I say “paraplegics” because in the contemporary idiom, we have to see the healed man as among us. No one uses “paralytic” today for people in a wheelchair. The lecturer had many good ideas, but one feature of his presentation stood out: He himself was in a wheelchair, he too was a paraplegic. Even though I recognize that the thrust of John 5 is aimed at disclosing to us the Christological identity of Jesus, this scholar reminded us that we have to recognize the person whom Jesus touches in these stories.

Among the many at Bethesda looking for healing that day, Jesus selects a man who is a particularly difficult “case.” He does not reach out to those who are spiritually on the margin but socially “safe.” Instead, he reaches out to someone whose suffering and isolation are beyond measure. I cannot help but think about the ministry of Mother Teresa and her Sisters of Charity in this regard. She is now deceased, but since her death in September 1997, story upon story have swept over us telling us how she touched, embraced, loved, and inspired the poorest in Calcutta’s streets. She told her sisters, “Let the poor eat you up.” Their neediness looks so overwhelming, but this is exactly the place Jesus likes to go.

Knew probably indicates Jesus’ divine knowledge of the man’s situation, similar to Jesus’ knowledge of Nathanael (1:48) and the Samaritan woman (4:18).

A. Secular Greek.

1. Meaning. The group has the sense of “healthy” and then more generally “rational,” “intelligent,” “reliable,” and “whole.”

① to be in good physical health, be healthy,

② to be sound or free from error, be correct, fig. in the Pastoral Epistles w. ref. to Christian teaching:

① pert. to being physically well or sound, healthy, sound.

ⓐ of persons

ⓑ of things sound, undamaged

② pert. to being uncorrupted or correct, fig.

The man’s response to Jesus’ question, “Do you want to get well?” (v. 6), revealed both his poor understanding of God and his sense of hopelessness. Instead of answering the question, he gave his gloomy testimony and his perception of how God works. The only hope evident in his testimony was his commitment to a myth of a periodic miraculous troubling of the pool, which allegedly brought healing to the first person able to jump in.

The confused man had been caught in the very act of breaking the rules of the rabbis and did not know how to deal with his problem. So he sought for a quick defense by blaming the healer (John 5:11), even though he did not know (note the Johannine theme) who he was (5:13).

The statement of cause and effect in this story, therefore, must be taken as referring to the eschatological correlation between sin and judgment that undoubtedly is the meaning of “something worse” in Jesus’ warning to the paralytic.

The important thing to notice first is the man’s poor view of God’s grace. Over the long period of time of living with his problem the man had seemingly become convinced that God operated on the basis of “first come, first served.” Another of his problems was that he undoubtedly felt a sense of abandonment because of his helpless condition and his lack of support from others, particularly in times when he thought healing might be possible. He apparently had become negative, as some sick people do, and he was ready to blame others. This attitude did not change after his healing and was likely part of the reason for Jesus’ later warning (5:14).

There Jesus passed by the Bethesda pool, where a number of invalids had placed themselves. The waters, when stirred, supposedly had miraculous powers of healing. A man who had been there for thirty-eight years was asked an interesting question by Jesus: “Do you want to get well?” (5:6). Many depended on their condition for financial support given by healthy individuals out of pity. Another possible reason for this question relates to the man’s spirit; many who have experienced prolonged pain or misfortune have surrendered even the will to attempt to overcome their situation in life. When the invalid shared with Jesus his difficulty of getting into the pool for healing, Jesus proclaimed: “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk” (5:8). The man was instantly healed.

In response to the man’s perception of God and of God’s grace, it is interesting that Jesus is not portrayed here as a theological logician or debater. Jesus did not dispute the man’s poor theology or his view of angelic visitation. He simply told him to get up and take his mattress or bedroll (krabbaton) out of that place (5:8). Surely amazed and overjoyed, the man followed Jesus’ orders (5:9a), but that was not the end of the story.

The Gospel writer, however, makes it clear that in both cases Jesus did not simply leave helpless people to the wolves but “found” them (5:14; 9:35; note the Johannine theme, cf. 1:14–18).

But these Jews were not interested in the man’s joy. The term “the Jews,” when used by the evangelist, defines Jesus’ religious opponents in the Gospel (cf. also 1:19 concerning the Baptizer). The term is not used merely as a racial designation because the man here was also a Jew. The Jews in this story were not interested in the well-being of people but merely in their rules and traditions. They serve the author’s literary art as symbols or flat literary figures representing a certain perspective (namely rigid, doctrinaire, noncaring, religious leaders). These doctrinaire religious figures are the ones who were responsible for the death of Jesus, and this chapter defines their role. All they could see was a man carrying a bedroll and breaking the Sabbath law, defined for us by a later Mishnaic codification (cf. m. Šabb. 7.2, the rule against carrying goods), which was formulated to support their understanding of the Torah principle in Exod 31:12–14.

The statement of cause and effect in this story, therefore, must be taken as referring to the eschatological correlation between sin and judgment that undoubtedly is the meaning of “something worse” in Jesus’ warning to the paralytic.

As in Mark 2:5 the sin of the paralytic appears to be viewed as of major importance: the “something worse” that could happen to the man would be to finish up in Gehenna. Hoskyns comments: “There is a more serious disease than lameness or paralysis; there is a more serious possibility of judgment, and there is a righteousness that sets men free” (253).

It is doubtful that the man in this story really understood the significance of Jesus. He is clearly unlike the blind man (9:33), who seems to have understood. Here there is no such recognition. Instead, the blaming, self-centered, self-preservation pattern of his former life continued after the healing as he turned from the Healer to investigators (the Jews) and reported Jesus to these authority figures. One implication of the story is that no one should be surprised by the responses of people. Not everyone accepts merciful acts with gratitude (cf. the nine lepers of Luke 17:17–18).

So (a) if God can continue to work positively in creation on the Sabbath and not totally rest, and (b) if one can recognize that the works of Jesus are the works of God, then the question follows: Why are not the works of Jesus on the Sabbath legitimate?