Published in the November
issue of the Record of the Free Church of Scotland
This incident
occurred in Jerusalem on a Sabbath. No doubt Jesus had already worshipped God
in public at the temple. Now he visits a location where many sick people
gathered in hope of a cure. Jesus, by his action, showed that it is appropriate
and useful, even essential, for his disciples to perform acts of mercy on the
Sabbath.
One of the
striking features of this incident, and no doubt one that John wanted his
readers to notice, was the concern that Jesus showed towards an individual.
This is one of the main emphases of John, and in his Gospel he details various
meetings that Jesus had with different individuals, such as Nicodemus, the
woman of Sychar, and the royal official from Capernaum.
Among the crowd,
there was a man who seems to have been a cripple. He had this problem for a
long time (thirty-eight years). The words of Jesus in verse 14 infer that the
man’s incapacity was the result of his own sin, which suggests that he was an
adult when he became lame. Therefore he was probably now about fifty-five years
of age.
In addition, he
was a man who had no friends or family members to support him when the angel
came to stir the pool. He was alone, isolated, a man with no hope despite the
fact that he knew that there would be a cure available. Inevitably, a sense of
resignation would come into his outlook. He would have concluded that he would
never be healed.
It is important
to note that this man is not a picture of a person waiting at the pool of grace
for Jesus to come and deliver him. Rather, John is contrasting the limitations
of a God-given provision (the healing water) with the God-given fullness that
is found in Jesus Christ. The story says that Jesus can do more for you than
even other God-given blessings can.
The sovereign
Christ (vv. 6-9)
Jesus comes into
the vicinity of the pool unnoticed by the crowd of sick people. Perhaps they
had never seen Jesus before; this incident took place in Jerusalem, not Galilee.
Further, the ill people would not have been moving around the city and probably
had not seen him. So they would not have paid any attention to this unknown
visitor.
Out of all the
crowd of people, Jesus selects one individual. We are not to read this as if he
was ignoring or rejecting the others. Instead we should read it as Jesus
selecting the individual in the worst state in order to make his cure a visible
lesson to all the others of what Jesus could do for them all. As the man got up
and walked, the crowd should have turned their attention away from the pool and
on to Jesus. With great confidence, they should all have asked him to help them
as well.
Jesus approaches
the man with what seems to be a strange question: ‘Do you want to be made
well?’ John tells us that Jesus knew all about the man’s situation, that he had
been there a long time. Earlier we suggested that the man had become resigned
to his situation, that he had lost hope of ever being cured. The question of
Jesus addresses this outlook directly.
Initially Jesus
does not ask him, ‘Where do you expect to be healed?’ or ‘Who do you think can
help you be healed?’ Instead Jesus focusses on the man’s desires. In this
question, we get an insight into the outlook of the Saviour. He comes to help
those that want to be helped by him.
When the man
confessed his helplessness, Jesus healed him immediately. The cripple said to
Jesus, ‘Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred
up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.’ We can sense the
despair in the man’s confession. Yet we should also sense the great pity in the
heart of Jesus and the great delight he had in healing the man instantly from
all his lameness. This is a wonderful illustration of the gracious,
instantaneous effects of the saving power of Jesus Christ.
Jesus performed
the miracle in such a way that all around could see it. He told the man to
‘Rise, take up your bed and walk.’ Inevitably, the man’s muscles must have
wasted during the almost four decades of illness. Nevertheless, he immediately
sensed that his power had been restored and he knew that now he was able to
stand, walk and carry a load. Because of the power of Jesus, the man was able
to do within a second what had been impossible for him to do previously.
Sometimes people are apprehensive about following Jesus because they anticipate
that they could never perform the duties expected of his disciples. There is no
need to worry about that. Jesus will enable you to do what you cannot imagine
yourself doing.
The scrupulous
critics (vv. 10-13)
It looks as if
the Jewish leaders were close by. They spotted the man carrying his bed, which
was against their rules of Sabbath observance. Perhaps initially they had not
realised that the man had been ill. Yet even after he had informed them that he
had been cured, their pre-occupation with petty requirements remained the
primary focus of their thoughts. Instead of rejoicing in his cure, they raged
at the evidence of his new life.
What took place
here is often the experience of a new disciple of Jesus. Almost immediately
they will encounter critics who will show their spiritual blindness by being
unable to read the situation. Instead of seeing a man with power to walk in
obedience to the commands of Jesus (he told the man to carry his bed), they saw
a man whose experience did not fit in with theirs, and dogmatically and
foolishly concluded that he was wrong. The best thing to do with such religious
critics is to ignore them.
Inevitably this
new disciple of Jesus was marked by ignorance regarding what had taken place
(he did not know the name of the man who had healed him). He was not able to
give a full account of what had happened to him. Nevertheless there is a beauty
about his simple words to his critics: ‘He who made me well said to me, “Take
up your bed and walk.”’ Even in his ignorance of many things, he was sure of
two things: he knew that he had been healed and he knew that he should obey the
One who healed him. This is the best answer for a new disciple to give: ‘I know
I have been healed by Jesus and I want to obey his commandments.’
Sometimes, a new
disciple experiences the absence of Jesus in a situation in which one might
expect Jesus to be there. As the man was being confronted by the critics, Jesus
withdrew himself into the crowd. Jesus did not leave because he was afraid of
the religious authorities. Rather, he gave the opportunity to his new disciple
to speak on his behalf. Jesus expects his followers to speak up for him as soon
as they can, even if they may not be able to say much, and he expects them to
say it whether or not they can sense his presence.
The healed man
made his way to the temple, an action in itself that revealed his new heart. He
would have gone there to thank God for his cure. In the temple, Jesus found him
and warned him about the danger of sin. There was something worse than
thirty-eight years of health problems – there is a lost eternity without end to
its pain. So Jesus commanded him to stay away from sinful practices. To come
close to them would be to put himself in a place of danger, because
participation in them may be the first steps on the road away from Jesus.
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