708 According to Augustine, however, the angel signifies Christ, according to this reading of Isaiah (9:6): “He will be called great counsel.” Just as the angel descended at certain times into the pool, so Christ descended into the world at a time fixed by the Father: “The time is near” (Is 14:1); “When the fulness of time had come God sent his Son, made from a woman, made under the law” (Gal 4:4). Again, just as the angel was not seen except by the motion of the water, so Christ was not known as to his divinity, for “If they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor 2:8). For as Isaiah (45:15) says: “Truly, you are a hidden God.” And so the motion of the water was seen, but not the one who set it in motion, because, seeing the weakness of Christ, the people did not know of his divinity. And just as the one who went into the pool was healed, so a person who humbly believes in God is healed by his passion: “Justified by faith, through the redemption which is in Christ, whom God put forward as an expiation” (Rom 3:24). Only one was healed, because no one can be healed except in the oneness or unity of the Church: “One Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4:5). Therefore, woe to those who hate unity, and divide men into sects.
709 Then (v 5), the Evangelist mentions the disability of a man who lay by the pool. First, we are told how long he was disabled; and secondly, why it was so long (v 7).
710 He was disabled for a long time, for There was one man lying there who had been sick for thirty-eight years with his infirmity. This episode is very aptly mentioned: the man who could not be cured by the pool was to be cured by Christ, because those whom the law could not heal, Christ heals perfectly, according to: “God did what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as a sin-offering, he condemned sin in his flesh” (Rom 8:3), and in Sirach (36:6): “Perform new signs and wonders.”
711 The number thirty-eight is well-suited to his infirmity, for we see it associated with sickness rather than with health. For, as Augustine says, the number forty signifies the perfection of justice, which consists in observing the law. But the law was given in ten precepts, and was to be preached to the four corners of the world, or be completed by the four Gospels, according to: “The end of the law is Christ” (Rom 10:4). So since ten times four is forty, this appropriately signifies perfect justice. Now if two is subtracted from forty, we get thirty-eight. This two is the two precepts of charity, which effects perfect justice. And so this man was sick because he had forty minus two, that is, his justice was imperfect, for “On these two commandments all the law and the prophets depend” (Mt 22:40).
712 Now the reason for the length of the man’s illness is considered. First, we have the Lord’s query; secondly, the sick man’s answer (v 7).
713 John says, Jesus, seeing him, the man, lying there. Jesus saw him not only with his physical eyes, but also with the eyes of his mercy; this is the way David begged to be seen, saying: “Look at me, O Lord, and have mercy on me” (Ps 85:16). And Jesus knowing that he had been sick a long time —which was repugnant to the heart of Christ as well as to the sick man himself: “A long illness is a burden to the physician” (Sir 10:11)—said to him, Do you wish to be healed? He did not say this because he did not know the answer, for it was quite evident that the man wanted to be healed, he said it to arouse the sick man’s desire, and to show his patience in waiting so many years to be cured of his sickness, and in not giving up. We see from this that he was all the worthier to be cured: “Act bravely, and let your heart be strengthened, all you who hope in the Lord” (Ps 30:25). Jesus incites the man’s desires because we keep more securely what we perceive with desire and more easily acquire. “Knock,” by your desire, “and it will be opened to you,” as we read in Matthew (7:7).
Note that in other situations the Lord requires faith: “Do you believe that I can do this for you” (Mt 9:28); but here he does not make any such demand. The reason is that the others had heard of the miracles of Jesus, of which this man knew nothing. And so Jesus does not ask faith from him until after the miracle has been performed.
714 Then (v 7), the answer of the sick man is given. Two reasons are given for the length of his illness: his poverty and his weakness. As he was poor, he could not afford a man to plunge him into the pool; so he says, Sir, I have no one to plunge me into the pool. Perhaps he thought, as Chrysostom says, that Christ might even help to put him into the water. Someone else always reached the pool before him because he was weak and not able to move fast; so he says, By the time I get there, someone else has gone in before me. He could say with Job: “I cannot help myself” (Jb 6:13). This signifies that no mere man could save the human race, for all had sinned and needed the grace of God. Mankind had to wait for the coming of Christ, God and man, by whom it would be healed.
715 Now we see the man restored to health, i.e., the working of the miracle. First, the Lord’s command is given; secondly, the man’s obedience (v 9).
716 The Lord commanded both the nature of the man and his will, for both are under the Lord’s power. He commanded his nature when he said, Stand up. This command was not directed to the man’s will, for this was not within the power of his will. But it was within the power of his nature, to which the Lord gave the power to stand by his command. He gave two commands to the man’s will: pick up your mat and walk! The literal meaning for this is that these two things were commanded in order to show that the man had been restored to perfect health. For in all his miracles the Lord produced a perfect work, according to what was best in the nature of each case: “The works of God are perfect” (Dt 32:4). Now this man was lacking two things: first, his own energy, since he could not stand up by himself, thus our Lord found him lying by the pool. Secondly, he lacked the help of others; so he said, I have no one. So our Lord, in order that this man might recognize his perfect health, ordered him who could not help himself to pick up his mat, and him who could not walk to walk.
717 These are the three things which the Lord commands in the justification of a sinner. First, he should stand up, by leaving his sinful ways: “Rise up, you who sleep, and arise from the dead” (Eph 5:14). Secondly, he is commanded to pick up your mat , by making satisfaction for the sins he has committed. For the mat on which a man rests signifies his sins. And so a man takes up his mat when he begins to do the penance given to him for his sins. “I will bear the anger of God, because I have sinned against him” (Mi 7:9). Thirdly, he is commanded to walk , by advancing in what is good, according to: “They will go from strength to strength” (Ps 83:8).
718 According to Augustine, this sick man was lacking two things: the two precepts of charity. And so our Lord gives two commands to his will, which is perfected by charity: to take up his mat, and to walk. The first concerns the love of neighbor, which is first in the order of doing; the second concerns the love of God, which is first in the order of precept. Christ says, with respect to the first, pick up your mat. As if to say: When you are weak, your neighbor bears with you and, like a mat, patiently supports you: “We who are stronger ought to bear with the infirmities of the weak, and not seek to please ourselves” (Rom 15:1). Thus, after you have been cured, pick up your mat, i.e., bear and support your neighbor, who carried you when you were weak: “Carry each other’s burdens” (Gal 6:2). About the second he says, walk, by drawing near God; so we read: “They will go from strength to strength” (Ps 83:8); “Walk while you have the light” (below 12:35).
719 Next we see the man’s obedience. First, the obedience of his nature, because, The man was immediately cured. And no wonder, because Christ is the Word through whom heaven and earth were made: “He commanded and they were created” (Ps 148:5); “By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made” (Ps 32:6). Secondly, we see the obedience of the man’s will: first, because he picked up his mat, and secondly, because he walked. “We will do everything that the Lord commands, and obey him” (Ex 24:7).
LECTURE 2
9b That day, however, was a Sabbath. 10 Therefore the Jews told the man who had been cured, “It is the Sabbath; it is not permitted for you to carry your mat.” 11 He replied to them, “He who cured me said to me: ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’” 12 They then asked him, “Who is this man who told you to pick up your mat and walk?” 13 But he who was cured had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away from the crowd that had gathered in that place. 14 Later, Jesus found the man in the temple and said to him, “Remember, you have been made well; now do not sin again lest something worse happen to you.” 15 The man went off and related to the Jews that it was Jesus who had cured him. 16 For reasons like this the Jews began to persecute Jesus, because he performed such works on the Sabbath. 17 But Jesus had a reply for them: “My Father works even until now, and so do I.” 18 Consequently, the Jews tried all the harder to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath rest, but even called God his own Father, making himself equal to God.
720 Having seen a visible miracle which shows the power of Christ to restore spiritual life, we now see an opportunity given to him to teach. This opportunity was the persecution launched against him by the Jews. These Jews, who were envious of Christ, persecuted him for two reasons: first, the above act of his mercy; secondly, his teaching of the truth (v 17). As to the first, the Evangelist does three things. First, he gives the occasion for their persecution. Secondly, the false accusation against the man who was just cured (v 10). And thirdly, their attempt to belittle Christ (v 12).
721 Their opportunity to persecute Christ was the fact that he cured the man on the Sabbath; accordingly, the Evangelist says, That day, however, was a Sabbath, when Christ performed the miracle of commanding the man to pick up his mat.
Three reasons are given why our Lord began to work on the Sabbath. The first is given by Ambrose, in his commentary, On Luke. He says that Christ came to renovate the work of creation, that is, man, who had become deformed. And so he should have begun where the Creator had left off the work of creation, that is, on a Sabbath, as mentioned in Genesis (c 1). Thus Christ began to work on the Sabbath to show that he was the renovator of the whole creature.
Another reason was that the Sabbath day was celebrated by the Jews in memory of the first creation. But Christ came to make, in a way, a new creature, according to Galatians (6:15): “In Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor the lack of circumcision is a benefit; what counts is a new creation,” i.e., through grace, which comes through the Holy Spirit: “You will send forth your Spirit, and they will be created; and you will renew the face of the earth” (Ps 103:30). And so Christ worked on the Sabbath to show that a new creation, a re-creation, was taking place through him: “that we might be the first fruits of his creatures” (Jas 1:18).
The third reason was to show that he was about to do what the law could not do: “God did what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, he condemned sin in his flesh, in order that the requirements of the law might be accomplished in us” (Rom 8:3).
The Jews, however, did not do any work on the Sabbath, as a symbol that there were certain things pertaining to the Sabbath which were to be accomplished, but which the law could not do. This is clear in the four things which God ordained for the Sabbath: for he sanctified the Sabbath day, blessed it, completed his work on it, and then rested. These things the law was not able to do. It could not sanctify; so we read: “Save me, O Lord, for there are no holy people left” (Ps 11:1). Nor could it bless; rather, “Those who rely on the works of the law are under a curse” (Gal 3:10). Neither could it, complete and perfect, because “the law brought nothing to perfection” (Heb 7:19). Nor could it bring perfect rest: “If Joshua had given them rest, God would not be speaking after of another day” (Heb 4:8).
These things, which the law could not do, Christ did. For he sanctified the people by his passion: “Jesus, in order to sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate” (Heb 13:12). He blessed them by an inpouring of grace: “Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing of heaven, in Christ” (Eph 1:3). He brought the people to perfection by instructing them in the ways of perfect justice: “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). He also led them to true rest: “We who have believed will find rest,” as is said in Hebrews (4:3). Therefore, it is proper for him to work on the Sabbath, who is able to make perfect those things that pertain to the Sabbath, from which an impotent law rested.
722 Then (v 10), the Evangelist gives the accusation brought against the man who was healed. First, we have the accusation; and secondly, the explanation given by the man who was healed (v 11).
723 The man was accused for carrying his mat on the Sabbath, and not for being healed; so they say: It is the Sabbath; it is not permitted for you to carry your mat. There are several reasons for this. One is that the Jews, although frequently charging Christ with healing on the Sabbath, had been embarrassed by him on the ground that they themselves used to pull their cattle from ditches on the Sabbath in order to save them. For this reason the Jews did not mention his healing, as it was useful and necessary; but they charge him with carrying his mat, which did not seem to be necessary. As if to say: Although your cure need not have been postponed, there was no need for you to carry your mat, or for the order to carry it. Another reason was that the Lord had shown, contrary to their opinion, that it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath. And so, because being healed is not the same as doing good, but being done a good, they attack the one healed rather than the one healing. The third reason was that the Jews thought that they were forbidden by the law to do any work on the Sabbath; and it was the carrying of burdens that was especially forbidden on the Sabbath: “Do not carry a burden on the Sabbath” (Jer 17:21). Accordingly, they made a special point of being against the carrying of anything on the Sabbath, as being opposed to the teaching of the prophet. But this command of the prophet was mystical: for when he forbade them to carry burdens, he wanted to encourage them to rest from the burdens of their sins on the Sabbath. Of these sins it is said: “My iniquities are a heavy burden and have weighed me down” (Ps 37:5). Therefore, since the time had come to explain the meaning of obscure symbols, Christ commanded him to take up his mat, i.e, to help his neighbors in their weaknesses: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so you will fulfil the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2).
724 Then (v 11), we see the man who was healed defending himself. His defense is wisely taken: for a doctrine is never so well proved to be divinely inspired as by miracles which can be accomplished only by divine power: “Going out, they preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word by the signs that followed” (Mk 16:20). Thus he argued with those who were defaming the one who healed him, saying: He who cured me said to me. As if to say: You say that I am forbidden to carry a burden on the Sabbath, and this on divine authority; but I was commanded by the same authority to pick up my mat. For, he who cured me, and by restoring my health showed that he had divine power, said to me, Pick up your mat and walk. Therefore, I was duty bound to obey the commands of one who has such power and who had done me such a favor. “I will never forget your precepts because you have brought me to life by them” (Ps 118:93).