When Physical Healing Is Not Enough
TRANSLATION
(10) So the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “Because this is the Sabbath, it is not lawful for you to pick up your bed.” (11) But he responded, “The man who healed me is the one who said to me, ‘Pick up your bed and walk.’” (12) They asked him, “Who is the person who said to you, ‘Pick up your bed and walk?’” (13) Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was in that place.
(14) Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you have been healed. Sin no more lest something worse happen to you.” (15) This man departed and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him. (16) That is why the leaders were persecuting Jesus because he was doing such things on the Sabbath. (17) Jesus responded (in his defense), “My Father is always at work to this day, and I too am working.” (18) For this reason they tried even harder to kill him because not only was he breaking the Sabbath but he was calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
OBSERVATIONS
Although Jesus had restored the invalid’s body to health, his heart was not open to the Savior’s saving grace. The repetitions of several key terms help us grasp the thrust of this segment. First, John named the critics of what Jesus had done, “the Jewish leaders” (vss. 10 & 15). Then he used “man/one/the person” to designate the unnamed individual who had been healed and then told the Jewish leaders he did not know who had healed him. The fourfold use of “healed” (vss. 10, 11, 13, & 15), the occurrences of “Sabbath” (vss. 10, 16, & 18), and the threefold use of the phrase, “pick up your bed/pick up your bed and walk” (vss. 10, 11, & 12) tell us what Jesus had done to incur the hostility of those leaders. We should also note that Jesus’ opponents never used the word, “healed.” They were far more concerned about the fact that the healed man had carried his bed on the Sabbath because Jesus had told him to do so. Finally, the repetitions of “work/working” (both in vs. 17), “Father” (in vss. 17 & 18), and “God” (both in vs. 18) lay at the heart of Jesus’ defense of his actions and were the reasons why the Jewish leaders were more incensed by what he was claiming for himself than by what he had done.
OUTLINE
I. The Jewish leaders questioned the invalid about his Sabbath healing. (10-13)
II. When Jesus found and challenged the man to stop sinning, he informed the leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him. (14 & 15)
III. When Jesus defended himself against the leaders’ accusations, they became even more determined to kill him. (16-18)
IDEA STATEMENT
Neither the invalid who had been healed nor the Jewish leaders who had witnessed the miracle were willing to open their hearts to understand who Jesus really was.
APPLICATION
In the previous segment, we saw that Jesus in offering to heal the sick man had asked him, “Do you really want to be healed?” In this follow-up segment, John provided more information about the man for whom Jesus had performed a truly spectacular miracle. First, we observe that when asked by the Jewish leaders why he was carrying his bed on the Sabbath, he responded defensively, shifting the blame to the one who had told him to pick up his bed and walk. When asked to identify the source of his healing, he indicated that he did not know who Jesus was. However, the next day, when Jesus found him and followed up his physical healing with a warning that he should turn from his sinful ways, the former invalid immediately informed the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him. Why, after all that the Savior had done for him, would this person so eagerly cooperate with those who were clearly out to discredit and destroy Jesus’ ministry?
Long-term illness had apparently damaged the man’s soul. After nearly a lifetime of waiting for a cure next to the pool, he had become a lonely, self-centered, mean-spirited individual. When Jesus graciously healed him, his cure seemed almost more an intrusion than a blessing. He never gave a direct response to Jesus’ question, “Do you want to be healed?” Instead he had given a whining excuse for never being able to get into the pool in time. His subsequent actions indicated that while his body may have been healed, his soul remained shrunken and bitter, in dire need of the Master’s touch. Like the nine lepers who never returned to thank Jesus for their healing, this man’s ingratitude kept him from experiencing the fullness of life that Jesus could have given him had he simply opened his heart to receive it.