A Sabbath Healing
TRANSLATION
(1) Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. (2) Now there was in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool called Bethesda in Aramaic which had five roofed colonnades. (3) Here many invalids, the blind, the lame, and the paralyzed, used to lie. (5) One man there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. (6) When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there for a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” (7) The sick man answered, “Sir, I have no one to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up. While I am trying to get in, another gets in ahead of me.” (8) Jesus said to him, “Get up! Take up your bed and walk.” (9) At once the man was healed and took up his bed and walked. Now the day (on which that took place) was the Sabbath.
OBSERVATIONS
The account of Jesus’ Sabbath healing of the invalid at the pool called Bethesda contains several repetitions in addition to the name of “Jesus” (vss. 1, 6, & 8): “Jerusalem” (vss. 1 & 2), “pool” (vss. 2 & 7), “invalid(s)” (vss. 3 & 5) along with several synonyms, “blind…lame…paralyzed…sick,” and “healed” (found in vss. 6 & 9), as well as the phrase “take/took up your/his bed and walk(ed)” (vss. 8 & 9). Most modern translations do not include the last half of verse 3 and verse 4 which together read, “…and they waited for the moving of the waters. From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had.” This explanation did not appear in many of the older Greek manuscripts and is considered by many scholars to have been added later to the original text as an explanatory note by scribes who copied the Gospel manuscript.
OUTLINE
I. The miracle of healing took place in Jerusalem at the time of a feast. (1)
II. Jesus healed one of the invalids at the Bethesda pool on the Sabbath day. (2-9)
IDEA STATEMENT
Jesus’ healing of the invalid at the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath demonstrated his power over illness as well as his being Lord of the Sabbath.
APPLICATION
We may never know why Jesus chose to heal this particular individual apart from the statement in verse 6 telling us that Jesus knew that he had been waiting there at the pool of Bethesda for a long time, perhaps longer than anyone else. Another question is why Jesus would choose to perform this miracle on the Sabbath day. One response might be, “After almost forty years, why should the man have to wait one more day to be made whole? Had he not waited long enough?” While true, it may well be that Jesus was deliberately using this opportunity to confront the legalistic interpretations of Old Testament Law propounded by the Jewish authorities.
One final detail that we should note was Jesus’ challenge, “Do you want to be healed?” Implied in this statement were much more probing questions: “Are you ready, after so many years of illness and dependence on others, for the personal responsibilities that good health will bring into your life? Are you prepared for a meaningful relationship with the Messiah who healed you, a relationship that will require your abandoning your sin and pursuing a life of godliness?” We’ll find the answers to these questions in the next segment.