John 5:1–15 (ESV)

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, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.

Now that day was the Sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.

Like the nobleman, this guy has faith—but it’s faith in a pool. Jesus cures him anyway. He isn’t getting rewarded for anything. It’s all grace.

But there’s a problem. “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” There’s a rule against carrying beds on the Sabbath? Imagine the attention to detail it takes to write a bunch of rules like that—not to mention memorizing all of them. Do they have a separate rule for each piece of furniture?

Still, the most amazing thing isn’t their obsession with all these rules; it’s that they totally shift gears when the healed man says, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’” Suddenly, the “criminal” who was carrying his bed on the Sabbath is off the hook.

Now they’re on a manhunt to find that dastardly villain who told him to take up his bed.

We laugh at their antics, which are plenty comical, but do we laugh at our own? We’re just as sinful.

The point of all those rules was to honor God and to obey His commands. These Jews were more serious about their faith than we are. They’d memorized countless rules and were trying their darndest to follow them—plus trying to get everyone else to do the same. God had punished the whole nation of Israel when the people ignored Him; so making sure everyone obeys God’s law did make sense. Still, somehow, this all went off the rails. So, where did they go wrong? How can we avoid making the same mistakes?

They made the mistake of seeing the law as the essence of worship. It’s not. The law provides relevant boundaries for behavior, but worship comes from the heart. The greatest commandment is to love God.

These Monday—Friday DEEPs are written by Mike Slay. To subscribe to all the DEEPs click here:

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV stands for the English Standard Version. © Copyright 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved. NIV stands for The Holy Bible, New International Version®. © Copyright 1973 by International Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved. KJV stands for the King James Version.