The beginning of Jesus’ public ministry was now behind him, fulfilled in the healing of the nobleman’s son. In other words, Jesus had preached the Gospel of the Kingdom of God in both Galilee and Judea for about a year, but he was rejected as the Jews’ Messiah, and his Gospel wasn’t believed. He had, however, successfully gathered to himself a band of loyal disciples who received him as their Messiah, and for the next two and a half years Jesus would train them for the task of preaching the Gospel to the world. It would be through them, a small company of disciples that Jesus would build his Kingdom, which would never come to an end. This text in John introduces the next phase of Jesus ministry, by placing him in Jerusalem once more, and it was about the time of Tabernacles 28 AD (John 5:1), [1] which commemorated the Jews’ wandering in the wilderness, before entering the Promised Land.
Jesus had come to the sheep gate of the city, where there was a pool called Bethesda (G964); the name comes from two Hebrew words bayith (H1004) and chesed (H2617), meaning house of mercy. Near to the pool, were five porches or porticos, and there lay in each of them a number of weak folk, seeking to be healed by the troubled water. Periodically there came an angel who moved the water, and the first person to get into the pool would be healed (John 5:2-5).
Jesus observed the people there, and when he came to realize that a man who was paralyzed, probably from his waist downward, lay there for 38 years,[2] Jesus approached him and asked if he wished to be healed (John 5:5-6). At first, one may think this is an odd question put to a person who had been coming to this place for 38 years, seemingly for that very reason. However, was it really the case that he wished to be healed?
The man never really answered Jesus’ question. Instead, he avoided a direct reply by saying he had no man to help him into the pool, and there was always someone else to enter first (John 5:7). Yet, someone must have been taking care of him, so why in 38 years couldn’t he have been determined enough to enter the pool first even once? It appears that folks get comfortable in the state they are in (letting others be responsible for their care), and those responsible for their care, whether spiritual authorities or family, seem content with the status quo. Relatives often benefit through the income of beggars, and in the spiritual context, religious authorities are very jealous over the power they have over folks willing to let them care for their spiritual wellbeing.
In any case, Jesus healed the man of his paralysis, and the paralytic rose to his feet, picked up his bed at Jesus’ command and walked away, and that day was the Sabbath (John 5:8-9), a day of rest. This is the third sign used by this Gospel narrator in his effort to show Jesus is the Messiah (cp. John 20:30-31). This is seen in that the man labored on the Sabbath in order to enter the rest of God (cp. Hebrews 4:11). For 38 years he was paralyzed through unbelief, only appearing to be at rest (paralyzed), but at Jesus’ command, he labored and entered his spiritual rest through faith.
Jesus began his ministry during the 7th month of 27 AD, a sabbatical year (rest for the land). This means nothing could be planted from the harvest season of 27 AD until the harvest season of 28 AD. This, of course, is but a shadow of things that were to come (cp. Colossians 2:17; Hebrews 10:1). The healing of this man represents Jesus’ planting a seed for the Kingdom of God. There is innate knowledge in the seed. The seed, itself, knows what to do in order to bear fruit. It doesn’t need human authority to cause it to grow. It will inevitably bear fruit to the glory of God (cp. Isaiah 55:11).
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[1] Jesus was in Jerusalem during the Passover (John 2:13), and afterward departed for Galilee, but he returned again for Pentecost (John 3:22; cp. 4:35), and afterward he returned to Galilee once more (John 4:1-3, 45). He went back to Jerusalem a third time to celebrate another feast (John 5:1), and this would have been the Feast of Trumpets, which is celebrated in the 7th month. This visit would conclude by celebrating Tabernacles the eight-day feast, which began on the 15th of the 7th month.
[2] The Feast of Tabernacles celebrates the ancient Jews’ wandering in the wilderness, living in tents/tabernacles, and they wandered for 38 years due to their unbelief (Hebrews 3:11, 18-19). Furthermore, since this was 28 AD, counting backward 38 years brings us to about 11 BC or somewhere between the beginning of the rebuilding of the Temple, cir. 19 BC (cp. John 2:20) and Herod’s building of Caesarea, cir. 7 BC. It is difficult to understand what may have the direct cause of this man’s paralysis through reading Josephus, but, in the context of John 5, it seems it must have some connection with unbelief (cp. John 5:14).
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