Jesus and the cure of the sick man (c5:1-47) Part 1
Posted on September 26th 2010 in St. John's Gospel
This is the first of four Jewish Feasts that Jesus attends in Jerusalem: Sabbath, Passover, Tabernacles, and Dedication. Each follows a similar pattern: miracle, questioning by His adversaries, Jesus’ testimony to Himself. The structure of the dialogue mirrors that of a courthouse where each side gives their evidence with Jesus’ antagonists arguing mostly at cross-purposes. The conclusion is always the same, Jesus replaces the Jewish Feast with Himself., a theme already indicated in the Prologue; ‘the Law was given through Moses, grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ’ (1:17). The full understanding of Jesus’ words and actions requires faith, which thus distinguishes the participants and the believer reading the Gospel. The cured man in this miracle remains oblivious to the person of Jesus.
The conversations initiated by Jesus always start from a position of knowledge, and so reflect in history His divine status as sent by God. The man’s healing took place at Jesus’ initiative and it is He who starts the conversation. Though Jesus knows of the man’s ailment He forbears to heal before a positive response from the man, even though the man’s response demonstrates no discernable faith. The healing is deliberate, taking place on the Sabbath thus precipitating an argument as to the nature of the Sabbath, and the identity of Jesus.
The question of the identity of Jesus arises through the questions of ‘the Jews’ who castigate the man for carrying his mat on the Sabbath. This arouses their animosity, but the man remains blithely unaware just calling Jesus ‘the man’, and denying responsibility.
The later encounter between the man and Jesus reveals His full identity. Here in the Temple of God, Jesus tells the man to sin no more. On one level one might ask what can a crippled man do wrong lying by the pool, but this would be a misguided question. Sin is the lack of a proper relationship with God, made visible through wrong actions. The miracle’s failure to stimulate faith in the man would become a worse sin, since it would be the conscious rejection of God’s saving mercy. At the same time this dialogue breaks any notion of a necessary relationship between physical suffering and God’s punishment.