GET UP! (or, "An Analysis of our Paralysis") - John 5:1-16

 GET UP! (or, “An Analysis of our Paralysis”)

John 5:1-16

Introduction: Back in the early 1970s the philosopher [!] Jim Croce mused, “After all it’s what we’ve done that makes us what we are.” Well, our past certainly affects who we are, but does it define us? God says, “If any man be in Christ—a new creation!” (2 Cor 5:17). Which is it, what we’ve done, or, what God, our Creator and Redeemer, is doing in us?  Sometimes we live like we are not quite sure—we start replaying in our minds the mistakes, failures, and hurts of the past and we get stuck there—we effectively can be paralyzed in terms of our potential to live a victorious Christian life.  That is a shame because that is a win for the enemy. The miracle story we come to today is of a man with a physical infirmity that has continued for 38 years—and there are clues in the context that, seemingly, it was somehow related to past sin in his life.

     So far in our study of the Fourth Gospel there has been a varied response to Jesus, a lot of misunderstanding, but at least some consideration of Him and his message. This next section of the book reveals rising conflict – a shift from mere hesitation and reservation about Jesus to outright opposition. It underscores the hardness of the human heart: the signs that he did reveal his glory, but the Jewish leaders increasingly reject the evidence set forth before their very eyes. As Peter said on Pentecost: “Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know…” The signs could not be contested, still, they refused to believe. In this scene we’ll see…

The Big Idea: “Rather than being paralyzed by our past, we should look to Jesus with hope, and fully experience the forgiveness and life He offers.” 1) A Long-standing need (1-5); 2) A Life-changing call (6-9); and 3) A Legalistic Response (10-16).

I. A long-standing need (5:1-5).  Jesus is in Jerusalem again, for a “feast of the Jews.” We are not told which feast it was in this case, but this is the setting that gets Jesus back to Jerusalem from Galilee. He makes a point to go to a pool where people with diseases and disabilities were waiting for the “troubling of the waters,” because healings happened at that pool. Jesus walks in among this crowd of people, but again, it seems there was a divine appointment He was intent on keeping…

After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.  2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades.  3 In these lay a multitude of invalids - blind, lame, and paralyzed.  4   5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 

If you are reading this passage in the ESV or another modern English language translation, you might rightly wonder where did the end of v.3 and all of v.4 go?  Most of our earliest manuscripts of John don’t include vv. 5:3b-4. Scholars believe a note about “an angel troubling the water” was written in the margin of a manuscript possibly later got copied into the text.  It really presents no problem; an early scribe likely made a note in a margin explaining why the sick were gathered around that particular pool. That note later got copied into a text. It may represent an oral tradition that was based in fact, but we really don’t know. The point is that this particular man, lame for 38 years, was there, and there he was healed by Jesus, not by an angel, or by any intrinsic power in the pool! 

       Another detail may get our attention: “38 years” — Why does John give us this detail, precisely how long this man was paralyzed? It is a very specific detail, and does show John, as an eyewitness, testifying to the facts. We do know that John, inspired by the Spirit, specifically chose a small number of miracles that Jesus did to describe in detail in his Gospel.  He tells us in John 20:30-31 that Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples that are not written in this book. These have been written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life in His name. John chose miracle stories that specifically revealed the glory of Christ—they were no parlor tricks! They were miracles, things that no mere human could do. This man was not merely faking his paralysis, he was infirm for a   l - o - n - g   time!

        I may be going too far here, but there may be more to it. We get a clue later in this story that this man’s condition was seemingly in some way related to sin (v.14). [Obviously that is not always the case, cf. John 9:1f.]  Jesus is presenting himself to the Jews as the promised one, calling them to faith and obedience. Only one other time (that I could find) does the Bible refer specifically to 38 years.  God revealed himself to the nation with signs and wonders at another time… After receiving the Law on Sinai and failing to trust Him at Kadesh Barnea, the Jews spent 38 more years in the desert:  

"And the time we took to come from Kadesh Barnea until we crossed over the Valley of the Zered was thirty-eight years, until all the generation of the men of war was consumed from the midst of the camp, just as the LORD had sworn to them.” (Dt 2:14).

We have the story in Numbers 13 and 14 of the spies being sent into land, and the report the majority gave.  They didn’t trust that God could give them victory, and rather than accepting the word of Joshua and Caleb, the people doubted God. They were paralyzed by unbelief and the nation sided with them. The consequence was 38 years in the wilderness. Thirty-eight years. This man, we are told, suffered 38 years of paralysis (that apparently had something to do with his sin). Israel had 38 years in the wilderness of sin because of their unbelief. Coincidence? Maybe, I’ll leave it with you. 

       Whether or not John intends us to see that connection, it is still fair to ask if there is something from your past that is paralyzing you? Something that holds you in bondage and keeps you from looking ahead with confidence and hope?  It could be an addiction that has seemed so persistent you have almost given up hope that you’ll ever have victory. It could be a sin that controls some part of your life and has for so long that you have accepted that it will never change. It could be some hurt that you experienced, something that you just can’t forgive, that you can’t let go of. It could be a sin from your past that replays in your mind… Jesus asked the man, and He asks us, “Do you want to be made well?” John tells us in his first letter, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” That is the Big Idea here, *Rather than being paralyzed by our past, we should look to Jesus with hope, and fully experience the new life He offers.

II. A life-changing call (5:6-9).

6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be healed?"  7 The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me."  8 Jesus said to him, "Get up, take up your bed, and walk."  9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath.  

       It might seem like a strange question, after all the man was paralyzed, what else was he be doing at that pool? “Do you want to be made well?” We see an indication here of Jesus’ knowledge and compassion.

       First, we see again Jesus’ knowledge, His omniscience. Verse 6: “When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time.” The NIV distorts the translation here saying “When Jesus learned…” That actually is a possible translation of the Greek word, but it does not fit the context or what we know about Jesus already in this Gospel. Jesus knew this man’s situation without having to be told, as He knows what is in the heart of every human (Remember 2:23,24?). Thirty-eight years this man had been paralyzed and unable to walk, and perhaps all of that time he had been brought here to the pool to wait—years of paralysis became decades. Surely he started out hoping for some kind of miracle. Had his hope faded with the passing of time? Jesus knew his situation.

     When you know Jesus, you have a relationship with a person who knows you perfectly—He knows everything about you, inside and out, and all you have ever felt or thought or done. Even your hurts and struggles. “You discern my thoughts from afar. . . …Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether” (Psalm 139:2-4).  At first that might be scary, but the more you know about Jesus, the more precious this truth becomes. He knows us, and He loves us!

        Notice something else: This was no chance encounter. As surely as Jesus intended to engage the Samaritan woman at the well and the royal official who had a sick son in John 4, He had a plan to meet this sick man, to heal him, and to give him the opportunity to repent and believe. This is yet another divine appointment.  Jesus slips away into the crowd after the healing, but he isn’t done with this man yet. We’ll see that Jesus seeks him out in the temple and exhorts him to live differently (v.14).

       We see the authority of Jesus, the effective call He directs to this man: “Get up!” (v. 8; cf. 5:21,28-29). Just as surely as He will call Lazarus from the grave in John 11, just as surely as He will call the dead to life in the resurrection of the last day, He tells this man, paralyzed for 38 years, to “get up!” The man’s answer to Jesus might have been a little ambiguous, there was no question about Jesus’ word to him: “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk” (5:8).

       Notice that there is something of an ominous note in v.9 “Now it was the Sabbath on that day.” Did Jesus somehow forget? No, He is the Lord of the Sabbath. He knew the leaders needed to learn about what was really important to God, so he set up an opportunity to teach them, to reveal His glory to those who had eyes to see, and a heart to understand. The Big Idea here is that Rather than being paralyzed by our past, we should look to Jesus with hope, and fully experience the new life He offers.

III. A legalistic response (5:10-16). We see frequently in the Gospels a conflict arising with respect to the rabbinic rules concerning the Sabbath, and the actions of Jesus…

10 So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, "It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed."  11 But he answered them, "The man who healed me, that man said to me, 'Take up your bed, and walk.'"  12 They asked him, "Who is the man who said to you, 'Take up your bed and walk'?"  13 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place.    

       Repeatedly we see the “religious elite” almost blind to the significance of the miracles Jesus did as “signs.” It will come out clearly in John 9 when Jesus heals a man born blind, and the man comes to “see,” but the leaders are blind in their unbelief. Yes, we had some hope in Chapter three when one of them, Nicodemus, said “We know you a are  teacher sent from God for no man can do the signs that you do except God be with him.”  But now, for the most part, the leadership seems to have transitioning from consideration to condemnation. “It’s the Sabbath—it’s not lawful…” A man, paralyzed for 38 years had been healed, and instead of giving God the glory, they  are focused on what they viewed as breaking the Law. Was it?

       The Law did forbid “work” on the Sabbath. The Sabbath commandment was based on God “working” for the six days of Creation, and then resting the seventh day. In the context it is given, the principle seems most specifically to refer to our vocation, the work that we do for a living. But the rabbis went beyond the letter of the Law to define thirty-nine “classes” of work that would be prohibited — including carrying something from one place to another. They even specified how far you could go before it would be considered “work.” These were man-made rules but had taken on the “authority” of the Law in the eyes of the Jewish leaders. These traditions would become a major point of conflict between Jesus and the religious establishment. A man had been crippled for 38 years, and all they see is an offense to one of their ideas about what Sabbath keeping should look like. It can happen to us too right? We can get so hung up on “religion” and “rules” that we forget Christianity is all about a relationship with a person, Jesus. We can get focused on the outward man, God looks on the heart. As we come to know him better, our renewed minds will lead to a changed life.

Jesus was focused on people, he had compassion. But the miracles he did were also signs, they revealed something about him, and so they demand a response. Those that John included in his Gospel, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, call for a response from the reader… These were written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life in His name (Jn 20:30,31). Jesus is not finished with the man, He finds him in the Temple and confronts him…

14 Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, "See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you."  15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.  16 And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. 

Here, in verse 14, we read: “Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, ‘See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.’” In other words: I am here in my Father’s House, and I have sought you out to tell you the point of what I did to you. I healed your body with the aim that it would lead to the healing of your soul. I conquered your sickness with a view to conquering your sin. I don’t think Jesus is saying that this man could or would live in a state of sinless perfection. But I suspect at this Feast of the Jews, in the Temple of God, this man was thinking not only of His healing, but also of His sin. He needed mercy, he needed grace, and the Son of God sought him and found him.  Have you had a personal encounter with Jesus? You remember Mary at the Garden tomb, when Jesus spoke her name, “Mary,” she recognized Him, “Raboni!” “Teacher!” Have you heard the Shepherd’s voice? Have you recognized who He is, trusting him as Savior, and submitting to him as Lord?

What is God saying to me in this passage? Rather than being paralyzed by our past, we should look to Jesus with hope, and fully experience the new life He offers.

What would God have me to do in response to this passage? 

1) When we see the suffering in this world, we can begin to wonder, 38 years if paralysis? If God is good, and all powerful, why does He allow such things to happen? That is a complex discussion, but we know that God created the world, and in the beginning, “it was good.” We were created for paradise, but Human sin brought death and the curse on creation. That doesn’t mean all suffering is because of our own sin… but it is because of the Fall.  But, God so loved the world that He gave His only Son…

2) Sometimes people hear the Good News of salvation, but they think that somehow their past sin means God could never forgive them. Listen, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God… ALL. Every human, except for Jesus, is a sinner needing a Savior. Whatever you have done, trust Him, call on Him for mercy and forgiveness.

3) We all have a history, and at least in our minds, we get “historical.” It is good to learn from the past. The thing is, we can get stuck in the past. We can get focused on our failures. We can be embittered against people that have hurt us and consequently become paralyzed, spiritually speaking, and so miss out on the victory and joy that can be ours in Christ. Do you want to be made well? Jesus will say a little further on in this gospel, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” God said through the Apostle Paul “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ—a new creation! The old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Cor 5:17). To do that it may mean confronting the hurts that you carry, and where possible, extending forgiveness to those who have hurt you. Remember Good Friday, consider the Cross, what Jesus carried for us. Think of what God has forgiven. Let’s live in the light and life of the Gospel, experience the new life, the true life, the abundant life that he offers us! AMEN.