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"We Have an Advocate"

#92-24
Presented on The Lutheran Hour on February 9, 2025
By Rev. Dr. Michael Zeigler, Lutheran Hour Speaker
Copyright 2025 Lutheran Hour Ministries


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Text: John 5:6

In that moment, all I could see was the bonehead who totaled my car. But he wasn't just a bonehead, he was my brother. And it wasn't even my car. It belonged to our parents. I've told a longer version of this story on this program.* You could go back and find it in our archives. Send me a message or give us a call, and I'll tell you exactly where you can find it, if you like.

So, I've told this story before, and I'll explain in a moment why I'm bringing it up again, but first, let me try to help you understand why this car meant so much to me. But if you're roughly my age or older, you already know why. Because, before smartphones and Uber and ubiquitous internet access, a car meant freedom and status and access to the world. A key to your very own car—or your parents' car that they let you to use—that was the key to unlock your teenage dreams. At least, that's how I saw things when I was sixteen and shared a car with my older brother, Matt.

So, you can imagine how I felt when I heard that Matt, my own flesh and blood, was driving the car, that Matt had hit a patch of gravel on the road, that Matt had spun out of control and flew off the road into a ditch, and he had rolled it, and been trapped inside it, hanging upside down in a ditch, covered in broken glass—Matt!

You can imagine how shocked I was, how alarmed, how concerned I was ... about the car.

My parents, oddly, seemed to be more concerned about my brother. He was fine, by the way, just a little shaken. No broken bones. Barely a scratch. But he was driving like a maniac! The wreck was totally his fault! But they kept hugging him and checking in on him and telling him how much they loved him, and I'm thinking—he's fine! But what about the car?

Sometime after the wreck, I remember watching my brother and my dad leave the house to go on a long walk. I remember wishing that I could hear what they were saying, wanting to be in on the conversation, wanting to make sure somebody was letting him have it, lecturing him about how much of a bonehead he was.

But I suspect my dad said something fatherly like, "We're so grateful you're alive. So thankful that something worse didn't happen, because you really scared us, son, and you've got to be more careful, because we don't want to lose you, because we love you ..." Blah, blah, blah. Because, when I looked at my brother, I could only see him one-dimensionally, within the confines of my own schemes. He was the bonehead who lost the keys to my teenage fantasy.

My parents, however, could see him multi-dimensionally. My mom and dad, they're not perfect, but they could see Matt in a bigger story. They could remember the day of his birth, the first time they held him, the first night at home when they buttoned him in his onesie and tucked him into his crib. They were there for his soccer games and optometrist appointments and science fairs and the time he was a piece of cauliflower in the school play, dressed up in a giant white cardboard box. (I was there too for that one, too; it was hilarious).

But they saw him in a bigger story and knew what I didn't, and couldn't—that he was their son, but also that he is a wonderfully complex, flawed human being, whose actions have consequences, and has power to do great harm to himself and to others, yet also potential for many good things, as well. And whether he did well or poorly, they would be there for him. They would be his advocates—they would speak up for him and love him all the more.

And maybe this could be an illustration for us—an illustration of the difference in how we see people sometimes, or even how we see ourselves, and how God sees us—how God chooses to view us through the advocacy of his Son, Jesus.

Now, maybe you've just stumbled on to this program, or someone shared it with you. And you're not into religion or you're not part of a church or you don't think much about God or don't believe in God. But what would it hurt to give Jesus a hearing? To hear how He wants to advocate for you—not to speak against you, to condemn you like a self-righteous sibling, but to speak up for you, like a loving parent would. Like a brother should. And if He is speaking up for you, He's speaking up for others, too, isn't He? Maybe even for that bonehead who's currently trying to ruin your dreams?

The popular Jewish dream in Jesus' day, like a first car in the 1990s, also included freedom, access to the world, and status within it. The Jewish vision of the future was nothing less than heaven on earth. The Jewish people had been waiting for the coming of the kingdom of heaven, for things to be put right, for peace between nations and peace between people, for God and God's chosen King, the Messiah, to be on the throne, with everyone honoring Him. Their dream wasn't all that different from our modern dreams of freedom, access, and status, except that modern dreams of progress would put human ingenuity on the throne and/or artificial intelligence on the throne, rather than God and His Messiah. Because the key to the Kingdom for them wasn't cars or supercomputers. It was Sabbath-keeping.

Sabbath keeping: now, why was the Sabbath Day so important? For starters, it was a holy day that happened every week, every Saturday, not just once a year. And it was the only Jewish festival enshrined in the Ten Commandments. And it was specifically about honoring God, thanking God for rescuing His people back when they were slaves in Egypt and thanking God for providing for them as they wandered through the wilderness. And therefore, the weekly Sabbath rest was preparation. Resting each week for a day prepared God's people to rest in God's presence for eternity, when the Kingdom came, when all wrongs were put right, when justice was served, and the dead were raised because God has come. The Sabbath prepared them for that greater Day. The Sabbath was a time to set aside the work you do, "so that God may work in you."i

But even not working can become another scheme, if you make it all about you. For example, some ancient Jewish authorities said that if only all Israel could keep the Sabbath perfectly for two weeks in a row, the kingdom of heaven would materialize immediately.ii If only. If only they could do the right not-working things, all their dreams would come true. So, they added schemes to what the Bible said about the Sabbath. They made 39 different categories of work not to be done, one of which included not carrying anything from a private domain into a public domain. And the local authorities enforced these schemes so that they could make the Kingdom come on their terms.

But there was always some bonehead messing it up. That's how the Jewish authorities saw this man described in the Gospel of John 5. They see him within the confines of their own schemes. They don't see him multi-dimensionally. They don't know him or ask about him, what he's suffered or what he's seeking. They only see a guy who is ruining their dream. They see a problem. But Jesus, He sees a person. And what even is the coming Kingdom about, if not God and His people? Listen to how it goes in John 5.

It happened when there was a feast, a festival for the Jewish people. Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now, in Jerusalem, near the Sheep Gate, there is a pool of water, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda, and has five open spaces, five porches surrounded by columns. In these porches, a great many disabled people were lying down and waiting—[apparently, sometimes the water would start to bubble and churn, and it was said that the first person in the pool would be healed]. So there were many people there, waiting, those who were blind, crippled, and paralyzed. And one man was there who had been disabled for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there for a long time, He says to him, "Do you want to be made whole?"

The disabled man answered him, "Sir, I don't have anybody to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up. And when I try to go, someone goes down before me." Jesus says to him, "Rise. Pick up your mat. And walk." And immediately the man was made whole. And he picked up his mat and started walking.

Now it was the Sabbath Day. And so the Jewish authorities started saying to the man who had been healed, "It is the Sabbath. It is not lawful for you to carry your mat." But he answered them, "The Man who made me whole—that Man said to me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.'" They questioned him, "Who is this person who told you, 'Pick it up and walk'?" But the man who'd been restored did not know who it was, because Jesus had withdrawn into the crowd that was in that place.

After this, Jesus finds the man in the temple and said to him, "See, you have been made whole. Sin no longer, so that nothing worse happens to you." The man went and announced, proclaimed to the Jewish authorities that it was Jesus who had made him whole. And on account of this, the Jewish authorities started going after Jesus because He was doing these things on the Sabbath.

And Jesus responded to them, "My Father is always working, even to this very day. And I also am working." So, because of this, they were seeking Him all the more, to kill Him, because not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He was saying God was His own Father, making Himself equal to God.

So, Jesus answered, and was saying to them, "Truly, truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing on His own, but only what He sees the Father doing. Because whatever the Father does, the Son does, likewise, because the Father loves the Son and shows Him all that He is doing. And greater works than these He will show Him, so that you all will be amazed, because just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also, the Son gives life to whom He will, because the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all matters of judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son, does not honor the One who sent Him.

"Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears My Word and trusts in Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not be condemned, but has passed from death to life. Truly, truly I say to you, the hour is coming and is now here when those who are dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. Because just as the Father has life in Himself, so also has He granted the Son to have life in Himself, and He has given Him authority to execute judgment (to do justice) because He is the Son of Man.

"Do not be amazed at this—because the hour is coming when those who are in their tombs will hear His voice and they will come out—and those who have done good things, to the resurrection of life, those who have practiced evil things, to the resurrection of judgment." And for those who've done good works, Jesus said earlier, the light of that resurrection day will make it clear that what they have done was done by God. And even Jesus says, "I can do nothing on my own." And also, "I say these things to you so that you may be saved."

The man that we meet at the beginning of John 5 is described in a variety of ways. The authorities see him one-dimensionally, through their own schemes. But listening to the account, we get to meet the man through the eyes of his Messiah, through Jesus. Jesus, who, goes on to explain His own reasons for breaking out of their schemes with the simplicity of a parent talking to a teenager: "It's not your Sabbath. These aren't your keys, they're mine." Only the Creator of the universe can say such things. And Jesus, God become flesh to bring the Kingdom on earth, He says them without compromise. And Jesus sees the man who was by the pool in all his complexity. Jesus doesn't see a problem, He sees a person: someone who was disabled, physically and spiritually; someone who's been healed, restored, and made whole; someone who's a sinner and still has terrifying power to do harm to himself and others, but also, a proclaimer of the Messiah, the One who made him whole. The man in John 5 is all of that. And in this way, he stands for us—once dead, unresponsive to God, absorbed in our own schemes, but raised already to eternal life and rest in the presence of God in the Person of Jesus.

Among ancient and modern readers of John's Gospel, there has been a long-standing argument about this man we found by the pool of Bethesda. Some think that it might have been his fault that he ended up there wrecked, upside down in a ditch. Some see him as a victim of superstitious belief about magical healing that's always out of reach. Some think he's so simple-minded that he doesn't even realize that he's getting Jesus in trouble, or maybe that he's intentionally throwing Jesus under the bus to get himself off the hook. Others see him as a model disciple—someone who is proclaiming Jesus, trying to persuade others to trust in Him.

I'm not sure what to think about him. I don't know the rest of his story. But here's what I do know: Jesus sees him in all his mixed-up complexity and loves him, walks with him, advocates for him because He wants to save him, as for us, as for you.

Jesus sees you. He notices you, there in the crowd, wherever you are, however you are—disabled, broke down, trapped, upside down in a ditch, covered in broken glass, barely hanging on. He finds you, singles you out, takes you on a walk. And don't worry about the skeptics looking on, the bitter siblings and short-sighted critics caught up in their own schemes. They don't know the whole story. They don't know you like Jesus knows you. He will deal with them in time. But now He has questions for you. "Do you want to be made whole? Do you want to start over? Do you want to stop seeing problems and start seeing people? To see them in their unique stories, in all their complexity, in God's love? Do you want to see them as I see them," Jesus says, "as I see you, a beloved brother, a sister, child of God?"

"Okay then. Arise. Walk. Sin no longer so that nothing worse happens to you." That's what Jesus says to you. And if anybody does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father. Jesus the Messiah, our Brother, He will speak up for us because He is the atoning sacrifice who takes away our sins. And not ours only, but the sins of the whole world, even the most boneheaded among us.

Would you pray with me? Dear Jesus, thank You for finding me and healing me. Thank You for calling me to walk with You. Amen.

i See Martin Luther's Hymn, "These Are The Holy Ten Commands," verse 4 ( Lutheran Service Book, 581).
ii See William Weinrich, Concordia Commentary: John 1:1-7:1. (CPH: St Louis, 2015), 565.

*Program 89-29, aired March 20, 2022. https://www.lutheranhour.org/sermon.asp?articleid=36987





Reflections for February 9, 2025
Title: We Have an Advocate

Mark Eischer: You're listening to The Lutheran Hour. You'll find FREE online resources, archived audio, and more, at lutheranhour.org. Now back to our Speaker Dr. Michael Zeigler.

Mike Zeigler: Today I'm visiting with Dr. Leo Sanchez. He's a regular guest preacher on the program and a professor of theology at Concordia Seminary here in St. Louis. Welcome back to the program, Leo.

Leo Sanchez: Thank you, Michael. Thank you.

Mike Zeigler: All right, Leo, I asked you to come and talk today because I want to talk more about these words we heard Jesus say in the Gospel of John chapter five, the man who's healed by the pool, Bethesda. And Jesus finds him later in the temple and He says, "See, you're well again, or, "you're whole again, stop sinning." Or maybe it's translated, "Sin no longer so that nothing worse happens to you." Yikes! So, Jesus seems to make this man an example for all of us. In some ways Jesus could say those words to every Christian. "See, you are whole again. You're made well in Me by faith in Me. Stop sinning so that nothing worse happens to you." What questions do you see this maybe raising for us as Christians, as we hear Jesus speak in that way to us, "Stop sinning so that nothing worse happens to you?"

Leo Sanchez: Well, what comes to mind right away is that sin is not good for you, so stop!

Mike Zeigler: Okay. Yeah.

Leo Sanchez: Sin has consequences, in other words. I mean, I think of our confession of sins in church. Sins of thought, word, and deed, right?

Mike Zeigler: Right.

Leo Sanchez: Yeah, there are consequences. I mean, if you think you want to hit someone, that's thought, but if you say to someone that you're going to hit them, that's a violent act with your words. And then if you do it, actually do it ...

Mike Zeigler: That's a crime now.

Leo Sanchez: That's a crime now.

Mike Zeigler: Yeah.

Leo Sanchez: So, sin has consequences and it can affect not only our own spiritual health, but our neighbor as well.

Mike Zeigler: So you mentioned our "Common Confession" that we use in Lutheran churches, other churches use it as well, but part of it is, "Don't sin anymore." We do this because we want to stop sinning.

Leo Sanchez: Right.

Mike Zeigler: But then in that Confession, which we take from 1 John, is if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. So, maybe there's a risk that we don't take Jesus seriously when He says, "Stop sinning," because we're like, "Oh, I know I'm a sinner. I'm always going to sin."

Leo Sanchez: Yeah, yeah. And that would be a problem. I mean, that would be using the Gospel or the forgiveness of sins as justification for continuing in one's sin.

Mike Zeigler: Okay.

Leo Sanchez: And so one has to be careful about that. Here is where Romans 6 is helpful, and Luther uses this in teaching us the daily use of Baptism. What does it mean to be baptized every day?

Mike Zeigler: To die. To die daily.

Leo Sanchez: To die to sin daily. You can't just wiggle your way around that. We all have to die to sin daily, and so that is taking sin seriously. That is confessing that we are by nature sinful and unclean. That's a way of not deceiving ourselves into thinking that we're not sinners. But at the same time, we just don't die. We also are raised to new life, right? So it is a cycle. It's the daily return to Baptism. So, on the one hand, we're all going to die of something here. And on the other, not to dwell on that, but to be helped, to be restored, to be redeemed. In other words, we have been given the Spirit and we have been given the word of forgiveness, which has the power, right?

Mike Zeigler: Right.

Leo Sanchez: Of transforming our lives. So, believe it, act like it.

Mike Zeigler: Get up, walk, take up your mat.

Leo Sanchez: Yeah. If we live by the Spirit, let us walk by the Spirit.

Mike Zeigler: Right.

Leo Sanchez: And what does that mean? That means to live according to the fruit of the Spirit: love, self-control, patience, kindness, all of that stuff.

Mike Zeigler: I think you talk about this cycle. I think it's captured so well in that first letter of John. He says, "Little children, I write you these things so that you will not sin."

Leo Sanchez: There you go.

Mike Zeigler: That's the purpose. He doesn't want them to sin. It's bad for you. It's going to hurt you. But if anyone does sin, we know we have an Advocate. We have Someone who's going to forgive us, speak up for us. It's Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He's the One who's been the atoning sacrifice to take away our sins.

Leo Sanchez: Yeah. You want to avoid, I think, two dangers. One is you're only dying and dying all the time, and so that leads to a certain fatalism. "Oh, look, I'm a terrible sinner. There's nothing I can do, so I'll just keep doing it, or I'll just" ...

Mike Zeigler: Yeah.

Leo Sanchez: The other danger is to only think in terms of resurrection all the time so that you become perfectionistic.

Mike Zeigler: Develop some blind spots.

Leo Sanchez: Yeah, you raise the holiness bar so high, no one can be saved, and you tend to then avoid taking seriously your sins. So, we don't want to just be a fatalist or a perfectionist. We want to die and be raised daily.

Mike Zeigler: Yeah, that's really helpful. Die and be raised.

Leo Sanchez: Yeah, both and.

Mike Zeigler: Crucified with Christ, yet Christ lives in me.

Leo Sanchez: Yes.

Mike Zeigler: All right.

Leo Sanchez: Amen.

Mike Zeigler: Thank you so much for being with us today, Leo.

Leo Sanchez: My pleasure.






Music Selections for this program:

"A Mighty Fortress" arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.

"Crucifer" by Sydney H. Nicholson, arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.

"Hail to the Lord's Anointed" From The Concordia Organist (© 2009 Concordia Publishing House) Used by permission.



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