John · New Testament · John 5:1–15
Jesus Heals a Lame Man
The Story
Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days and went to the pool of Bethesda near the Sheep Gate, a place surrounded by five covered porches where crowds of sick people — blind, lame, and paralyzed — lay waiting. Among them was a man who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew how long he had been in that condition, He asked him a direct and searching question: "Would you like to get well?" The man answered not with a simple yes but with an explanation of his helplessness — he had no one to carry him into the pool when the water was stirred, and someone else always got there before him. Jesus did not address the pool or its waters at all; He simply spoke: "Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!" And instantly the man was healed — he rolled up his mat and began walking. The healing took place on the Sabbath, which immediately drew the objection of the Jewish leaders, who confronted the man for carrying his mat in violation of the law. When pressed about who had told him to do it, the man could not answer — Jesus had slipped away into the crowd and the man did not yet know who He was. Later, Jesus found him in the Temple and gave him a pointed word: "Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you." The man then went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him.
The Message
Jesus singled out one man from among a crowd of sick and suffering people — not the most prominent, not the most faithful, but a man who had been helpless and overlooked for thirty-eight years — and healed him with a word, with no pool, no ritual, and no assistance required. The healing was complete and immediate, but Jesus' follow-up word in the Temple makes plain that physical healing was not the whole of His concern — He addressed the man's sin as well, pointing to something more serious than bodily illness. The man's response of reporting Jesus to the Jewish leaders carries a note of irony: the one who had received mercy became the source of the opposition that would follow.