In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed!
9John 5.1-15
At that time, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Hebrew called Bethesda which has five porticoes. In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and troubled the water; whoever stepped in first after the troubling of the water was healed of whatever disease he had. One man was there, who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew that he had been lying there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is troubled, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your pallet, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his pallet and walked. Now that day was the sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who was cured, “It is the sabbath, it is not lawful for you to carry your pallet.” But he answered them, “The man who healed me said to me, ‘Take up your pallet, and walk.’ “They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your pallet, and walk’?” Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. Afterward, Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse befall you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.
We hear in our Gospel reading today that there were a multitude of people waiting for healing in the place by the Sheep Gate on the day that Jesus visited and healed one man of his infirmity. It is, therefore, not unreasonable to ask: why only him and not all the others also? It is certainly a question that the Church Fathers raise; and it is a question that they also answer, by pointing out the purpose of the miracle was not so much about the healing of the man as what it said about Jesus that He was able to heal the man.
This is true of all His miracles; possessing divine power points to the divinity of the man who possesses it. We may recall here what our Lord said elsewhere in the Gospels when the bystanders were shocked when he said to the paralytic that his sins were forgiven: which was in essence that it was easy enough to say that someone’s sins were forgiven, but so that people would know that He did indeed have the power to forgive sins, a divine perogative, He also told the paralysed man to take up his bed and walk.
He speaks similar words to the sick man in this passage. And even though we know the primary purpose of the miracle was to help those around Him understand who Jesus was, we may also note that the passage also states that He knew that the man had been lying there a long time. We are also told that this man had suffered from his illness for thirty-eight years. Had anyone else suffered or waited so long? It hard to believe so.
It is also significant, I would suggest, that the man is lying on a pallet. The day is the sabbath; which means the pallet had not been brought there that day. So it was already there. And we are told that the invalids are lying within the porticos near the pool. Porticos are covered porches or walkways supported by columns, sheltered areas in other words. It seems likely that this man and the others with him essentially lived in these porticos, waiting hopefully for the day when the angel of the Lord would stir up the waters and they might have a chance to be healed.
Now, the pool by the Sheep Gate was the place where the sheep being brought to the Temple for sacrifice were taken to be washed beforehand. So it must have been a dirty, smelly, noisy place. And still this man stayed, despite knowing that he had little chance of being the first to enter the pool. When Jesus asks him if he wanted to be healed, the man, not knowing Who Jesus was, thinks he means does he want to be healed by the coming of the angel. So he responds by saying ‘Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is troubled, and while I am going another steps down before me.’
What he is saying is that he knows that the chances of his being healed in the pool are remote. We don’t know precisely what his illness was. Tradition refers to him as a paralytic, but he clearly had some mobility, otherwise there would have been no purpose in being there. But clearly he wasn’t as fast as some of the others waiting under the porticos; and so each time the race to get down to the water began, he never came first. And yet he remained, hoping for a miracle, hoping that one day God would heal him. What great faith he had!
And on this day, his faith was rewarded. After thirty-eight years of suffering; after who knows how many years of waiting patiently, faithfully, by a dirty pool, he met Jesus, who told him; ‘Rise, take up your pallet, and walk’.
And we must carefully note his reaction. He at once did what Jesus said. He got up and carried away his pallet with him, despite it being the sabbath, a day when it was forbidden by Jewish law to do any kind of work, which included carrying a pallet. And what did he say when he was challenged by those he met on the way about his ‘lawless’ behaviour? ‘The man who healed me said to me, ‘Take up your pallet, and walk.’ Even though he didn’t know Who Jesus was, he obeyed Him.
The Church Fathers attach great significance to this, that the man was obedient to the command of Jesus and defended his actions by saying he was doing what the One Who healed him told him to do. Of course he did. After all, our Lord had just done for the man something he had been hoping an angel of God would do for him; and it was a natural response, to be grateful and obedient to the person who had done something so wonderful and good for him. And it was even more natural to respond this way, given what had been done was clearly miraculous.
And, thus, it is a powerful example for us. We daily receive great gifts from God. Our very lives and the universe in which we experience are gifts from Him. And in this Paschal season, we remember in particular how God became man for our sake, suffering death on a cross to redeem us from our sins, and rising from the dead so that we might know that in Him we have the promise of eternal life. How do we respond? Let us compare ourselves with the man who was healed; and pray that the way we respond daily may not fall short of the response he gave that day.
Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Amen.
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