Our confessional lesson this evening comes from the Canons of Dort, the third and fourth head of doctrine, Articles 12 and 13, to be found on pages 908 and 909 in the back of your hymnals. Regeneration, a supernatural work. And this is the regeneration, the new creation, the raising from the dead, and the making alive so clearly proclaimed in the scriptures, which God works in us without our help, but this certainly does not happen only by outward teaching, by moral persuasion, or by such a way of working that after God has done his work, It remains in man's power whether or not to be reborn or converted. Rather, it is an entirely supernatural work, one that is at the same time most powerful and most pleasing, a marvelous, hidden, and inexpressible work, which is not lesser than or inferior in power to that of creation or of raising the dead, as Scripture, inspired by the author of this work, teaches. As a result, all those in whose hearts God works in this marvelous way are certainly, unfailingly, and effectively reborn and do actually believe. And then the will, now renewed, is not only activated and motivated by God, but in being activated by God, is itself also active. For this reason, man himself, by that grace which he has received, is also rightly said to believe and to repent, and then Article 13, the incomprehensible way of regeneration. In this life, believers cannot fully understand the way this work occurs. Meanwhile, they rest content with knowing and experiencing that by this grace of God, they do believe with a heart and love their Savior. So we turn to the Canons of Dort for our confessional lesson this evening. And since you completed an extensive study of the Canons here only recently, you already know that the Canons of Dort emerged from the great Synod of Dort. which met in the city of Dortrecht, the Netherlands in 1618 and 19. It was a truly international reformed synod convened to settle a controversy ignited by the rise and influence of the theology of Jacob Arminius. Arminius taught a doctrine of the will that fatally compromised the doctrine of God's grace. Grace comes to us only as a gift for which we, as those dead in our sins, cannot prepare in advance. That is to say it does not lie in our power to dispose the will to receive the grace that God gives to us. against Arminius' reformed orthodoxy holds that together with the grace God gives to us comes also the capacity to receive that grace. You have been saved by grace through faith, the Apostle Paul declares in Ephesians 2. And he continues, this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. The important exegetical point to be made here is that the gift comprehends both the grace and the faith that receives and appropriates it. Put in the technical language of academic theology, grace creates the enabling condition for its own reception. The primacy of grace in Reformed orthodoxy affirmed by the Synod of Dort carries theological implications that the canons unfold in the doctrines of election, atonement, sin, and assurance, as you no doubt are already aware. Articles 12 and 13, under the third and fourth main points of doctrine, continue to treat the topic of sin and conversion to which this whole penultimate section of the canons is dedicated. Sin, in which we are all conceived and into which we are all born after the fall of our first parents, renders us unfit for any saving good. Older theology in this connection spoke of salutary acts, that is acts that somehow contribute to our salvation and denied that in our fallen state we are capable of them. The simple truth is that we are neither willing nor able to return to God on our own. We cannot reform our nature, corrupted as it is by sin, nor can we even dispose ourselves to such a reformed, as we mentioned only a moment ago. The will, as we have been saying, is totally impotent. That which is impotent can be said to be lifeless. Indeed, that is the right word. because the state in which we find ourselves is no less than that of death. And this accords with the verdict of scripture. The Babylonian exiles in Ezekiel's vision were the bones of dead men strewn across the desert floor. The prodigal son, when he left his father for the far country, was dead. Indeed, we are dead in our trespasses and in the uncircumcision of our flesh. This, however, thankfully, is only the first half of the testimony of the scriptures. For to the dry bones, the word of the Lord addressed itself through the prophet. I will make breath enter into you and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin. I will put breath in you and you will come to life. And then you will know that I am the Lord. Restored to the embrace of the Father, the prodigal, once dead, is now alive. And though we were dead in our trespasses and sins, God has made us alive in Christ. Important to note in light of all this is that Article 12 compares regeneration to new creation, the raising of the dead. What happens in the sinner, dead in his sins, is no less radical than the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Indeed, the apostle Peter explicitly establishes this link between the two when he writes, in his great mercy, God has given to us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. And Article 12 is careful to explain that this is a supernatural event, a fact that explains why Nicodemus in his conversation with Jesus in John 3, for example, totally misunderstood him. To be born in the sense in which Jesus means is a reality that belongs to the realm of the spirit, but Nicodemus can only see it as a reality that belongs to the realm of nature. as reflected in his incredulous reply to Jesus, how can a man be born? Is he to enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born? What's at issue here, of course, cannot be taught. If it could, would not have the learned teacher of Israel and the august person of Nicodemus have grasped it. Nor can it be urged or even be given a push once God begins to work. It's an entirely supernatural work. no less inferior in power to that of creation or raising the dead. The great Dutch Reformed theologian G.C. Birkhauer, the grandfather, in fact, of a woman who was the wife of my boss when I worked in Geneva, Switzerland, wrote a book about Karl Barth in which he coined the phrase, the omnipotent grace of God. The omnipotent grace of God That work in those hearts in which the Holy Spirit is at work is meant by the article to be a source of comfort to God's people. For it means that we will certainly, unfailingly, and effectively undergo regeneration and renewal and actually come to faith. Next, there's a remarkable statement on the will, it's theologically rich and nuanced, which for that reason is worth paying attention to. The will, which we earlier described as impotent due to sin, is now renewed so that not only is it activated and motivated by God, but in being activated by God, it itself is also active. It's important here to see how the statement maintains the sovereignty of God's grace on the one hand, and genuine human response on the other, without crashing into the shoals of pure passivity on the one side, or semi-Pelagianism, which corrupted the teaching of Arminius on the other. In this perspective, it is the man himself or it is the woman herself who is the proper subject of faith. By that grace which he has received, he or she is rightly said to be the one who believes and repents. Indeed, it is a marvelous, hidden, and inexpressible work theme to which Article 13 returns when it states that in this life believers cannot fully understand the way this work occurs even as they can rest assured that by this grace they do believe with a heart and love their Savior. It occurs to me that these are moving words for a Calvinism that has often been unjustly characterized and therefore often misconceived as cold and doctrinaire. Later in our sermon text for this evening, we will find these theological concepts embodied in the encounter between Jesus and the invalid at the Pool of Bethsaida. which we find in John 5. We will see there that the man is totally incapacitated. He is totally unable to help himself as he himself will protest to Jesus. The man did not know it before the encounter, but he depends not on a word that he can address to himself, but on a word that must come to him from the outside and transform him. if he is to be made whole. He is blessed because the word does come to him from Jesus. Indeed, the word comes to him in Jesus, because Jesus is the word of God incarnate. We will see that Jesus commands him to rise, to take up his mat and walk. And when that word comes to him, it is the man himself who rises, who takes up his mat, who walks in line with what we see in Article 12. That is that the renewed will is truly active. The power belongs entirely to Christ, but the action is genuinely the man's own. Christ restores him to himself, making him whole. That power is resurrection power. We will point out in our sermon later that the language that Jesus uses is redolent of resurrection. It's by the power of the resurrection of Jesus bringing life where there was once death that the invalid will stand. Our scripture for this evening, as I've already mentioned, is found in the gospel according to John, chapter five. And I'll be reading the first nine verses. Hear now the word of God. After this there was a feast of the Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water, and whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was made well of whatever disease he had. Now, there was a certain man there who had an infirmity 38 years. And when Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been in that condition a long time, he said to him, do you want to be made well? The sick man answered him, sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me. And Jesus said to him, rise, take up your bed and walk And immediately, the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. And that day was the Sabbath. Thus far ends the reading of God's holy and inspired word. Several years ago, I decided to go on an adventure. Through friends, I became aware of a mission in India. It's called Love One Another Ministries, Loam India. You can still find it on the internet. It's located in the southeastern state of Odisha, which is the fourth poorest state in all India. After learning about it and after assuring myself of its orthodoxy, I committed to supporting it and I still support it to this day. Not too long after I made this decision, the director of the mission reached out to me. After thanking me for my willingness to support the mission, he invited me to fly out and meet him in India. He offered to give me a guided tour of the mission sites throughout the region. I contemplated the invitation for a few days, and decided that I would take him up on the offer. To say it was an adventure is really no exaggeration. We went into very remote areas where the houses have dirt floors, no heat, and no running water. At one point, my guide even asked me if I had an existing medical condition, and I assured him that I did not. This was comforting to him because he replied to me, good, because if you have a medical emergency, the nearest medical facility is 300 miles away. One morning while traveling deeper and deeper into the woods, I was startled to see a young family standing, gazing intently at the ground. I asked my guide what they were doing there. He said, they're at a religious shrine. I didn't see anything that resembled a religious shrine anywhere, and so I asked him for clarification. He replied, there's a spring of water there, and they believe that divinities reside there, and that's why they are there. In our reading from the Gospel of John this evening, there's a pool near the Sheep Gate at the north wall of Jerusalem. The place is called Bethesda, which means the house of flowing water. There, people congregate under the shelter of five colored colonnades, gazing intently into the water. They view the pool as a healing sanctuary. They believe that occasionally an angel would come down and stir the water of the pool, and the first one to touch the water would be healed. Among them is a man. We don't know his name, nor do we know what his diagnosis is. John tells us merely that he is ill, that he has an infirmity. The word here can also mean weak or helpless. What we do know is that he has been in this condition for 38 years. Now that detail is not without significance. The man has a chronic condition. It's not one that can be treated For example, by a course of antibiotics, after which one can return to normal, almost as good as new. That's not an option for one who suffers from a chronic condition. Symptoms can be managed, but the condition can remain severely limiting. The sufferer may even find it hard to remember a time when he felt normal. So the man has waited there by the pool for 38 years. 38 years is a long time. No doubt hope becomes harder to sustain with each passing year. The ordinary routines of normal life no doubt have faded from his memory. But the remarkable thing is that he still shows up. He belongs to God's people. He has associated with them. He has frequented their holy places. He continues to wait on God. No doubt he's witnessed at least some who have received the healing that they have sought from the pool and indirectly from God. And maybe that's what has kept him coming back, waiting and hoping. Parenthetically seen, that God has blessed another person tends to provoke two reactions. On the one hand, we ask, why did God visit that person with blessing and not me? On the other hand, we may ask, if God helped that person, then why not me? The first reaction tends to generate resentment. The second, hope. Jesus has gone up to Jerusalem for a religious feast. Now, I'm sure as many of you, no doubt, already know, the miracles of Jesus in the Gospel of John occur in the context of the major Jewish religious feasts. Commentators note that the feasts provide theological themes that show Jesus as their true fulfillment. For example, the feeding of the 5,000 is connected to Passover, showing Jesus to be the true bread from heaven. The healing of the blind man occurs during the Feast of Tabernacles, showing Jesus to be the true light. That's why the miracles in John's Gospel are intentionally called signs. We may also note that the Feast means Jerusalem would have been crowded with pilgrims, making the miracles a very public demonstration of Jesus' identity and mission. It also explains why the religious authorities would be present to challenge Jesus about them. In this case, his healing on the Sabbath, which became an issue immediately after the healing, as we would see later in this chapter if we were to read further. John doesn't tell us which of the feasts for which Jesus goes up to Jerusalem But the very mention of it makes it clear that it would have been a time when the themes of God's provision for Israel, God's salvation, were prominent in the minds of the pilgrims. And so having arrived, Jesus visits the pool of Bethesda. He sees the man lying there and knew that he'd been there a long time. that Jesus knew that the man had been in that condition for a long time is also not without significance. One commentator notes that divine compassion takes each person seriously, alert, to his or her particular situation in history. This is a never-ending source of wonder, impossible for us to comprehend. God knows each of his people by name. The psalmist expresses his wonder, Lord, you have searched me and you have known me. You know when I sit and when I rise. first question and answer of the Heidelberg Catechism echoes this one, or God watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head apart from the will of my Father in heaven. Jesus turns to the man and asks him, do you want to be made well? at the risk of belaboring the point. Let's be clear, God's compassion is not random. It's personal. It addresses itself to each one of us individually. Note also the question that Jesus addresses to the man respects the freedom, the dignity, and the desire He has. God's grace is not intrusive. It does not impose itself. It's gentle and inviting. In this regard, consider the first words of Jesus in John's Gospel, which he addressed to Andrew and another of the disciples. What do you seek? This is meant to show Jesus from the beginning, opening up in those he meets, This, in the words of David F. Ford, is space of desire, longing, motivation, and hope. And yet from another point of view, the question strikes us as odd, doesn't it? I mean, isn't it obvious? Why else would the man be lying beside this pool if he didn't want to be made well? The question may hint at the ways in which illness, addiction, grief, depression, or dysfunction can become so much a part of us that we cannot see who we can be without it. Many organize their lives around their illness. It becomes central to their identity, to the story that they tell about themselves. When life presents them with new opportunities, new challenges, they might say, yeah, that sounds exciting, that sounds enticing, but you know, my illness. It becomes convenient for us to invoke our illness whenever we have to give an account for our action or our inaction, whatever the case may be. This is the grammar of the victim, the shift from the active to the passive voice in personal narratives. It fosters cultures of victimhood. To explain our failures, we appeal to forces that lie beyond our control. As I said, the victim seldom uses the active voice when telling his or her story. He's not the agent. What has become of his life is not the outcome of his own choices, rather it's a result of what has happened to him. Now don't get me wrong, no one will deny that awful things happen to people. No one will deny that there are real victims whose lives have been irreparably damaged by what has been done to them. But we have to be careful because in cultures of victimhood, we all have the tendency to frame our personal stories around the master narrative of the victim. And if we continue in this, we may find at the end of our lives that we never did leave the side of the pool. We just laid there the whole time, having avoided taking the plunge into the moving waters. Be that as it may, the man himself certainly seems to interpret Jesus' question differently. To him, it demands an explanation why he did not exert more effort in getting himself into the pool. We might paraphrase him like this. Of course I want to be healed, but I've had no one to help me into the water. At any rate, I've always been too late. There's always been someone quicker than I. To be sure, like the victim, the man appeals to circumstances that lie beyond his control. But can we give him the benefit of the doubt? Perhaps he's not making excuses. Perhaps he's just a helpless man in desperate need of help that he cannot provide for himself. We too have to distinguish between the victimhood mentality on the one hand and genuine need and legitimate dependency on the other. Needing God is a legitimate need. Let's never be too self-sufficient to ignore this need as well as other legitimate needs either in ourselves or in others. Among the self-proclaimed alphas who idolize independence among the YouTube influencers who claim it as a stoic virtue to live by the maxim that no one is coming to save you, it's important to remind ourselves that our need for God is not weakness, it's wisdom in conformity with truth. When I am weak, then I am strong. As the Apostle Paul learned through his thorn in the flesh, no doubt a chronic condition. Jesus has mercy on the man. Rise, take up your bed, and walk. If we follow the church calendar as we do in the church that I serve, we note that we're in the season of Easter. Of course, every Lord's Day is in the season of Easter, I know that. Our gospel readings in this season want to show us the power of the resurrection of Jesus is at work in human lives. Note that the word rise here is the very same word used in connection with Jesus' own resurrection. The same power that would raise Jesus from the dead is already at work in this encounter with the man. And for us here and now, Looking back on this encounter, it's a demonstration of how the power of the resurrection of Jesus reaches into our lives, making them new and the healing of our past. It turns out that it isn't the water that has healing properties, but the word. This reflects the biblical understanding of God's word as life-giving power. In Ezekiel's vision, for example, it was God's spoken word that raised a valley of dry bones to life. As we've already mentioned, prophesy to these bones, son of man, and say to them, hear the word of the Lord. The centurion in the Gospel of Matthew understood this power when he said, Lord, I do not deserve that you should come under my roof, but only say the word and my servant shall be healed. Perhaps most dramatically, later in the gospel of John, Jesus himself in his contest with the power of death at the tomb of his friend Lazarus called out in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out. And at the speaking of Jesus' word in our reading, the invalid was immediately healed. He stands up, he takes up his bed, and walks. This encounter between Jesus and the invalid at the Pool of Bethesda ought to prompt us to raise the question, what does it mean to be healed? Or what does it mean to be in a state of good health? Either as a very broad question to which there will be multiple answers, I cannot hope in the space of a brief sermon to give a comprehensive answer to this question except to say that in the Gospels, it means at the very least to be restored to oneself, to a conviction of one's true dignity as a child of a loving God who sent Jesus to save the lost. Because when healing happens, people who have been formerly bent down stand up straight People who have limped walk with a sure and steady gait. People who have not used their own eyes, instead letting the eyes of others see for them, chart their own path forward. When healing happens, people who have until that moment felt like lepers, disgusting in their own sight and therefore also in the sight of others, dare again to seek out the company of others, confident again in their own beauty and dignity. When healing happens, people who have been harassed and tormented by demons, which have driven them to self-destructive patterns of behavior, come to themselves and once again are in their right minds. Whatever else we can say about healing in the gospel, it's clear that this is integral to it. When Jesus Christ heals us, He restores us to our true selves, and when we are restored to our true selves, we reclaim our own agency. In this connection, again, note that Jesus tells the man to stand up and take up his bed and walk. He doesn't pick it up for him, the man himself does it, as we noted in our confessional lesson. Let's not be misled here. Enemies of the faith charge that faith is a crutch. I'm sure that you have all heard this accusation before. According to them, it is an escape into fantasy for those who refuse to assume responsibility for their lives in the real world. In actual fact, the contrary is the case. Genuine faith means to stand up, take up your bed, and walk. In a culture of victimhood where we are everywhere surrounded by invalids, followers of Jesus Christ ought to distinguish themselves because they stand up. And when they do, they will stand out. Jesus gives us, in this gospel lesson, a vivid sign of the life that he brings, delivering a lame man from 38 years of illness and disappointment. Jesus doesn't heal all of the many invalids whom he finds at the pool. This is a sign, not an instantaneous solution to all health problems or an alternative to caring for the sick in hospitals, much less something to be replicated by some self-proclaimed faith healer. But health is far more than physical. we should see this healing as a sign that it intends to be. Let's note finally that the healing occurs on the Sabbath. Jesus is being intentional here. The Sabbath itself illuminates the meaning of the healing. The Sabbath reflects God's original intention for creation, rest, wholeness, and peace, shalom. And Jewish thought the Sabbath was seen as a foretaste of the world to come, a time when all creation will enjoy an eternal Sabbath, when it will be restored and renewed by God in accord with his good intention for it. Jesus' healing on the Sabbath shows that this future restoration is erupting into the present through his very person. The one who commanded rest on the Sabbath is now working on the Sabbath to give true rest to this man, rest that comes from being made whole. Therefore, Jesus' healing on the Sabbath is not merely a provocative act meant to challenge the religious authorities. It's an act that points to the restoration and renewal of all creation. In some, healing and the Sabbath together constitute a sign, the restoration of creation to the wholeness that God ultimately intends for it. This climactic vision of the restored and renewed creation is recorded in the last two chapters of the Book of Revelation. It's no accident that verses from these chapters are paired with John 5, one through nine in the church's lectionary. This vision is a decisive confirmation of God's stance against illness. There's no place for illness there. Nothing accursed will be found there. No one who inflicts injury on his neighbor will be found there. And the tree of life to which our first parents were barred access will not only make its fruit available to us, and will make its very leaves available for the healing of the nations. Our final destiny is to be healed in the decisive sense of the word. And so let us, in our waiting and in our suffering, be encouraged by this hope. Amen. Let's take a few minutes now to discuss any observations you may have with regard to our confessional lesson or our reading in the Gospel of John. This passage has always made me scratch my head because the note I have in my Bible is that it wasn't in the older versions or the older manuscript. So the theory is that it was a margin in the note that some copier decided that belonged in the text. I don't know. I don't know. I'd like to hear your thoughts on that. You mentioned that it was a superstition, maybe, that this angel would come stir the water. It seems that if it was, wouldn't Jesus have maybe rebuked the guy for putting his hope in a superstition, or am I just reading it wrong? Yeah, it's interesting because when I was studying this passage, I was reading the New Revised Standard Version. which is the Bible, the denomination in which my church uses, and it omits that verse, I guess because it assumes that the older and the most reliable manuscripts don't have it. But I don't have an opinion on it. I mean, I don't think that that's decisive. I mean, it seems to, the context, seems even to demand it. And I don't know. I mean, there's no judgment on the part of Jesus in John's Gospel that they're superstitious for lying there. I think that the passage first shows the compassion of Jesus on the man, and second, it gives him an occasion as many of these episodes of this sort in John do to point to who he is and what he has come to do. As I said, the miracles in the Gospel of John are signs that always refer to Jesus' identity and mission. So yeah, that's as far as I know. Yeah. Well, I really appreciate the cannons here and talking, and you certainly hit on this, but talking about our hearts being changed, what a great miracle that is. And I can't help but think of these faith healers out there, The Benny Hins of the world, can I go that way? And I've spoken to people that are of the charismatic and they talk about healing and so on and not recognizing that the greatest miracle of all is God working in our hearts to repay us. Interesting, I mean I totally I totally agree. In fact, I probably have said this from this pulpit before, but my cousin, Bruce Vandercok, who served as an interim minister for 30 years, shared with me a conversation that he had with one of his parishioners. They were reflecting together on some passage in the Bible, and the person said to him, Pastor Bruce, why don't these kinds of miracles happen today? And he goes, what do you mean? And then he referred to someone's coming to faith in Christ. He said, that's a miracle. That's supernatural. You can't account for that. So there's miracles that are happening today. Anyone else, any further observations? If not, will you please stand to receive The Lord's parting benediction. Oh, may the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.