In John 5, Jesus is calling attention to several sources that bear witness to His Godship. Standing in front of the Pharisees, Jesus appeals to several references that the Pharisees should affirm, either because of their position in Jewish leadership or because of their educated backgrounds.

The first witness Jesus uses is John the Baptist. He reminds them that John declared that Jesus was the Messiah the world had been waiting for, the Promised Savior God ordained for us to put our faith in. John was like a light on a lampstand. He proclaimed the coming Christ for the whole of his life. Jesus reminds the Pharisees that they embraced John’s testimony that the Messiah had almost arrived because they were expecting God to send Jesus in a different way.

Many people in the modern church want to see miracles the way the early church saw them. They want to see awesome healings, amazing displays of supernatural power, and unexplainable wonders that make you think, “This has to be God.” 

That’s how many people make their entire ministry– by claiming to perform or portraying some mysterious, mystical miracle.

If you were to read the Gospels in the Bible side by side, you’d find lots of similarities throughout. Matthew, Mark, and Luke especially tend to report the same events of Christ’s ministry on earth. This especially helps us to cross-reference and gain lots of perspective on the same lessons and miracles that Jesus gave to us. And each Gospel in kind shows its own emphasis on Jesus.

But each Gospel is uniquely different, each one offering us completely new insights into the life of Jesus and offering some stories not found in the other accounts. This particular day recorded in John 2 sounds familiar, and yet is not. Here, we find Jesus in the temple during Passover and upon finding merchants and money-changers in the outer courts, He passionately cleanses the temple. In other words, He kicks the opportunistic businessmen out of the temple, clears out their animals being sold for sacrifice, and breaks up their tables and stalls to clear space for worshipers to offer sacrifices and pray.

So if you couldn’t tell by now, I’m using my quarantine time to read through the gospel of Mark, and I’m being really blessed by all these stories that I thought I knew like the back of my hand. I love it when I read through a story and find something I never saw before. I’m sure all my grew-up-in-Sunday-school friends know exactly what I’m talking about… having certain stories so drilled and told and retold that the meaning of the scripture becomes background noise.

I think my favorite part about Jesus is that He does very intentional things in a roundabout way. The course of action He takes is almost never the one we would, but it always seems to work out better than what we could have ever forced together in our own strength. It’s because He sees the whole picture. We see dust, He sees an opportunity for life. We see a storm, He sees an opportunity to teach. We see a cross and a tomb, He sees grace and eternal life. So when the paralytic man in Mark 2 is lowered through the roof to sit right in front of Jesus, everyone expects Jesus to heal this man’s broken body. Instead, Jesus throws us a curveball.