Chapter Five
Jn. 5:1. After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
The feast of the Jews was at hand; I think it was the feast of Pentecost.
The Lord goes to the feast partly so as not to appear an opponent of the law, but to show Himself a participant in the feast of the people; and partly in order to attract a greater number of people to Himself through teaching and signs, especially the simple folk. For at the feasts, both farmers and city craftsmen usually gather, who on other days are occupied with their work.
Jn. 5:2. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, called in Hebrew Bethesda, which had five covered porticos.
The pool was called "Sheep" because sacrificial sheep were driven to it and their entrails were washed in it.
By the Sheep Pool, understand, if you will, the grace of baptism, by which the Lord Jesus, the Lamb slain for us, was washed, having been baptized for us. This pool has five porches. For in baptism the four virtues and contemplation with dogmas are manifested.
Rightly can it be called a sheep pool. For in it, as sheep, the inward parts and thoughts of the holy and innocent are washed, those who prepare themselves as a living sacrifice acceptable to God.
Jn. 5:3. In these lay a great multitude of sick, blind, lame, withered, waiting for the moving of the water;
Jn. 5:4. For an Angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred the water; and whoever first stepped in after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he was afflicted with.
Many thought that the water received a certain divine power from the mere fact that the entrails of the sacrifices were washed in it, and that therefore the Angel also descended upon this water as upon a chosen one and worked miracles.
It seems that Divine Providence pre-ordained the miracle in this pool in order to lead the Jews from afar to faith in Christ. Since baptism was to be bestowed, having great power and the greatest gift, for it cleanses from sins and gives life to souls, God prefigures baptism in the Jewish rites and gives the Jews, for example, water that cleanses them from impurities, though not real ones but imagined ones, such as impurity from touching a dead body or a leper, and many similar things; He also gives the miracle of this pool, guiding them toward the acceptance of baptism.
An angel, descending from time to time, troubled the water and imparted healing power to it. For it was not from the nature of the water that it could heal by itself (for in that case this would have happened always), but everything depended on the action of the angel. So also with us, the water of baptism is simple water, but through divine descent, having received the grace of the Spirit, it destroys the diseases of the soul. Whether one is blind, that is, has damaged eyes of the soul and cannot distinguish good from evil; whether one is lame, that is, immovable toward doing good and advancing in good; whether one has completely withered, that is, is in a state of despair and has nothing good in himself — this water heals all. And then weakness did not allow some to receive healing, but now we have no obstacle to baptism. For with the recovery of one, the rest do not remain without healing; but even if the whole world were to come together, the grace would not be diminished.
The troubling of the water in the pool signifies that the spirits of wickedness are troubled in it, being crushed and trampled by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Oh, if only we too could receive health! We who are paralyzed and immobile toward every good deed, and have no man, that is, no human sense, as though we have become like senseless beasts, to lower us into the pool of tearful repentance, into which whoever enters first receives healing. For he who relies on future time and postpones repentance, and does not hasten to repent here but delays, does not receive healing. Therefore, strive to enter first, lest death overtake you.
This pool of repentance is stirred by an Angel. Which one? The Angel of the great counsel of the Father, Christ and Savior. For if divine teaching does not touch our heart and does not produce in it a stirring by the reminder of the torments in the age to come, then this pool will not be effective, and there will be no healing for the paralyzed soul.
Jn. 5:5. There was a certain man there who had been in his infirmity for thirty-eight years.
The patience of the paralytic is astonishing! For thirty-eight years he was sick, each year expecting deliverance from his illness, but was preceded by the stronger; nevertheless, he did not give up and did not despair.
Jn. 5:6. Jesus, seeing him lying there and knowing that he had been lying there a long time already, says to him: Do you want to be made well?
Why does the Lord also ask him? Wishing to show us this man's patience. He asks not in order to find out, because it is not only superfluous but also foolish to ask a sick person whether he wants to be healthy. So I said that He asks in order to show us this man's patience.
Jn. 5:7. The sick man answered Him: yes, Lord; but I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am coming, another steps down before me.
What then does he do? He answers very meekly. "Yes," he says, "Lord, I desire to, but I have no man to put me into the water." He utters no blasphemy, he does not reject Christ as having asked an inappropriate question, he does not curse the day of his birth, as we, the fainthearted, do, and that in far lighter illnesses, but he answers meekly and timidly. Although he did not know Who was asking him, he perhaps considered Christ useful to himself in this one thing alone, that He would lower him into the water, and therefore he wishes to attract and dispose Him favorably toward himself by his words.
Jn. 5:8. Jesus says to him: Rise, take up your bed and walk.
Christ, however, did not say "do you want Me to heal you?" so as not to appear vainglorious.
He commands him to take up his bed so that no one would consider him a phantom. For if the limbs of the sick man had not been made firm and strengthened, he would not have been able to carry his bed.
He does not require faith from him before the healing, as He did from certain others, because the sick man had not yet seen Him performing a sign. For from those from whom the Lord required faith, He required it not before miracles, but after having performed miracles before them.