Jesus at Bethesda
11 But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’” 12 So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?” 13 The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
Isn’t this a crazy scene? The Jews completely ignored the miracle, and were only upset by the day the miracle happened. For them, the calendar was the most important thing. They weren’t blown away by the miracle; they were jealous. When sinful humans don’t understand something, their first impulse is to attack it, and that’s what the Jews were doing. Notice that they even quote Jesus, but only his words, “pick it up and walk.” The miracle doesn’t enter into their hearts; only what they are going to call the crime.
14 Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. (NIV)
Finding the man in the temple was a good sign: It would have been the place to go for the man to make a special thank offering to God. Jesus began by saying to him, “See, you are well again.” Jesus pointed out that the man was cured of his illness, and the Greek tense carries even more weight than that: It tells us that the man would continue to be cured of that illness; he was “standing well again.” After reminding the man of his rescue, Jesus simply and forcefully exposed the man’s sins by saying “stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”
In most cases, we can’t say that a certain sin in our lives brings on a particular illness. Sin in general brings many troubles and maladies along with it, and we are as apt to be troubled by the sins of others as by our own, like a child contracting lung ailments because of his father’s smoking. But here Jesus relates the sinful life of this man directly to his suffering: Stop sinning or something worse may happen. The man had a sin that for at least 38 years had caused him to suffer, although we have no clue at all from the text what it may have been.
Now, Jesus lays that sin bare and forgives it in the same breath. If the past sin weren’t forgiven, then there would be little point in stopping, and Jesus has also said, “You are well,” which carries more freight than mere medicinal language. Once forgiven, it is possible for us to fall into sin again—it is inevitable—but Jesus isn’t talking about the errors that plague our human flesh. He’s talking about a persistent, unrepentant sin. “Sin,” God once warned another troubled soul, “is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it” (Genesis 4:7).
No doubt Jesus had known that the Jews of Jerusalem would discover who had accomplished the miracle; the healed man himself told them his name. At this point, the healed man passes out of the story, but the Jews are now going to find Jesus. Their own sins were making them blind to their Savior.
How often does our sinful nature get in the way of God’s will in our lives? How often do we turn down an easy path, or a comfortable path, or a familiar path, rather than the narrow way of Christ? We must repent of these wandering sins, and ask God to forgive us, to guide us, and to protect us while we are still on the way. He already has a place for us in heaven. Let him take you by the hand until you arrive there.
Something Extra:
Ecclesiastes 1:12
12 I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. (NIV)
The word “was” in English reflects the tense of the Hebrew accurately; it has made some people question whether Solomon would talk this way about himself. But drawing toward the end of his reign, it’s not surprising at all that Solomon would talk about himself in the past tense. Solomon had walked in number of sins in his lifetime, with the kind of reckless abandon that tragically lies in wait for the very wealthy or very powerful.
In Solomon’s life, he had fallen in adultery, marrying many more than the one wife God intended for any one man (Mark 10:8). He had fallen into idolatry, letting his many wives lead him into the worship and veneration of many false gods, including Ashtoreth of the Sidonians, Molech of the Ammonites, Chemosh of the Moabites, and many others (1 Kings 11:4-8). This book will show us some of Solomon’s repentance for these sins.
Power and wealth don’t make a person’s actions right. The ability to hide a sin doesn’t atone for that sin. Only in Jesus is there forgiveness; and in Jesus, that forgiveness covers over all of our sins.
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. His wife, Kathryn, attended Chapel from 1987-1990 while studying Secondary Education (Theater and Math) at UW-Madison. Kathryn’s father, John Meyer, was also the first man to serve as a Vicar at Chapel.
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