Seven Miracles - Pt 9

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, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. (John 5:1-9 ESV).

Today we begin to look at the third miracle (sign) in John’s Gospel. We should be careful to understand the setting. There are three basic observations we should understand. First, Jesus is in Jerusalem again, and he makes a point to go to a pool where people with diseases and disabilities wait for the troubling of the waters, because healings happen in this pool. Jesus walks in among this crowd of people. Second, we notice that there is no verse 4 in the ESV (or the NIV, or the NASB). But it’s there in the old Authorized King James version. Here it seems that somewhere along the way, a copyist drew a marginal note of explanation into the actual text. Verse 7 begs for an explanation. It says, “The sick man answered him, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.’” It seems like only a few were healed (or maybe only one), when the water was “stirred up,” and if you were too slow, you missed out. So verse 4 in the King James explains (you can see it in your footnote): it says that the invalids were “waiting for the moving of the water; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and stirred the water; whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had.” That helps make sense out of verse 7 where the man says he can’t get to the pool in time. Of course, this explanation may be exactly right. The fact that Jesus worked is essential to the story. The third observation in these first verses is that there was a multitude of people in these five colonnades. Jesus did not even stay around for the man to find out who it was who healed him. This will be very important later. Now, in the last few verses of our reading we see the focus is on the revelation of Jesus. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath. It seems to me that John is showing us something about Jesus’ knowledge, his compassion, and his power. These same things are available to us today! In the next three days we’ll look at each in more detail.