JOHN 5
In the fourth chapter of John, we saw in Jesus the personification of God's justice as mercy in response to wisdom, the bearer of truth. John 5 reveals Jesus as God's righteous judge. This theological understanding of God's justice is presented in the context of the story of the paralytic man who had been placed by the pool called Bethesda in Jerusalem. According to some early versions of John, the waters of the pool were occasionally stirred by an angel of God and when this occurred whoever made it first into the pool at that time would be healed. What starts out as one of several healing miracles of Jesus found in the gospels contains the Bethesdian Dilemma.
BIBLICAL NUMEROLOGY
Numbers possess coded meanings in Bible. This is particularly true in the Gospel of John. The purpose of numerology is not to convey a sense of mystery but rather it is used like shorthand to provide information without having to use costly ink and papyrus to explain something. It served an economic purpose. Times, amounts, ages, and any use of numbers deserves close scrutiny when reading the Bible. There is usually a meaning attached to it that hints or suggests some background information the author is getting at as we will see in the story of the paralytic man.
For instance, the number five comes into play in the mention of the five covered pillars which identifies the place as Bethesda. Bethesda comes from the Hebrew words beth, meaning house, and hesed, meaning mercy. As noted in my previous post, the number five is the numerological symbol for mercy, sometimes identified as grace. The five covered pillars become the house of mercy. Invalids of various kinds were brought here, which suggests it served as some sort of care center. The notion of an angel stirring the waters has been, in some translations or versions, eliminated. This information was assigned to verse four of this chapter. If your Bible does not mention an angel, check the verse numbering in this chapter. In most translations without this account, the verse numbering goes from verse three to verse five. There is no verse four.
MERCY
It is unknown what level of care was given, but the suggestion is that family or friends would have been the main care providers, as the paralytic in this story points out he had neither to help him into the pool. The notion of mercy implies more than compassion. Mercy, as we observed in chapter four, is shown to the undeserving. Mercy involves judgement and a willful suspension of justice. Chronic illness or disability; the type seen in this story, was largely viewed as a result of sin in the middle east of the ancient world. The sin was either the result of something done by the suffering person or by some member of the suffering person's immediate family. It was seen as punishment, an act of God's justice. The mercy most likely shown in the case of Bethesda would have been by those who passed by in the form of alms, food, or some other form of care. There is very little information as to how these individuals managed to exist or subsist, which brings us to the story of the paralytic.
THE STORY
Jesus is entering Jerusalem via the Sheep's Gate. [Jesus is, as John will point out, the Good Shepherd. The editors do not miss a beat at drumming home a point.] The reason Jesus is in Jerusalem is because of a feast. What is interesting is that the editors don't bother telling us what feast he was observing. It obviously was not important but served as the reason to get Jesus in the city to tell this story. There are some oddities about this story. The first is that Jesus and his disciples are traveling on the Sabbath day, the day of rest. The authors of this story are making a point about Jesus' divine nature. The Sabbath day is also the seventh day, not only a day rest, but numerologically it represents God's word, God's completed acts. So Jesus walking about, carrying on as usual on the Sabbath, becomes a symbolic reference to his divine nature and parentage which Jesus will reference later on in this chapter.
The paralytic man appears not have been totally paralyzed. It is apparent that he could attempt to get himself to the pool, perhaps using his arms to pull himself there when the waters were stirring. The length of this man's illness was 38 years. The number 38 is not numerologically significant by itself, but I would suggest it is code for the number's combined value, 3+8 =11 which is significant. The number 10 in biblical numerology stands for the law and orderliness (the Ten Commandments , for example). The number 11, on the other hand, symbolizes chaos, disorder, excess, lawbreaking, and judgement. We also encountered the number 11 in the story of Samaritan woman who had five husbands and was living with a sixth male which the combined numbers make 11. In her case, she was wise to admit and accept the message of Jesus. In this story there is a much different outcome.
[Note: In the icon I chose for this post you will see the number 11 in several places. I'm not sure that is what the artist had in mind, but I couldn't help but notice its abundant presence in this piece.]
According to this story, Jesus deliberately makes an effort to stop at this pool and chooses to heal this particular paralytic. There is no mention of his paying attention to anyone else or that he is moved by compassion at seeing the suffering that is all about him. Again this is a story, a parable about Jesus, so such details are irrelevant from the authors and editors point of view. What is relevant is that this healing story is not an unconditional healing. Rather it is a story of healing as a show of mercy given by a judge. In fact, Jesus asks the man if he wants to be healed. You would think this would be a no-brainer, but the authors are being deliberate in having Jesus ask this question.
THE BETHESDIAN DILEMMA
There are probably several ways to interpret Jesus asking this question. Given what I've already said about this individual, especially the coded significance of his age, his particular paralysis is depicted as the result of something he did - some sin. There is a sense that he deserves what has happened to him. There is also a hint of egocentrism that creeps into to this man saying he cannot get to the pool in time. He says he has no one to put him in the pool and cannot get himself there in time. On the surface this is tragic and we are prone to feel sorry for him, but there is something amiss in the way this man describes his situation.
Is it that he literally has no ability to get into the pool and needs total assistance but does not ask for help?
Is he too proud to ask for help?
No one helping this man for 38 years would also beg the question of John's audience at the time: "What did this man do that others refuse to show him mercy?" He must have done something tremendously egregious to be such an ignored, tragic figure.
It may be that he suffers from a narrow religious perspective; that he is too accepting of his fate, that he wallows in his condition and is somewhat comfortable with his misery. If so, he's as much (or more) a prisoner of his religious beliefs about his paralysis than to the paralysis itself. He is in some sense spiritually paralyzed, and this seems to be the point that is being made by the authors about this man. So Jesus makes of it a simple choice on this man's part, he simply asks him "Do you want to be healed?"
Notably, the man does not give a direct answer but rather offers an excuse as to why he hasn't been healed. So Jesus makes it even simpler. He tells the man to get up and [here's the clincher] to take (carry) his bed and walk. And the man does just that.
The dilemma the man is faced with is that, in getting up and (more importantly) carrying his bed, he is violating the prohibition against working on the Sabbath. What strikes me as odd is that Jesus, knowing it is the Sabbath, knows the prohibition against working and tells the man to carry his bed. Why not just tell the man to get up and walk? Why carry his bed? In John, there is a capricious side to Jesus that is used to warn the readers to not take Jesus lightly: Grace and mercy are not to be toyed with or taken for granted.
I would suggest there is an agenda at play in the way this story is being told. The reason for this story's appearance in John is to provide John's authors and editors a reason to have Jesus talk about his divine nature and his mandate as judge of the earth. A secondary agenda is to provide a written polemic against what John depicts as a distortion of God's law and idolatrous adherence to the written word by the "Jews" which, according to John, they misunderstand.
In the story, once the "Jews" see the healed paralytic walking about carrying his bed their first concern is not that the man has been miraculously healed but rather that he is carrying his is bed on the Sabbath. The presumed reason why he is being questioned by the "Jews" is that he went to the Temple to declare his wholeness. We can assume this because Jesus later catches up with him in the Temple. The "Jews" are most likely priests, in this case. As bothered as they are that this man is carrying his bed, they are more bothered that someone had the audacity to heal him on the Sabbath and ask the healed paralytic who did such a thing. The man said he didn't know who healed him and the story says he didn't know because Jesus slipped into the crowd. What is implied is that the man does not try to follow Jesus, to thank Jesus, but goes his own way and follows the Law by showing himself to the temple authorities. In the other gospels, Jesus would have instructed the man to do so, but Jesus "slipping away" is used as code for the reader to seek the one showing mercy; to seek Jesus.
As the story continues, Jesus meets up with the man in the Temple and affirms the obvious that man is healed. It is interesting that many modern editors have added exclamation marks after this, as if Jesus is excited for the man. It may be that Jesus was pleased for the man, but John's version of Jesus is not of a person who gets excited, and what Jesus says next seems to confirm the serious intent of this meeting. Jesus tells the man to sin no more, less he risks something worse happening to him.
What could be possibly worse than paralysis, unless it would be judged for something against God, himself. And that is precisely the dilemma this man finds himself in. The question is what would offend God more, turning Jesus into the Temple authorities or saying nothing to them. The man does not know who Jesus is, even after being healed by him. He knows the Temple authorities. The implied question is whether this man committed a greater sin by telling the Temple authorities who Jesus is.
John doesn't have to answer the question directly. That he commits a greater offence in turning Jesus in to the authorities has been implied throughout the story. In John, the authors and editors exploit Jesus as being God's Only-begotten Son; in that, everything Jesus does is purposeful, even if what he does exploits situations or people to prove the point being made by these authors and editors.
After the healed paralytic man tells the Temple authorities who Jesus is, he is no longer needed in the story. We are left with the disturbing thought that his fate was worse for having been healed by Jesus; that he feared religious authority rather than than show gratitude for God's mercy. He expresses no gratitude towards Jesus. He tells the authorities that it is Jesus who healed him. The fate of this man is not a concern by the authors and editors. It's a story that gets them to the point they want to make about Jesus and the Temple (Jewish) authorities. The story basically ends with the editors explaining that healing, working on the Sabbath, is why the "Jews" persecuted Jesus. In fact John quotes Jesus answering yet another unspoken question, "My Father is working until now, and I am working."
EQUALITY WITH GOD
The authors and editors have Jesus give one of many soliloquies on himself in John. Presumably, Jesus is addressing the Temple authorities in this soliloquy in which he claim to be equal to God the Father, which John points out is why the "Jews" persecute Jesus (which is to say that is why the traditional Jews of the day were persecuting Jewish Christians by kicking them out of their synagogues). There is strong reference to salvation theology in this chapter, of Jesus giving life to whom he will. Again salvation is not universal in John. It's a matter of divine selection. Jesus claims he can do nothing apart from the Father and the Father has turned all judgment over to him.
THE DISPASSIONATE JUSTICE OF JESUS IN JOHN
Unlike John 4, John 5 is less merciful in judgment or perhaps, better said, clarifies what mercy means. In John 5 we learn that mercy is shown only to those who believe in Jesus, that he is God's only-begotten, and is the saviour of those who believe. Mercy, after all, is an act of judgement.
Belief, in John, must be understood as intellectual assent rather than faith. It is perhaps the Gospel of John where the confusion over use of the word pistis originates, and it is the Letter of James that addresses the Johannine theological perspective rather than the Pauline perspective where faith is seen as action and motivation. Faith as belief is stagnant, but that is what Johannine theology indicates it to be. Faith, in John, is not a matter of action, choice or motivation, but a matter of intellectual assent bestowed to those who are chosen. In other words, according to John if you are a Christian you have been chosen and the only free choice left is to the ability to reject being chosen.
This is the dilemma that John poses throughout its gospel. The only choice a believer has is not to believe and by extension this forms the basis for John's polemic against Judaic Jews. They were the chosen people who chose not to believe in Jesus as God's only-begotten Son even though, according to John, their own scriptures should have clued them in to who Jesus is.
John has Jesus telling the Judaic community, via his diatribe against the Temple authorities, that they are worshipping their scriptures rather than God; worshipping their laws to point of their own damnation, as illustrated in the story of healed paralytic; that they do not love God and do not (cannot?) understand their own scriptures. In the end, there is no mercy being shown to those who do not believe, and Jesus can't help them because he must do the will of his Father.
With this story John ends the discussion on the initiation rite of Baptism. It is notable that the paralytic has resided by the water that could have renewed him for 38 years and presses no one to help him. It is notable that when offered living water, in the person of Jesus, he shows no inclination of wanting to be healed and no gratitude for being healed or being granted a new lease on life. Again, John the Baptist is referenced to lend credibility to this perspective as a means to remove any nagging doubts amongst this gospel's audience. The story serves as a final warning to those who have been baptized, not to take God's mercy lightly.
In chapter six John moves to a discussion on Holy Communion.
Until next time, stay faithful.
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