Tuesday in the Fourth Week of Lent, March 16, 2021

John 5:1-16

There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes. In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.” Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.” Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.  Now that day was a sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who was cured, “It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.” He answered them, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’“ They asked him, “Who is the man who told you, ‘Take it up and walk’?” The man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there. After this Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him, “Look, you are well; do not sin any more, so that nothing worse may happen to you.” The man went and told the Jews that Jesus was the one who had made him well. Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus because he did this on a sabbath.

One of the clues that tells us that St. John must have written his Gospel before it was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 is the precise eyewitness descriptions that he provides, such as in the opening lines to the Gospel reading for today’s Mass.  Excavations carried out by archaeologists have confirmed the existence of the Pool of Bethesda and its porticoes.  It was a deep reservoir which served primarily as a source of drinking water for the inhabitants of the city.  From a text that is found in some Greek manuscripts and subsequently in the Vulgate, we know that many people attributed curative powers to the pool.  The sick and the lame would crowd about it in the porticoes in hopes of being cured.

“One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.”  The precise number of years John gives hints at his familiarity with the man, either before or, more likely, after, his cure.  It is a number that can be trusted, as it is not a round number nor one of the perfect numbers as accounted by the ancients.  The number also tells us of a hard life.  “I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.”  These words, spoken to the Lord’s question about whether he wanted to be healed, tell their own sad story of ebbing hope.

Now, John tells us that “a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled” had gathered near the pool.  Was it only to this particular lame man that the Lord Jesus spoke?  Did he speak to others, only to be waved away by people embittered by their conditions?  Why did the Lord speak to this man?  Was he the most pathetic of the people there? What we can know is that the Lord sought him out of the crowd, and from this we can marvel at the Lord’s particular and personal love for each of us.  He searches each of us out so that we might know his profound love.  This brings to mind a verse from the Song of Songs: “I will rise, and will go about the city: in the streets and the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loves” (Song of Songs 3, 2).

The cure is no prolonged ritual.  Jesus simply tells him to take up his mat and walk.  It happened very quietly.  The man stood on his own feet for the first time in thirty-eight years.  He then picked up his mat and began to walk.  He seems not to have spoken, so amazed at what was happening, perhaps even fearing to breathe lest he break the spell and find himself on the cold floor again.  No uproar ensued, no fingers were pointed.  All the others who lay or sat on their mats were too engaged in their own business and conversations to notice the one among them who was made well.  We might wonder where he walked.  At first he made his way through the crowds on the floor until he came to a more open space, probably in a courtyard.  Before he could go far, he was accosted by men whom John only identifies as “the Jews”, which might mean some Pharisees.  They roughly informed him that it was the Sabbath and that he should not carry his mat because of this.

Now, the Torah actually speaks very little on what kind of activities were forbidden on the Sabbath.  One of these was cooking, so the day’s meal had to be prepared on Friday.  There is no specific law against carrying things about.  The Law prohibited carrying on with one’s trade, labor, or business.  We do find words of interest in Jeremiah, however: “Take heed to your souls, and carry no burdens on the sabbath day: and bring them not in by the gates of Jerusalem. And do not bring burdens out of your houses on the sabbath day, neither do ye any work: sanctify the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers” (Jeremiah 17, 21-22).  Yet, the “burdens” spoken of here were merchandise to be sold on the streets.  The restriction against carrying anything at all was a Pharisaical interpretation, in fact, but very few knew the difference between what the Law said and what the Pharisees taught that it said.

Taken off guard, the man replied to those who had confronted him, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’ ”  These men should have been amazed at the man’s statement that a crippled man had been made well.  They demanded, “Who is the man who told you, ‘Take it up and walk’?”  The lack of wonder on their part ought to amaze us.  They had so fastened upon a supposed slight to the law that they could not be awed by a man who had been the recipient of a miracle by Almighty God.  Instead, they wanted to make trouble for a man who could perform miracles.  But the cured man did not know where Jesus was.  Later, when Jesus spoke to him, the man went back to these people and told them that it was Jesus who had healed him.  “Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus because he did this on a sabbath.”  These were the true sick and lame and blind, much more so than the crowd of folks around the pool.  They did not consider that a miracle can only be performed by the power of God, and if a miracle is performed on the Sabbath, then it is clear that the working of miracles on the Sabbath does not conflict with the Law.

“Look, you are well; do not sin any more, so that nothing worse may happen to you.”  We do not see the man’s gratitude to the Lord for curing him.  Rather than fall at his feet to adore him, he goes out an informs on him.  It is so necessary for us to give thanks to God for all the graces we have received, and for his dying on the Cross for us.  We can do this through prayer and almsgiving, but also through conversion from sin, as the Lord warned the man he had healed to do.