John 5:1-15
Today we consider the third of John’s “signs” in his Gospel – miracles performed by Jesus which lead us to faith in him.
In John, chapter five, we read of Jesus healing a man who had been paralyzed for thirty eight years. As we look at this passage we can see six key ideas.
1) Sorrow (v1-6)
The Pool of Bethesda was a place of great sorrow. Multitudes of sick and disabled people lay there, hoping for a cure. In the Aramaic language the name Bethesda means “House of Mercy” and the pool was reputed to have healing properties. That’s why all the sick people were there. They were hoping for some sign of God’s mercy that would bring hope to their hopeless condition.
Now this pool was very strange – there was an underground spring which fed the pool. Nothing unusual about that, but the peculiarity of this spring was that it was intermittent. For ages there would be hardly any flow at all, then suddenly the water would well up. I should imagine it would be a bit like the thermal waters in Bath and various other places. Bubbles would rise up with the water and all the sediment at the bottom of the pool would be stirred up. (Maybe the waters did have health-giving properties, maybe they contained beneficial minerals.)
This disturbing of the waters was a great wonder to the people of Jerusalem, they regarded it as a miraculous occurrence. If you read he King James version it says:
There lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. (John 3, 4 KJV)
These words are not found in the oldest manuscripts of John’s Gospel and so they are relegated to the footnotes in the modern versions of the Bible. Scholars think they might have been added as a marginal explanation by a scribe who was copying the Gospel. So you see, the original manuscripts don’t attribute the stirring of the water to an angel. But the footnote does explain what people in Jerusalem believed in those days. It might have been a superstition but it was what everyone believed.
All these sick people were waiting eagerly for the stirring of the water. Then, when it happened, there would be a great rush to get into the water. Of course the one who got in first was bound to be the most active – the very one who was least in need of healing! And the worst cases would never get into the water in time. This man was the most miserable of all – he had been afflicted for 38 years, with little hope of a cure and had no one to help him into the pool. Poor man: not only was he paralysed, he also didn’t have any friends.
Jesus came to this place of sorrow and saw the suffering there. In particular he saw this man in his desperate situation, and he had compassion on him. At that moment Bethesda truly became a “house of mercy”.
2) Helplessness (v 7-8)
“Do you want to get well?” was the first thing Jesus said to the man. It seems a strange question, an unnecessary question, we might even say. But Jesus knew what he was doing. He knew that “hope deferred makes the heart sick”, as it says in the Proverbs (Proverbs 13:12 ). He saw that this man had almost given up hope. He had become habituated to his illness, he was becoming a professional invalid. Perhaps he did not really want to be better.
“Sir,” said the man, “It’s not that I don’t want to be well, it’s just that I have no friend to carry me to the water when it is disturbed.Someone else always gets there before me” . Obviously at such times it was every man for himself. And this man had no friend who could help him. He was helpless until Jesus commanded him to rise and pick up his bed.
3) Health (v9)
Instantly the man did as he was told. He stood up, picked up his light sleeping mat and walked away from the pool. The man was comply cured after 38 long years of sickness! It was truly astonishing and it certainly drew the attention of the crowd gathered there. Soon the Jewish religious leaders heard about it. And then there was trouble – both for Jesus and the man himself!
4) Legalism (v10-13)
When the religious leaders heard about this miracle they did not give glory to God. Their religion was not about demonstrating the love and mercy of God. No it was all about rules and regulations. It was legalistic. It was about keeping the Law of Moses as well as all the extra rules the Rabbis had created to safeguard the Law.
This process of creating extra rules was called “hedging the Law”. And they really did think they were doing the right thing by creating all these extra laws. For example the Law of Moses say to honour the Sabbath. It specifies that burdens should not be carried on the Sabbath. The intention of this law was to stop people bringing goods to market and trading on the Sabbath. But the Pharisees applied the law in an extremely nit-picking way. If no one was allowed to carry a burden on the Sabbath they argues you could not even carry a needle or a pin in your in your cloak on he Sabbath. As for picking up you bed and walking with it – that was definitely breaking the law. For the day on which Jesus did this miracle had been the Sabbath.
With all their legalistic religion these men could not see the wonder of the miracle that had been performed. All they could see was that a man had carried his bed on the Sabbath. Their hair-splitting rules were more important to them than the glory of God or the healing of a chronic illness of 38 years standing.
5) Warning (v 14)
When Jesus saw the man again he warned him to stop sinning. Here we have a hint that the man’s sickness may have been caused by a sinful lifestyle. We can’t be certain about that, but we wonder why Jesus tells him to stop sinning lest something worse happens to him? Anyway, now that he was well, he would have far more opportunities to sin outwardly!. Jesus warns him to repent.
6) Ingratitude (v15)
Well what did the man do? He went immediately and told the religious authorities who it was that had healed him on the Sabbath. No doubt he wanted to get off the hook himself. He was in trouble for carrying his bed on the Sabbath so he told them he had only been obeying orders – Jesus had made him do it.
Well, how’s that for gratitude! What a way of treating the man who had healed him! No wonder this man had no friends who would help him into the water! We now see that this man was indeed a sinner. He had no saving faith in Jesus – even though he had had enough faith to be healed in his body.
Points to ponder
I) “I have no one to help me into the pool”
The man was completely helpless. And it can be said that we are helpless too when it comes to salvation. When it comes to experiencing forgiveness of our sins and being at peace with God, no man can help us. Human effort avails for nothing when it comes to salvation. What can save us is the word of Jesus: “Get up and walk”.
But then we have to co-operate with him. We have to make our commitment to Jesus. We have to ask him into our lives. This man was not able to heal himself but there was one thing he had to do – to obey the word of Jesus and actually get to his feet. He had enough faith to do that and to be healed. As we just said, it did not seem to be the kind of faith to bring salvation to his soul.
2) Legalism
The Pharisees and other religious leaders were so concerned with the minutiae of Sabbath regulations that they were almost unaware of the great miracle which had taken place. They failed to see this amazing sign of the power of Jesus. They failed to see that it demonstrated the was a channel of God’s power. Instead, all they could see was that this man Jesus was a lawbreaker – he did work on the Sabbath and he encouraged others to do the same.
Now it is quite possible for us to to become so bound up in the man-made rules and regulation of our religiosity that we fail to see what it is all about. Surely the purpose of our faith is to bring us into a relationship of love with God – a relationship which will last for ever.It’s not about respectability, or feeling good about ourselves, or getting perfect health and happiness in this life, or about being rich and successful. It’s about knowing God, our Creator.
3) Sin and suffering
Jesus’ words to the man later, in the Temple, show us that there may be a connection between sin and suffering in this life. It is certainly true that self-indulgent and sinful lifestyles can lead to chronic illness or even to death.
Conclusion
“Do you want to get well” (v 6)
Doesn’t Jesus ask this question of us too? “Do you want to know your sins forgiven, do you want to enter into God’s family and be one of his children, do you want to become what God intended you to be?” He asks this to us all and our reply should be “Yes”.
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