Jeff Adams

For whatever reason these past few days, I have posted some comments on stupid and dangerous games humans play. I was looking at John 5 this morning when it suddenly hit me that Jesus was not a game player. You probably already knew that, but this was a wonderful confirmation. People who are masterful game players irritate me. If I thought Jesus was a game player, I would have a hard time following him.

Jesus had just healed a man by the pool of Bethesda over by the sheep market in Jerusalem. For 38 years this man had been victimized by his infirmity, and Jesus healed him and set him free. Passing right by this amazing miracle, the Jewish leaders were infuriated because Jesus did this good work on the Sabbath. How dare he!

With my thoughts this week already on game playing, it occurred to me that if Jesus were just another man, he would have been a wonderful game player. Certainly he could have found some loophole in the law, some way to justify that what he did was really legal under the right circumstances or come up with some excuse that was perfectly plausible. None of that.

Instead, Jesus responded with a statement that was brilliantly simple, deeply profound and one that inflamed his enemies all the more. His response is also exceedingly difficult for those of us in contemporary Western culture to understand. Here is his response.

But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. John 5:17

Say what?

In ancient times, and until relatively quite recently, a son usually ended up doing exactly what his father had done, and his father before him. If your father was a cobbler, chances are you ended up a cobbler, too. If your father was a goat herder, you were going to spend your life herding goats as well. A man’s identity was intricately and totally absorbed in his family identity.

So, Jesus was not going to play theological games with these Jewish legalists, even though he no doubt could have. In the temple for his bar mitzvah at age twelve, Jesus astounded the learned doctors of the Law with his understanding. No. All Jesus did was claim to be the son of his father.

In essence Jesus was saying that God does not take the Sabbath off. He never stops being God. He never relinquishes his supernatural power. So, how could Jesus do anything different? He was merely following in the footsteps of his father and doing whatever his father did.

Don’t think for a minute that this was lost on these men who hated Jesus so. They immediately grasped the point.

Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God. John 5:18

They got the main point, but they misunderstood badly all that went with it. They were so convinced of their monotheism, that God is One, they thought Jesus was claiming to be another god. This is the same mistake Muslims make to this very day when they hear the phrase “Son of God” in association with Jesus. To them it sounds blasphemous, suggesting that God had sex with Mary and Jesus was the result. That would be blasphemous if that was what he was saying. It was not. He was claiming something even more. He was claiming perfect union, perfect oneness with the Father. This is the message of biblical Christianity.

This is one of Jesus’ great confessions of equality with the Father. This may be a bit too heavy for some to understand, but I am at least pleased to see that Jesus is not a game player like most of us.