-- "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy" -- the fourth of the ten commandments, the summary of God's Law we all learn in Sunday School. If we devote ourselves to any kind of moral code, it usually includes the ten commandments. Jesus Himself appears to have held up the continuing force of these commandments. But what does it mean to sanctify the Sabbath?

Some Christians act as if the old prohibitions of work which formerly applied to Saturday, the actual Jewish Sabbath, now apply (loosely) to Sunday. It becomes for such Christians a display of one's piety to refrain from work on Sunday and a sign of another's lack of piety if he or she engages in work on Sunday. As one who has worked on Sunday consistently for the past thirteen years, I do hope they're wrong. Certain groups within Christianity hold that Christians should really observe Saturday as their day of rest and worship. Some would sharply criticize us who are gathered here as breakers of God's Law since we are worshiping on Sunday and not "sanctifying" the Sabbath.

But what does it truly mean to observe the Sabbath? How are we, as Christians, to honor God by honoring this commandment? A surprising number of stories in the four Gospels center on this very topic, usually showing Jesus in conflict with other Jewish teachers about what keeping the Sabbath means. In our reading from John's Gospel this morning, Jesus appears to have deliberately provoked a conflict with rival religious authorities precisely on this point when He told a man whom He had healed to carry his sleeping bag on the Sabbath.

Jesus enters Jerusalem at the time of some unnamed religious festival. On His way into the city He passes the pool of Bethesda, a place where many invalids gather hoping for healing. The pool was supplied by a natural spring: when the spring was active, the calm surface pool would be disturbed. Some thought that an angel was sent by God to touch the water and imbue it with healing power, and that the first person to enter the water would be healed of whatever illness he or she suffered. For this reason the pool was called Bethesda, the "house of mercy." So they waited ... and watched ... and hoped.

One man had waited and watched for thirty-eight years, but his infirmity was so severe that he was unable to beat the crowd to the pool when its waters were stirred. At one level, John is likening the man, infirm for thirty-eight years, to the Hebrews who had wandered in the desert with Moses for thirty-eight years, punished for their lack of trust in God. In this story, John first tells us that all who encounter Jesus as healer and savior come to the end of their wandering and enter into God's rest.

The condition of this invalid speaks to the condition of so many of us. Desiring to be whole, he was caught in an unending cycle of trying to find wholeness but failing. He knew his infirmity, but despaired of ever being rid of it. He had no one left to help him get to the healing waters -- his infirmity had even outlived the commitment and patience of his family and friends. When Jesus asks him if he wants to be made well, all he can do is explain why that's not likely ever to happen.