Jesus Worked

What Did Jesus Do?

My Father is working until now, and I am working.
John 5.17

Sometimes people move because they want to get away from the hustle and hassle of urban life. Others move to the city because they want to be near “the action.” Often people have to move because of work; my family has moved five times in the last twenty years to take up new callings. Jesus can relate to those who relocate because their work required it, He did.

It wasn’t because He wanted a change of scenery that Jesus left heaven and came to earth, and the Lord certainly didn’t come in order to enjoy a little rest and relaxation—He came to work! Because it was a family “business” (See Luke 2.49) Jesus had to be about the work of the Father. This, however, meant that Jesus inevitably ran afoul of those who felt compelled to enforce the “labor laws” of Israel; and those laws clearly delineated what could and what could not be done on the Sabbath. Carrying sleeping mats was strictly forbidden!

One would have thought that after thirty-eight years the defeated and isolated paralytic who had long lain next to the pool of Bethesda could have waited another day to respond to the command of Jesus to rise and pick up his bed and walk (John 5.8). But no, the man impetuously leapt up and walked, carrying his bed roll. The piety police busted him on the spot; no one was going to go around carrying a bed on the Sabbath on their beat, even if they had been waiting thirty-eight years to do it! But the one they really wanted to get their hands on was the person who had encouraged the paralytic to become a scofflaw (John 5.12).

Funny, isn’t it, how God can perform miracles right under our noses, so to speak, and we can’t see them because our notion of what God should do, and when and how he should do it, is so pinched and pernicious as to make us blind to the work of the kingdom going on right in front of us. How many miracles are missed because of such self-imposed blindness? Make no mistake, neither the Father nor the Son take a holiday when there are sinners to be set free, the ill to be cured, the lame to be made strong, the broken to be made whole.

None of this is to suggest that we should throw out the creation ordinance of a Sabbath. God truly desires that we take time one day each week to rest and renew our fellowship with him, setting aside the normal business of the other six days. But that is setting aside “normal” business. It was hardly an every day occurrence for paralytics to stand up and start walking after thirty-eight years of lying about helpless. That was extraordinary kingdom work; that was Father and Son work. And that is work believers should be open to, and willing to perform 24/7/365. That’s what Jesus did.

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4