John 5 1 9

John 5: 1-9

[1]"Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. [2] Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a poll, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. [3] Here a great number of disabled people use to lie -- the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. [4] [b] [5] One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. [6] When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, 'Do you want to get well?'

[7] 'Sir,' the invalid replied, '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' [8] Then Jesus said to him, 'Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.' [9] At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked." (New International Version).

In the book, Tyndale Concise Bible Commentary, the authors note that the pool referred to in the passage may have been used to wash sheep prior to Passover sacrifices. In the 4th sentence, John points out that this pool may have been used by ill and disabled people simply because it was not a regular pool, and if sheep were washed in the pool it is not a pool that "normal" (healthy, non-disabled) people would swim or wash in. The Tyndale commentary suggests that verses 3 and 4 "…may have come to be deleted by a copyist concerned about what seemed to him to be a pagan or superstitious influence."

When Jesus asked the man if he wanted to get well, Jesus was asking him to find out if he really wanted to be able to walk again. Jesus wasn't asking him about his faith, although the Tyndale authors say Christ would ask that later. The reason he cured this person on the Sabbath, even though the Jews kept the Sabbath and they were critical of Jesus for healing on the Sabbath, was to bring out "the true meaning of the Sabbath," which to Jesus was not just "inactivity," but rather activity to "restore and redeem" (Tyndale, 2001, p 471).

The Mercer Commentary article on The Gospel of John (written by Gerald Borchert) points out that the Gospel of John is "…one of the most fascinating books in the Bible. Its poetic-like stories have engulfed many," and many of John's verses are very familiar to Christians (Borchert, 2003, p. 1043). John has written his entire gospel from the perspective of "…the way Jesus filled the expectations…" of those around him. Some have speculated that John didn't really write this book, and those skeptics have viewed the theology found in John's Gospel along the lines of "Platonic thinking," believing perhaps that a "…second-century disciple of the apostle" may have written the book (Borchert, 1044).

Borchert believes that the healing at Bethesda was done by Jesus to show that he had the authority to heal on the Sabbath, and that he could de-mystify the Sabbath and show that if good is being done, it's okay to do good on the Sabbath. The Jews saw the Sabbath as "a pervasive, haunting factor in their lives… so the Sabbath controversy was important for…" John (Borchert, 1055). Jesus was there because that is where "…the helpless dregs of society existed in a pathetic state," and since most people "avoided" the area, "Jesus went out of his way to visit the place" (Borchert, 1055).