the Bible. I invite you to consider following Jesus, in faith, to see the abundant life in God’s love that he has for you to experience.
Are you noticing God’s presence?
If you’re already a disciple of Jesus, are you noticing God’s presence? Is your perspective that God pops in-and-out of your life? Or is it a perspective that views that God is always at work – always present and active? I invite you to respond to God’s word, by being on the lookout for God, even when it’s hard to notice his presence and activity.
I invite you to be aware, and trust that God never has and never will stop being on mission to make himself known to you and others, through Jesus. Will you allow Jesus to help you see God more clearly? Will you allow Jesus to work in and through your relationships with others, to make himself known more clearly to them? Jesus helps us notice God’s presence. Jesus helps you notice God’s presence.