Seven Signs in John's Gospel

John 5v1-15 The Healing at the Pool

This passage is all about a group of people who were so keen to spot the little red flag; of keeping silly 'self appointed laws' that they 'missed the boat' of the healing of this man; and more importantly they missed who Jesus really was .

The passage divides into three;

  1. The miracle v1-15
  2. Jesus response to His critics v16-30
  3. The five witnesses that support Jesus' claims about Himself. v31-47

The pool in this passage, is called Bethesda (the Hebrew Bethchasdah, which literally means , 'the house of mercy'. It got this name probably from the cures which God mercifully performed there. As Jesus enters this area, (with it's colonnades) he comes across someone who has been in the 'doctors waiting room' as it were, for most of his life. And the question Jesus asks at first seems abrupt and odd. "Do you want to be healed?"

In perspective the question is serious. This man could most probably have got by on begging, it represented a strange form of security. Jewish law supported the disabled. The man did not see Jesus as a potential healer. Getting well would mean the man would have to support himself.

It's a question we have to ask ourselves today. Do we want Jesus to heal the areas in our life where we're damaged? Or do we want to keep feeling anger and resentment, bitterness and betrayal? Would our answer to this question be "It's not my fault! Everyone else is to blame!"

The man avoids the question and goes on how "there's no one to help me!" We can understand his state. Years of being ignored, Family and friends had forsaken him.

V7 'When the water is stirred' In the A.V. v4 "For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had." (ex on mineral waters, such as Bath . We don't know the exact nature of the healing at this pool, but healing there must have been, for this man would not have waited all these years in vain!

Then comes what seems at first sight a very abrupt command from Jesus. v8 Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." That raises in my mind the question 'What sort of Jesus do you believe in?'

There is the 'Jesus of several cults' . The Jesus who fits nicely into our own little world. There's even the Jewish Rabbi Jesus. But the Jesus of John's Gospel is the Lord of creation, very God Himself, made man. The 'life giver'.

If you are expecting some maudlin, wimpishly sympathetic Jesus, then look again at this passage. 'Get up and walk!' In Christ, the cure is ours. Not someone who will drag us around on our mats of despair, but who brings 'life in abundance'. How many of us have been cured by Jesus, but because we have never obeyed the command to 'get up and walk!' we have never experienced the healing?

This man obeys and he is made whole.

Then the trouble starts! v9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10 and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, "It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat." They were so anxious to see the 'little red flag of the law' that they 'missed the boat' of his healing. This act was not even part of the law of Moses, it was one of the many burdens the teachers of the Law had placed on society.

Jesus confronts his critics and in one of the rare occasions of His ministry clearly reveals who He is.

v.17: The equal of God the Father Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working."

v18 The Son, not identical with the Father, but unified with Him For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

v19 In total harmony with the Father, in all His works, and submissive to His will. Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

v20 Loved by the father, with full knowledge of His plans and purposes. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.

v21 Empowered by the Father. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.

v22 Entrusted with authority to judge. Moreover, the Father judges no-one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son,

v23 Equal in honour with the father. that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father

v24 He determines human destiny. "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.

v25 Able to raise the dead I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.

v26 Uncreated, like the Father. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.

v27 As Son of Man, God in flesh. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.

So the next time the Jehovah Witnesses come knocking and claim that Jesus is not very God, but a 'son of God', ask them how they understand these verses!

In Jewish law, your own testimony was not enough, to make your case you had to have the testimony of other witnesses. , in v31-47, Jesus quotes five

You see it does matter which Jesus you believe in. And if you believe in the real Lord Jesus, will you answer the question and obey the command?

I once spoke with a woman who said she could not become a Christian, because if her husband did not become a Christian and they were involved in a fatal road crash, then she would go to heaven and her husband would go to hell. She could not bear that separation, Apart form the theology of whether we can communicate with each other in hell, I wondered how best to answer her.

I asked her to imagine both she and her husband were crippled with a fatal, disease. They knew there was no cure for this illness, they had spent all their time and money seeking one. They were both confined to electric wheel chairs and could only await a long, painful, certain death.

One day, the wife meets a man while she is out in her wheelchair. The man sees her distress and coming over to her and listens with sympathy to her tale of woe. He then tells her that he has the cure for he illness, thousand have trusted him, it never fails and it lasts a lifetime. All she has to do is believe and get up and walk.

After hesitating, she puts her trust in this man and gets up out of the chair. Not only is she totally cured, but she feels born again, with the vitality of a child! It's amazing, she really is totally cured.!

I then asked this woman, what she thought the healed woman would do next.

"Why go and find her crippled husband and introduce him to this man!"

"Good. I said, you have completely understood the Gospel message."

Do you want to be healed? Then 'Pick up your mat and walk!

Mike Read