Jn 5:1-16,br />1There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep [Gate] a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes. 3In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled. [4] 5One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be well?” 7The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.” 8Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.” 9Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.
Now that day was a sabbath. 10So the Jews said to the man who was cured, “It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.” 11He answered them, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’ ” 12They asked him, “Who is the man who told you, ‘Take it up and walk’?” 13The man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there. 14After this Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him, “Look, you are well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse may happen to you.” 15The man went and told the Jews that Jesus was the one who had made him well. 16Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus because he did this on a sabbath.
CURE OF THE PARALYTIC: In John, the two signs or miracles of Jesus at Cana in Galilee are worked in response to requests: from Mary in behalf of the newlyweds in Cana (2:3) and from a royal official for his sick son (4:47, 49). Jesus next meets a man who has been ill for so long—38 years—that the latter seems to have lost hope in being healed.
The encounter takes place at the pool of Bethesda. Many sick people flock there because they believe that its moving, bubbling water has curative powers. It is said that an angel comes down to stir it, and the first one into the water has the best chances of being healed. As the sick man cannot move fast and has no one to help him, he always arrives long after the supposed stirring of the water.
Jesus asks the man whether he wishes to be healed. His feelings of helplessness are expressed in his inability to say “yes.” All he thinks of is his difficulty in getting to the water when it is stirred because he has no one to help him. Jesus goes ahead and heals the sick man anyway. The Jews take offense that the cure is done on a Sabbath. But for Jesus, any day is a good day to give life back to a man whose body has been devitalized for 38 years.