Psalm 107:17-22 Ezekiel 33:1-11 John 5:1-18
Paralysed Religion
As you have no doubt noticed before, John often has several layers to his stories in his Gospel that he assumed we, the readers, would be able to identify despite some being far in the background. Thankfully, recent archaeological findings and ancient cultural studies have helped bring some of these backgrounds into clearer or crisper focus for us living in the 21st Century. For instance, there was a time in the not so distant past when this story about the healing of the man at the Pool of Bethesda was thought to be fictional because no one had ever seen such a pool. But that all changed when several archaeological digs beginning in the early 19th century uncovered a structure exactly like the one described by John.
These 13 metre deep pools, situated outside the city walls, seem to have been used initially as reservoirs for rainwater. But sometime during the Roman occupation, these baths were linked either to the goddess of fortune (as implied by the Mishna) or to Asclepius, the god of healing, and were believed to possess magical healing powers. As such, the place would have been considered out of bounds for religious Jews.
All of this raises two very interesting questions. First, why was a Jewish man lying at a pool steeped in pagan superstition waiting to be healed? And two, why did Jesus go there looking specifically for him? As we have seen before, Jesus was very deliberate in what he did when he did and to whom he did whatever he did. He only did what he saw the Father doing (John 5:19). So why this man? John tells us that there were a great number of disabled people lying there on any given day. But Jesus zeroed in on this one man who had been lying there for thirty-eight years. Why him?
Then, to add another level to the multi-layered drama unfolding in the text, John recorded a strange exchange between Jesus and the man. “Do you want to get well?” Jesus asked. One would assume that a man who had been lying at a pool of healing for thirty-eight years had every hope of getting well. So why a question that would appear to have an obvious answer? Well, because the answer was not all that obvious, was it?
Place yourself flat on your back on this man’s mat for a moment, if you will. You’ve been there for thirty-eight years with some debilitating sickness. Every time the water mysteriously bubbles (which by the way could have been nothing more than decomposing matter at the bottom of the pool periodically releasing carbon dioxide in the water giving an appearance of supernatural activity to the superstitious onlookers), someone gets in before you, taking all the “magic” for himself. Then, one day, this total stranger walks up to your mat and asks: “Do you want to be healed?” What would you say? A few very sarcastic replies come to mind, don’t they?
But the man does not really answer Jesus’ question, does he? No, rather he tells Jesus an improbable story as an excuse for his being there for so long. At some point, he had convinced himself that he was a victim of circumstance…and it seems from Jesus’ question as to whether he actually wanted to be healed, that whatever the circumstance may have been, he had accepted it as permanent.
People will often try to excuse their behaviour by referencing something that had been done to them in the past. But, while it is true that traumatic events leave deep wounds and scars, those wounds and scars are not prison bars. While we might struggle in many different ways for the rest of our lives, with some professional help, we can learn to live in freedom again, if we so choose.
Now, John does not tell us what this man’s condition was, but the warning spoken by Jesus in verse 14, “stop sinning, or something worse may happen to you”, seems to indicate that his condition was a result of a personal sinful act or a personal sinful lifestyle. Perhaps even his reluctance to be an able-bodied productive member of society was the sin itself. (Just a quick disclaimer here: Jesus does not link all sickness to personal sin, so please do not take this very particular comment out of its context.)
Another interesting feature in this story is that there does not seem to have been any positive response from this man. We are told that he did not know who Jesus was until later. John also never tells us that he expressed any kind of faith in Jesus. And the fact that Jesus told him to literally “continue no longer in sin” (2nd person present imperative) indicates that there was no true repentance either. Of course, Jesus never needed a response to do his work…he never needed anyone to validate his decisions. Faith often only came after an incident. But it does make you wonder why he healed this man in the first place.
This is a very different encounter to the encounters with Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, and the nobleman. No one believes in Jesus because of this healing…there is no positive result, in fact, quite the opposite.
This is where the importance of seeing the different layers in this story becomes helpful. John never wasted words. So, when he tells us that it was a feast of the Jews, that the event took place near the Gate through which the sheep were led to be sacrificed, that an unrepentant and reluctant sinful man was healed at a pagan pool on the Sabbath, that the Jews plotted to kill Jesus, we should be ready for some form of theological connection to be made. All these things serve as the lower background layers for the main scene in verses 19-47 where Jesus exposed the spiritual paralysis of the apostate people of God. “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you have eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”
The different feasts and Sabbaths of Israel were designed to showcase the greatness of their God. The function of the Scriptures was to reveal the Person of God. But somehow the people of God had exchanged the Reality for the illustrations, the Author for the book. They were paralysed by their rituals, their rabbinic rules and regulations, their misinterpretations of the Scriptures, and their extra-biblical traditions, rendering them incapable of recognising the God they so diligently sought after even when he stood right in front of them…and, tragically, even after being repeatedly charged by Jesus to repent and to turn to him, they refused the healing he freely offered and plotted to murder him.
To the man at the pool of Bethesda Jesus said, “Stop sinning, or something worse may happen to you.” Later, Jesus said to Jerusalem, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate.”
I believe that what we have in this passage is an acted parable designed to be the catalyst for teaching…just like the cursing of the fig tree. We will look closer at the theological teaching in the talk for next week, but for now, let it suffice to say that the healing of the man at the pool of Bethesda served as a mirror and as a warning.
On another feast day of the Jews, the Son of God was led out like a sheep to the slaughter to offer up his life as a sacrifice for the healing of the world. Following his vindication by resurrection and his ascension into heaven, for 40 years, the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem asked the question: “Do you want to get well?” For 40 years, they repeated the warning: “Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” They were persecuted, imprisoned, and killed.
About AD 68, as Vespasian's legions encircled Jerusalem, the followers of Jesus who were still residing in the city were reminded of the words of Jesus as recorded in Luke 21:20: "When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains". Church historian Eusebius recorded that the Christians did indeed leave the city at this time, "Christ having instructed them to leave Jerusalem and retire from it on account of the impending siege to reside for a while at Pella”, a village situated near the Jordan River, about 15 miles southeast of the Sea of Galilee. In AD 70, Emperor Titus destroyed Jerusalem and for the next half century, Jerusalem remained unpopulated…their house was left desolate.
Interestingly, when Emperor Hadrian rebuilt Jerusalem, renaming the city Aelia Capitolina, he expanded the site of the pool of Bethesda into a large temple to Asclepius and Serapis and much later, a Byzantine Church was built over the area, making it difficult to locate until excavations in the 19th Century.
Nice history lesson…but I wonder. Does the question as well as the warning echo down through the ages, addressing both the world and the Church? No one is perfect, to be sure, but do we really want to be healed or is it easier to simply go with the flow, blaming others in our past or in our present for our blemished behaviour?
It is always a good practice to stop to take stock of our lives…to allow the one to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden to take our spiritual temperature, if you will, and ask us the question: “Do you want to get well?”
Shall we pray?
© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2023
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