Read John 5:1-15
We stumble onto the scene of a crushing human tragedy: the blind, lame, and paralyzed are amassed in society’s gutter here at the pool of Bethesda. Think of the destitution in parts of India or sub-Saharan Africa. Smell the languid flesh and the soiled clothing, the filth and disease. These people were the useless and vile outcasts of a Roman system built for success and power. These are the people whom no one had any time or use for. They had nothing to contribute and no identity within the community. But as we’re about to witness, “Jesus was always the friend of the friendless, and the helper of the man who has no earthly help.”[1]
The cultural cues beneath the words in verse 7 indicate these invalids were expecting a spiritual remedy to their physical malady. In their pagan view of the world, material objects possessed spirits. To a superstitious mind, movement could be explained by a different spirit that inhabited that object. So, when the waters in the pool were stirred–-from springs beneath the pool—they believed the demon-spirit of the water was present to heal. This would have been the usual thinking across the globe in that era.
The narrator focuses the spotlight of the story on this poor man (v.5) whose idolatrous trust in other spirits has left him hopeless and helpless. Day after day, year after year, for thirty-eight years, he continued to seek a fruitless remedy apart from the true God. He continued to lay himself at the false comfort of a person or a place that had, in fact, given him nothing. That is just the way our idols are. We turn to them for comfort, for healing, or for pleasure, and they give us nothing we need and no way out. But we have no other answers, so we lay immobilized and trapped.
Jesus emerges onto the scene in verse 6. Where did he come from? Why did it take him so long to get there? How could he allow so much suffering to exist before he showed up? Those aren’t questions we have answers to. We just know that when Jesus shows up, worlds bend around him. Indeed, it appears that, to demonstrate his power, Jesus picked out the man most entrenched, most stuck, most resigned to a sufferer’s never-improving status.
This man was clearly paralyzed in every way. His physical body was paralyzed by illness. But his mentality and spirit were paralyzed by discouragement, hopelessness, and blame. He answers Jesus’s question with excuses in verse 7, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me." Isolation. Blame. Hopelessness. Isn’t it true that the longer we live in bondage, the more resigned we become to its reality: “that’s just the way things are; things will never change.” Jesus walks into the worst possible environment and picks the worst possible situation to demonstrate that that’s not true. God is the author of new beginnings. His love and power reach into the most desperate of stories. His healing can restore the most ancient of injuries: sin, broken marriages, spiritual oppression, racism, poverty. Don’t lay around at the springs of false idols who provide no answers and no hope. Jesus holds the world-warping power to set all things right again. That’s the message.
Yet, the story isn’t over.
The legalistic religious community—the Pharisees—seem oblivious to the obvious here. They are so busy protecting the system they’ve created and their status as gatekeepers of holiness that they are tone-deaf to God’s expansive compassion. In verse 12, they begin interrogating this invalid instead of worshipping God in wonder at the absolute miracle of God that Jesus performed. They had prescriptions, anecdotes, and rules. But they brought no humility, fascination, and awe. They couldn’t see the irony: their narrow religious prescriptions were powerless to change the felt needs of the world, while Jesus’ expansive love and grace were powerfully disruptive. This should serve as a warning to us. We should center ourselves on the healing power of Jesus’ love and not become narrow-minded defenders of our private kingdoms of God.
By verse 14, the paralytic and Jesus collide once again at the temple. Jesus’ words seem harsh at first glance. The more literal translation reads, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you” (NASB).
Jesus is provoking the man to continue in his healing journey. He knows the man is prone to passivity. Just because you’ve received a little healing doesn’t mean you should settle into a new state of partial freedom. Don’t grow comfortable on a new plateau short of your destination. Keep moving forward, or you’ll miss your mark. Keep advancing and working through hard things. Don’t become immobilized again, which is what happened to you the first time. God is ever before us, marching off to another horizon. Follow him. Perfecting his love is an ever-receding destination that we never fully arrive at. Chasing him is the destination.
Through this beautiful story, we witness God's multifaceted love for his people. He appears when we least expect it and shrinks back into the crowd without any credit. He is comforting the afflicted and upheaving entrenched systems. He is upsetting the religious order and defying our spiritual expectations. He is provoking us to keep moving and not settle into a new and improved version of an old “stuck” pattern.
As we prepare for Easter in just twenty-one days, this story gives us a glimpse of the mysterious way of the cross. God disrupts our expectations and does everything upside down and inside out. He is loving and offensive. To keep your life, you have to lose it. To reign on a throne, you have to die on a cross. To conquer a nation, you have to become a martyr. This is the way of God; his love in us is always beautifully beyond comprehension.
[1] William Barclay
Tags: jesus, power, legalism, healing, poor, miracle, restore, religious, disease, passivity, disruption
