A question about John 5

In my Bible study group Wednesday night, I found myself alone in a discussion, with everyone else interpreting words in a different way. Since I also found myself disagreeing with one woman’s study Bible footnotes, I’m considering a rant about those things … but I’ll pass.

Well, sort of … can you imagine reading “A Tale of Two Cities” and having the Cliff’s Notes included? I have a study Bible somewhere. But once I found myself blacking out the footnotes because I disagreed with so many of the interpretations in there, I eventually put it away and read my Bibles that just have the Scripture, not someone else’s interpretations. When I want opinions, I’ll look elsewhere. I don’t want anyone confusing the issue.

Anyway … as I was saying … We’re working our way through the Gospel of John, and we were in chapter 5 this week. The beginning story was the site of this controversy. Here it is, in the New International Version, copied courtesy of BibleGateway.com.

 1Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. 2Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda^[a] and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.^[b] 5One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

7“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

8Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”

11But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ “

12So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”

13The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

14Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 15The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

Footnotes:

1. John 5:2 Some manuscripts Bethzatha; other manuscripts Bethsaida
2. John 5:3 Some less important manuscripts paralyzed—and they waited for the moving of the waters. 4 From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease he had.

Anyway … here we are. Jesus arrives at Bethesda and comes up to this man who’s been an invalid for 38 years and asks him if he wants to be made well.

It is when the invalid answers that I found myself disagreeing with everyone else in the group. In fairness, I do usually apply the standard that if everyone disagrees with you, it just might be because you’re wrong. And I accept that this is a possibility this time … but I just don’t see the interpretation from everyone else as making as much sense.

So, here goes.

According to the footnote and a couple other people in my group, the man at the well was self-pitying and lazy. He had given up hope and was sitting there, more or less saying, “Woe is me.” The explanation of that is that he didn’t say, “Yes, please,” but rather set out to explain his ills.

When Jesus came to him and asked if he wanted to be well, the man whined at him, and so Jesus yelled at him to get up. (This came from a discussion about the exclamation point at the end of Jesus’ command to get up in verse 8.)

If I may be so bold, I think that this reading is borne from an emotionless reading of Scripture. All too often, we look at people in the Bible and expect them to act like characters in a novel, in which conversations are scripted and mechanical because they’re written to drive a plot. Consider how often you’ve been asked how your day has been, and you answered with an anecdote.

“How was your day, Wickle?”

“Well, I was planning to drop my car off at the shop to have them check out the transmission on my way to work, but the thing actually died on the Sullivan bridge. So, I was the reason for this morning’s commute problems.  had my bike with my, and my plan was to ride it the rest of the way. So, once the car was towed to the garage, I hopped on and set out … and the basket rig on the back fell apart. I wound up taking it off and shoving it in my backpack. Still, I managed to get to work only a little late.”

(Based on a true story.)

Did I fail to answer the question? I would argue that I did answer it, but I gave details. Let’s read the crippled man’s answer again, and say it with some passion:

7“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

I read this as him looking up, nearly crying, and saying, “Yes, I want to get better. Let me tell you about my life … I am so desperate that I’ve come here to be healed, but whenever I try, someone else cuts me off. Whatever you’re offering, I’m taking!”

Then, of course, we have that exclamation point at the end of Jesus’ command to get up.

8Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”

I just can’t reconcile that with any sort of angry command. Why would Jesus be angry with the guy? He’s sitting around like every other crippled person in the area, because he can’t do anything else. The Roman Subjects With Disabilities Act hadn’t passed, yet. There wasn’t much around in terms of job opportunities for men who couldn’t stand or walk. It isn’t Jesus’ style to get angry at people without reason. Moneychangers in the Temple? Yep. Pharisees and teachers who hide the Truth? Absolutely. Crippled men who don’t walk? Ummm …

Rather, let’s try reading it with some feeling. But make it excited. Make it happy. Read it as if that exclamation point is the same as in, “Come on! Let’s go to the game!”

 8Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”

“Buddy, come on! You want to be healed, and I’ve come to heal the world. Let’s party!” is closer to the way I see this playing out.

This goes on. When the formerly-crippled man is confronted by religious leaders, he explains that he’s carrying his mat because he was told to. Read without feeling, this looks like he’s just trying to blame the other guy, who happens to be Jesus. I just don’t believe that he was this stoic about walking for the first time in nearly four decades.

11But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ “

Let’s try another look at that. What if it said:

“You’ve got a problem with me carrying my mat? Tell you what, take it up with the man who can heal me with a word. A man like that is wired into something a whole lot more important than your dusty rule. I’ve been crippled for a lifetime, and if this guy can heal me that easily, I’ll carry my mat if he tells me to.”

I think that that captures the spirit of the situation better. This man wasn’t oblivious to what had just changed in his life. Frankly, most of us reading it (and writing study Bibles, apparently … ahem …) are.

Of course, the leaders were indignant about this astonishing crime of mat-carrying. So, they demanded to know who had healed him (and told him to carry his mat). It wasn’t, by the way, to put forward his name as a Nobel Prize nominee. These people had priorities out of whack enough that they actually missed the miracle’s importance because of this terrible mat-carrying.

Of course, you can understand their feelings. I mean, imagine what might happen if we all started carrying mats on Saturday.

Anyway … Jesus had slipped into the crowd, because He wasn’t there to confront these leaders just yet. But when the passage says:

13The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

I don’t picture him just looking back and saying, “That guy … oh, … he was there, really. Oh, well.”

I think he was looking around. He was stretching up on tip-toe (something he hadn’t done in 38 years), and probably jumped up to try to see over people’s heads. “I know He’s here somewhere. You’ve got to meet Him! He’s too cool for words! Oh, where did He go? He was right there!” Spinning around, probably looking around the crowd … this man had just lost his healer in the crowd.

And then we come to the end of that story, where I still couldn’t agree with my group.

14Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 15The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

One of the guys in my group said that Jesus came up to him and reminded him not to resort to his old ways, and then he went off to report Jesus. The point about the word “again” resulted in much parsing. There was even speculation that he’d been healed before, but was crippled again because of sin. I would have to argue that that’s 180 degrees off.

First, I’ll deal with the “again.”

The man had been crippled for 38 years. How old was he? We don’t know. He might have been 60. He was “well again,” because at some time in his life he had been well. Then he spent 38 years crippled. Now he’s well again. I think it’s that simple. (Most people agreed with that, by the way.)

To the rest of the passage: Jesus finished His message to the man. He told him to stop sinning or something worse might happen. Not being crippled — I think that it would be the judgment of which Jesus was speaking! I can’t accept the idea that this was the one conditional healing in the Gospels. “I’ve healed you, now be good, or else I’ll take it back!” This would be more along the lines of, “You’ve seen the power of God. Now honor Him, because there are worse things that can happen than anything in this life. And the One who has healed you can save you from that, as well.”

The man ran off to tell the leaders, not to report Him for inciting to carry mats, but rather to tell them about Jesus, the same as virtually everyone healed or encountered in any of the Gospels. He thought that they’d be into the healing-is-cool aspect of the event, rather than getting caught up in the dire offense of mat-carrying on the Sabbath.

Eventually, yes, this kind of thing is used against Jesus. But I don’t think for a moment that the crippled man was thinking about that when he ran off. He was excited. Remember when he was jumping up trying to find his healer in the crowd? Well, now he knows His Name! Whoo-hoo!

So, here we are … I’d like opinions. Not that I’ve presented the two sides evenly, but I’d love to get anyone else’s input. Am I totally off-base? I see this as a man desperate for healing because of his hopelessness, and then desperate to share the goodness that he’d seen.

The rest of my Bible study group (including my wife!) saw it as a self-pitying loser who then turned on Jesus.

I welcome your thoughts and opinions.