Tuesday in the Fourth Week of Lent, March 29, 2022

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.

The Pool of Bethesda with the five porticoes was the lowermost of two pools in Jerusalem, the upper pool being a reservoir for the city.  It fed the lower pool, which is conjectured to have been originally meant for ritual washing.  The porticoes were of a wall that separated the two pools.  The fact that the water of the lower one was widely considered to possess healing properties is attested by the Romans building a temple to their god of medicine Aesculapius on the location after Jerusalem was destroyed following the second Jewish revolt of 132-136 A.D.  In the years after the legalization of Christianity, a church was built on the site, later destroyed by the Moslems, who built another structure in its place.  For centuries thereafter the site of the pools was forgotten and by the nineteenth century there was doubt about their existence because no ruins of them could be found.  Finally, in 1888, the German archaeologist Konrad Schick discovered the upper pool, and in the twentieth century the second pool, mentioned by St. John in his Gospel, was discovered and excavated.  This is a marvelous sample of how archaeology can help confirm and explain what we find in the Scriptures.  Particularly, this helps confirm the eyewitness testimony of John, as author of the Gospel, to the deeds of the Lord Jesus.

The name of the pool, “Bethesda”, means “house of mercy”, appropriately enough, for “a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled” lay near it in hopes of being cured of their conditions through washing in the water there.  Some old Greek texts of the Gospel contain the following, by way of explanation: “And an angel of the Lord descended at certain times into the pond and the water was moved. And he that went down first into the pond after the motion of the water was made whole of whatsoever infirmity he lay under.”  This passage is found in the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome and in the Douay Rheims it is found in John 5, 4.  Other Greek texts do not have this verse and most modern translations do not include it.  However, without this verse it is impossible to understand the meaning of the lame man’s words to Jesus: “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up.”  

Many of us picture this cure of the infirm man as taking place in the Temple since after the healing we read that “Jesus found him in the Temple area”, but the pool is quite separate from it.  We should think, rather, of an open area in Jerusalem with the sun shining down on the multitude of sick people lying around this pool.  “One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.”  We read here and there in the Gospels of people having suffered terribly for many years at the time the Lord comes to them.  For instance, there is the woman with the blood flow for twelve years (cf. Luke 8, 43-48); the lame man in this account; and the man born blind (cf. John 9), who had grown into adulthood before his encounter with the Lord.  For us, this signifies the long centuries in which the world waited for its Savior and also the long centuries since his Ascension as we have waited for his return in glory.  More personally, we see in these cases how the Lord comes to help us when we persevere in hope.  

“Do you want to be well?” The Greek literally says, “Do you want to become whole?” which is has a different meaning: there is no action required in wanting to be well.  It might as well be a daydream.  But wanting to “become whole” carries consequences.  A person who wants to become whole must perform some action in order to achieve wholeness.  The man knows that Jesus means this, for he offers an excuse for why he has failed to become well after all these years: “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.” This is a mere excuse because someone has been sustaining him all these years.  He probably cannot get to the street by himself to beg, and if he could, there seems no reason why he could not move himself to a more advantageous spot near the pool.  If he did have family to help him by bringing him food, then they could just as well have spent a few days with him to help him get to the pool so he could wash in it at the right time.  The man here signifies all the folks down through the ages who have claimed that they wanted to be helped but would not lift a finger to use the assistance that was available.  Spiritually, he is those who make excuses not to go to Mass on Sundays, or go to confession after sinning, or pray for their needs until it is too late.

The Lord loved this man despite everything, just as he loves us, and he said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.”  St. John remarks that the man became well “immediately”.  This was a more complete healing than he could have wished for from bathing in the pool.  Rising up, he took up his mat and walked.  We should note that the word translated here as “walked” can also mean “to conduct one’s life”.  He seems to have uttered no word of thanks, placing him in the large company of people who did not think to thank the Lord for the cures with which he healed them.  He did, however, go to the Temple area.  He is evidently not praying there, though.  Perhaps he was just strolling around, enjoying his newfound strength and health.  “Look, you are well; do not sin any more, so that nothing worse may happen to you.”  The verb “do not sin” is a present active imperative and has the sense of continuation: Do not be sinning, or, Do not continue sinning.  Perhaps when Jesus sees the man again, he is sinning or has resumed sinning.  The warning the Lord issues has the force of having caught the man in the act.  The irony here would be that the Jewish leaders accused the man of sinning by carrying his mat on the Sabbath, which he was obliged to do if he was not to lose it.  But here the Lord, who knows what is in the heart — “he knew what was in man” (John 2, 25) — speaks rightly to him of sin.  Since the word translated as “walked” also means “to conduct one’s life”, we can think of this in spiritual terms: that the Lord has come upon someone steeped in sin, forgives him, and tells him to take up his life again, free of sin; and then coming to the person at a later date, he finds him going back to his old ways and he warns him to give this up, as though saying, Remember how you were before.  If you do not stay out of the sin that got you into trouble before, something worse than that will happen to you.

“The man went and told the Jews that Jesus was the one who had made him well.”  The man utters no thanks, but instead goes off to the Jewish leaders to point out Jesus as the one they were looking for.  This man shows how we often repay kindness with ingratitude and even scorn.  For all that, the Lord still laid down his life on the Cross for him.  We can ask ourselves whether the man treated the Redemption the Lord won for him in the same way as he treated his physical cure.