THE POOL OF BETHESDA John 5:1- 15 After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralysed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had. Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, Do you want to be made well? The sick man answered Him, 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. Jesus said to him, Rise, take up your bed and walk. And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. And that day was the Sabbath. The Jews therefore said to him who was cured, It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed. He answered them, He who made me well said to me, Take up your bed and walk. Then they asked him, Who is the Man who said to you, Take up your bed and walk? But the one who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, a multitude being in that place. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you. The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. The Gospel of John is different from the other three Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. These books are called the Synoptic Gospels because they each provide a biographical synopsis of the life and ministry of Jesus. Even though John, like the other Gospel writers, recorded many events and teachings of Jesus, it was not his goal to provide a complete synopsis of the Lords life and work. About two-thirds of the material in the Gospel of John covers the last week of Jesus life. Johns Gospel is more of a theological reflection on Jesus life, an overview of the redemptive-historical acts that Jesus performed during His stay on earth. In our study thus far, John has presented a series of encounters between Jesus and other people—Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, the nobleman whose son was ill. As Chapter 5 opens, Jesus has yet another encounter, this time with a man who has an infirmity. But the mood and the editorial structure of the beginning of this chapter show us that Johns focus is not on the sick man himself. Rather, John is introducing the winds of hostility that are starting to blow from the hierarchy of the Jewish establishment against Jesus. Here we begin to get some insight as to why so much fury broke out against Christ from the Jewish leaders of His day. AN UNUSUAL PHENOMENON Chapter 5 begins with this introductory statement: After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem (v. 1). Quite often in the book of John, we see Jesus attending one of the various Jewish feasts. Almost always, when John sets the stage for an event that took place during a Jewish feast, he tells us which feast it was. In this case, however, he does not. There has been much speculation about this, but no one really knows which feast Jesus went to Jerusalem to observe on this occasion. John continues, Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches (v. 2). The Sheep Gate was in the northern section of Jerusalem, and there were actually two pools there, side by side, and they were surrounded by five columns. These columns supported a covering that provided shelter beside these pools. People who had illnesses and maladies came and waited under the shelter to take advantage of a rather unusual and fascinating phenomenon. John writes, In these [porches] lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralysed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had (vv. 3- 4). This is the only instance in sacred Scripture where we find any indication that there was a pool in Jerusalem where an angel came periodically, stirred up the water, and gave miraculous healing to the first person who managed to get down into the water. How are we to understand this strange account? Let me preface what Im about to say with some background about the manuscripts of the biblical books. We dont possess the original manuscripts; they have been lost. What the church possesses are hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of copies that were made in the earliest days. Through the science of textual criticism, scholars try to reconstruct what was in the original documents. Thanks to the great number of copies and the precision of textual criticism, I have a high degree of confidence that the biblical manuscripts as I now have them are very close to the originals. However, occasionally I find manuscripts differing as to what was in the original text, and this is one of those instances—some of the best texts of the Gospel of John do not include verse 4. Therefore, its very possible that this statement about an angel stirring up the water and healing the first person who stepped into the pool may have been a textual gloss that reflected more of the superstition of the people in and around the pool of Bethesda than the actual truth of God. But if the stirring of the water and the healings were not caused by an angel, what was happening? We know these pools in Jerusalem were occasionally fed by artesian wells. The wells would start to flow and the pools would be stirred with an influx of water with special characteristics—something like the hot springs people visit even today for therapeutic reasons. That may have been what was happening at Bethesda, and the people, not knowing the science of artesian wells, simply believed that the stirring of the water was due to the presence of an angel. A THIRTY- EIGHT- YEAR MALADY Were told, Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty- eight years (v. 5). This man certainly believed in the healing powers of the waters; he was convinced that if he could get in the water first he would be cured. For thirty- eight years he suffered from what seems to have been a kind of paralysis, and that malady was what prevented him from getting into the pool first—he could not move quickly enough when the waters were stirred. Jesus saw the man lying there and knew that he had been in that condition a long time. His first words to the man, therefore, seem curious:Do you want to be made well? (v. 6b). If Jesus knew the man had been ill for thirty- eight years, and if He understood that the man was at the pool trying to get into the water, why did He ask the man whether he wanted to be healed? Its possible that this man had become satisfied in his state of inertia, having learned to depend on others to tend to his needs. In that case, Jesus question likely was intended to warn him that being healed would bring radical life changes. There would be no more handouts, no more assistance. Instead, he would have to be productive. He would have to function in a society where he had been unable to be productive for thirty- eight years. One day years ago, when I was working at a charity in Stoke, I left work and headed home after dark. Just as I was walking past a jewellery store, a man rushed out the door with the owner right behind him hollering, Stop, thief! The thief ran into me and almost knocked me to the ground. At that point, I reacted instinctively—I grabbed the man and said, Hold it! I half expected him to pull out a gun and shoot me, but he only looked at me and said, I give up. Soon the police came and took him to jail. The next day, I saw one of the police officers whom I knew in our church and asked him about the man and his curious behaviour. He said: Oh, we know him. We can put him in jail for six months, but the day he gets out hell go do something like this. It turned out that the man committed crimes in hopes of getting caught because he wasnt able to survive outside of jail. He was used to living behind bars, where he had a bed every night and three meals a day. There are people like that, who are satisfied in their paralysed condition and who are threatened by life to such a degree that they dont want to have to deal with the vagaries of human existence. In response to Jesus question, the man said, 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 (v. 7). Evidently the man was hoping Jesus would help him get into the water at the appropriate time. But Jesus had other plans. He said, Rise, take up your bed and walk (v. 8:1- 13). The bed he was lying on was probably a mat made of reeds that he could roll up. Hearing Jesus command, the man obeyed—literally. Immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and he walked (v. 9a). Then came the ominous signal of trouble: And that day was the Sabbath. The Jews therefore said to him who was cured, It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed (vv. 9b- 10). Now, I ask you—where in the Word of God does it say it is unlawful for a person who has been healed of paralysis to carry his bed? You know the answer to that question: nowhere. But the rabbis, in their historical interpretation of the law, had enumerated thirty- nine specific types of work that were illegal on the Sabbath day, and the thirty- ninth rule of Sabbath observance—the very last one in the list—was the prohibition against carrying something from one place to another. As a result of that human rule, the Jews reacted very negatively when they saw this man—a man who had been lying paralysed for thirty- eight years—walking and carrying his bed. Instead of responding to the miracle of his healing with joy and praise to God, they said, Why are you carrying your bed? How wicked and deceitful is the human heart. The Jews were so caught up in the rules they had added to the law of God that they were more concerned with this mans disobedience to rabbinic tradition than with rejoicing and glorifying God for the mans astonishing deliverance from suffering. AN UNWILLING WITNESS When we studied Jesus encounter with the Samaritan woman, we saw that when Jesus revealed Himself to her, she ran into town and told everyone that she had just met the Messiah. She couldnt wait to bear witness to the greatness of Jesus. How about this fellow? When the Pharisees chided him for carrying his bed on the Sabbath, what did he say? He answered them, He who made me well said to me, Take up your bed and walk (v. 11:1- 14). In essence, the man was saying: It wasnt my idea. Somebody came along and told me to pick up my bed and walk for the first time in thirty- eight years, so what was I supposed to do? I only did what He told me to do. If you have a problem with that, go talk to Him. When do we first read this kind of thinking in the Bible? The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate (Gen. 3:12). Nothing had changed since the fall of Adam in the Garden of Eden. Instead of rejoicing and defending the glory of the One who had delivered him from his malady, the healed man simply passed the buck, saying, This fellow who healed me told me to carry my bed. When the Jewish leaders pressed him to name his healer, he could not do so. This man needed to ponder Jesus words in Luke 12:8- 9::Whoever confesses Me before men, him the Son of Man also will confess before the angels of God. But he who denies Me before men will be denied before the angels of God. There was an occasion when the army of Alexander the Great was engaged in a very serious battle, and in the course of the battle, one of the soldiers fled the scene. He was a coward. After the battle, the coward was apprehended and brought to Alexanders tent. As the man stood trembling before his general, Alexander looked at him and said, Why did you run? The soldier said, I was afraid. Alexander said: So I see. What is your name? The soldier mumbled his answer so that Alexander couldnt hear him, so the great warrior said: Speak up. What is your name? The young soldier looked at him and said, My name is Alexander. Alexander the Great replied, Either change your behaviour or change your name. If you are embarrassed by Jesus and youre afraid to confess Him before men, either change your behaviour or cease to call yourself a Christian. The story doesnt end there, of course: Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you (v. 14). There are many passages in Johns Gospel and elsewhere where we are warned against concluding that a particular calamity is a direct result of a specific sin. That doesnt mean we should conclude that calamity is never a result of sin. When Jesus mentioned the deaths of eighteen people in the collapse of the tower of Siloam, He noted, Unless you repent you will all likewise perish (Luke 13:1- 5). So He said to this man, Stop your sinful lifestyle lest a worse thing befall you. Jesus had already healed this man of a thirty-eight-year malady. Here He gave him an excellent piece of advice. How did the man repay these kindnesses from Jesus? The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well (v. 15). What a marked contrast there was between this man and so many others who encountered the living Christ. Most of them, having felt Jesus touch, having received blessings from His hand, would have crawled over glass to bear witness to Him as their Lord. But this man, who received the physical blessing of healing, apparently never went past the physical to saving faith. How easy it is for us to be faithful to Christ when we receive some benefit from His hand. Likewise, how difficult it can be for us to remain faithful when we do not receive what we want. We need to remind ourselves that if God never blessed us another moment for the rest of our lives, we would have no reason under heaven to do anything but glorify Him, adore Him, and be grateful to Him for the blessings we already have experienced. If He abandoned us tonight (which He certainly will not do), we would have no excuse to do anything but serve Him until we draw our final breaths. Let us learn from this man how not to receive the blessings of Christ.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 12:24:36 +0000
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