A Helping Hand

John 5:1-16 (NRSVCE)

After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

Now that day was a sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, “It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.” But he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take it up and walk’?” Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath.

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Yesterday we saw Jesus healing the royal official’s son, and we saw how that indicates that Christ meets us where we are and provides what we need in order to bring us to belief. Belief is the most important thing in John’s Gospel. Jesus stresses it over and over. So it makes sense that he would extend his hand and provide help to bring people to belief. But in today’s reading, we see something even more radical.

Jesus sees the sick man, waiting to enter the healing waters of the pool, and asks if he wishes to be healed. The man responds with what might be called a plea for help, as he clearly needs someone to bring him into the pool. Jesus does help him, but not in the way he expects. Jesus tells him to get up and walk, and immediately he is able to do so. But notice something here. At the end of John 4, Jesus healed the royal official’s son, and because of it the royal official and his entirely household believed. Now, at the start of John 5, Jesus heals someone else who is sick, and we hear nothing of belief. The man leaves. And not only does he leave, when he is confronted by the Jews, he doesn’t hesitate for a moment to point them in Jesus’ direction. “It’s not me you want, but that man!” He didn’t even know the name of the man who healed him. Not only was there no belief, there didn’t even seem to be gratitude.

And see again that Jesus finds the man in the temple later. Jesus tells him to not sin anymore, so that nothing worse may happen. Jesus is referring, of course, to the greatest sin: unbelief. The man was healed, and did not believe. Jesus then tells him to believe, lest something worse befall him (i.e., death, which is what sin causes). The man immediately goes to turn Jesus in. Again, there is no belief, no gratitude. Unlike the royal official and his family, this man repeatedly sets himself up against Christ. He rejects Christ twice, without hesitation, even after being given the wondrous sign of miraculous healing.

There’s a reason those two stories are placed next to each other. In the first, Jesus reaches out to those who need his help, and who he knows will come to belief if he does. In the second, Jesus knows he will be rejected, but he intervenes anyway. He knows they will not believe, even with these miraculous signs. But still he provides them. Jesus doesn’t just help those who already believe, like his disciples. He doesn’t just help those who have yet to come to believe. He helps even those who he knows will reject him, even knowing that he will be persecuted for it, as he was here. He helps indiscriminately. In every case, he doesn’t hesitate.

“Go; your son will live.”

“Stand up, take your mat and walk.”

Christ’s blessings are for everyone. That’s the message we get from this story. Even when he knows it will incur the wrath of the authorities and people around him, even when he knows it will eventually mean a brutal death for himself, he continues to dole out his blessings. I find that incredibly encouraging.