Tuesday, 28 April 2009

• Jesus heals the invalid with miracle, humor, and grace?

  Passage: John 5: 1-15
  
  The story of Jesus healing the invalid at a pool is one well known to many Christians.  Because it was a story I thought I knew well, I would usually skim over it with the understanding it was yet another one of Jesus' miracles that showed his divinity and compassionate nature.
  I was reading through my quiet time journal, which I've neglected for some time now...and I read some analysis I attempted back in January about this passage that caught my attention as interesting and often overlooked.  Some of it's speculation...so I could be off...
  
  To give a concise summary of the passage, Jesus heals an invalid saying "Get up!  Pick up your mat and walk."  The Pharisees see this man and declare that he is violating the Sabbath by carrying his mat.  The invalid tells them he was healed by the man who told him to carry his mat and walk.  The angry Pharisees respond by asking who told him to do so.
  Later, Jesus finds the former invalid at the temple and says to him, "See, you are well again.  Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you."
  
  1.  The invalid gives a testimony of his miraculous healing to the Pharisees.  The Pharisees in response don't once address the healing, but instead immediately demand to know which man it was who allowed mat carrying on the Sabbath.  This is reflective of what they are truly concerned about: not God, but their status, along with tedious laws that had ceased to reflect a focus on following God.  It looks like the law is used more as an excuse here, as the concern seems to be that there is someone exercising greater power and authority than they, which they find to be unacceptable.
  
  2.  Jesus finds the man at the temple and says "See, you are well again.  Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you."
  I always wondered why Jesus said this to the man, considering that God does not smite us according to the sins that we accumulate.  Dare we think that this was Jesus being humorous?
  "Stop sinning" perhaps as a reference to the Pharisees who stated to the man that he was sinning because he was carrying his mat?  And also perhaps as a reference to the notion that some Jews had at the time, which was that those born with physical deformities or ailments were afflicted because they/forefathers were wretched sinners (viewed not as a result of original sin, but rather as a case by case punishment).
  Jesus healed the man and bid him pick up his mat and walk.  Which means the mat-carrying was no sin, or else it would not have been commanded by the son of God.  Maybe when Jesus said stop sinning, he said so with the knowledge of the Pharisees response and meant the supposed sin of the man carrying his mat, or the supposed sin that made him an invalid, which were not really sins at all.  Maybe it was more of an inside joke shared with this man he had healed.   
  
  Verse 14 says "Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, 'See, you are well again...," suggesting that Jesus sought to find the man after the healing.  By seeking out the man and reminding him that he had been miraculously healed, Jesus reminded the man of God's grace.  It was not just a simple "I've healed you, goodbye," but rather "I've healed you and here I am again, a reminder that you have been transformed and that I will not forsake you."
  
  
  
  

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