During this season of Lent, I will be working through Bishop Robert Barron’s Lenten Gospel Reflections (available through Word on Fire). Each day, I will share the readings and the reflection question, followed by my own thoughts.
March 29, 2022
There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Hebrew called Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. 3 In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed. 5 One man was there, who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him and knew that he had been lying there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?”
7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is troubled, and while I am going another steps down before me.”
8 Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your pallet, and walk.”
9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his pallet and walked. Now that day was the sabbath. 10 So the Jews said to the man who was cured, “It is the sabbath, it is not lawful for you to carry your pallet.”
11 But he answered them, “The man who healed me said to me, ‘Take up your pallet, and walk.’ ”
12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your pallet, and walk’?”
13 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. 14 Afterward, Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse befall you.”
15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. 16 And this was why the Jews persecuted Jesus, because he did this on the sabbath.
The Holy Bible (Revised Standard Version; Second Catholic Edition, Jn 5:1–16). (2006). Ignatius Press.
What did the Jewish leaders focus on and what did they miss or refuse to see? What blinded them?
Several things have struck me in the past while reading this text. First, why wouldn’t anyone at any point have said that the man who had been lying next to the pool for thirty-eight years should be given priority over those who had just recently arrived? Second, the Jewish leaders really give themselves away as power-hungry bullies here. Instead of going and helping this man into the water on a weekday, they don’t bother to interact with him at all until they get the chance to jump down his throat about trivial interpretations of the Law.
I also think it interesting that Jesus here seems to highlight a link between sin and suffering: in verse 14, He says, “Sin no more, that nothing worse may befall you.” How are we to reconcile this with His teaching that an affliction had nothing to do with sin (John 9:3), or with the Psalmist’s lament: “Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches”? I found some helpful commentary in Verbum: the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible says that “the Bible reveals a link between sin and suffering, with the former being the cause of the latter (Ps 107:17). This general truth, however, does not extend to every individual case (Jn 9:3).”
A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture includes this note: “The warning given by Jesus shows that in this case there was personal sin behind the infirmity. It is not always so, (Jn 9:1–3), and here we cannot say whether sin was the direct physical cause of the malady or the moral cause of such a particular form of penal retribution (cf. 1 Cor 11:30).”
Very helpful that both of these study notes addressed the specific verse (John 9:3) that I thought was in conflict with John 5:14!
Now, to answer today’s reflection questions. The Jewish leaders were so focused on the minutiae of Jewish ceremonial law that they lost the plot entirely. They couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Christ’s description in Matthew 23 is particularly apt: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice. They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger” (Matthew 23:2-4). So they focused not on the miracle that had taken place, but on the apparent violation of Jewish ceremonial law – a lame man, miraculously healed after 38 years, was walking while holding his mat! Sad that they were so blinded by prideful legalism that they entirely ignored everything except the breach in conduct.
Lord, open my eyes to the lost and downtrodden. Open my heart to their plight. Fill me with Your love and let me pour it out on those around me. And let me recognize and celebrate the wonders that You work.
Steven Mills 