“Do you want to be healed?” This seems like a very easy question to answer and it is easy to become critical of the invalid whom Jesus asks. I want to invite all of us to lay with this man for the week and receive Jesus in the way he does. There is a lot of tension in this passage between Jesus and the Jewish leaders and you are caught in the middle, not sure where your allegiance needs to be given.
Think about this story in contrast to the response of the Official in the last story (4:46-54). This past week, we saw the official move towards Jesus, believe his word, and then move towards his family bringing them to belief. He demonstrates authentic faith by the way he walks. He believes Jesus at his word and walks home in faith.
By contrast, the man who cannot physically walk has been making a life of his condition for 38 years. This may sound harsh, but the man knows what he needs to try to get better. He needs to get into the pool before anyone else. He’s made a life out of lying next to the healing pool without getting in. If he got in and was healed, he would have to figure out how to walk and everything walking would mean for his life. Resist the urge to think of who this applies to in your life and allow the Holy Spirit to invite you into this space to see where you struggle in the same ways.
Jesus says to him, “Get up…” This phrase is often taken in reference to the resurrection. John likely is giving a nod to what the signs are pointing to and the life in which we are called to walk. Jesus tells him to “take up your bed and walk.” The man, formerly known as the invalid, now has to face the questions he has been avoiding for 38 yeas. Actually, there are deeper questions he needs to wrestle with, but it simply comes down to, “What does walking entail for my life?”
If you want to take this story deeper, John frames this next section between this story and the healing of the blind man in chapter 9. Go read that story and compare their responses to Jesus. Who are the ones who really see? Who are the ones who really walk with authentic faith? These are the questions John is begging you to wrestle with as you walk with Jesus through his gospel account. Don’t read for information. Don’t read to see how this applies to other people. Allow yourself to be invited into the text, walk towards Jesus, believe the word, be transformed, and take the word to others so that they too might believe.
Back to the man who was and still is an invalid. The Jewish leaders (v10) question the man about working on the Sabbath, since he is carrying his bed. Notice, he doesn’t know the name of Jesus when they ask who healed him. Also, there is no mention that he believed the word of Jesus. “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (1:11-12). Don’t miss these echoes of the prologue!
Jesus finds him in the Temple, a place where he was not able to go when he was an invalid, and says to him, “See you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you” (5:14). What is Jesus talking about?! What is this man’s sin? He is stuck in the tension between being right with the Jewish religious leaders and being right with the one who changed his life. He’s struggling to know how to walk, or which way to walk. Now he knows the name of Jesus! Does he believe? No. He chooses to walk in the way of the broken temple rather than walking in the way of the true temple. Don’t miss the echoes of John 2:13-22! John places this story at the beginning of his Gospel so that we feel the tension between what the temple has become for the Jews and the restoration (resurrection) Jesus brings as the true temple and through the Church.
When you read this story, especially when you hold it in contrast to chapter 9, Jesus is inviting you to “Get up…and walk.” He’s inviting you to live within the resurrection, as a person redeemed. How will you walk?
Prayer focus – Sit with these questions and allow the Holy Spirit to direct your attention to areas of your life that need to walk towards Jesus:
In what areas of your life do you choose not to be healed because it would require more of you?
Where has Jesus brought you healing but you’ve failed to know his name and believe?
Where do you feel the tension between religious tradition and following Jesus in the way of redemption?
In what ways is Jesus saying to you, “See, you are well! Sin no more…”