When Healing Becomes Controversial: The Day Jesus Broke All the Rules
What’s John 5 about?
Jesus heals a man who’d been waiting by a pool for 38 years, but instead of celebrating, the religious leaders lose their minds because it happened on the Sabbath. What follows is one of the most explosive conversations about Jesus’ identity and authority in the entire New Testament.
The Full Context
Picture Jerusalem during one of the major Jewish festivals – the city buzzing with pilgrims, temple courts packed with worshippers, and the air thick with anticipation. John places this dramatic encounter in John 5 during what’s likely the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), when Jews from across the diaspora would flood the holy city. But John doesn’t take us to the temple courts or the bustling marketplaces. Instead, he leads us to a place of desperation: the Pool of Bethesda, where the sick, blind, and paralyzed gathered, clinging to hopes of miraculous healing.
This isn’t just another healing story – it’s the moment when Jesus’ ministry takes a decisive turn toward confrontation. Up until now in John’s Gospel, we’ve seen mostly positive responses: water turned to wine, a royal official’s faith, conversations about new birth. But John 5 marks the beginning of serious opposition. The healing itself takes just three verses to describe, but John spends the rest of the chapter unpacking the theological earthquake it triggered. Here, Jesus makes his most explicit claims about his relationship with the Father, setting up the central tension that will drive the rest of the Gospel toward the cross.
What the Ancient Words Tell Us
The Greek text of John 5:6 contains a word that stops me in my tracks every time I read it. When Jesus asks the paralyzed man, “Do you want to get well?” he uses the verb theleis – not just “do you wish” or “would you like,” but “do you will it?” It’s the language of decisive choice, of summoning every ounce of determination you have left.
After 38 years of disappointment, this man could have given up willing anything. He could have settled into the comfortable misery of learned helplessness. But Jesus doesn’t ask about his circumstances or his feelings – he asks about his will. There’s something profoundly respectful about this question, treating this forgotten man as someone still capable of choosing his own future.
Grammar Geeks
The word Bethesda means “house of mercy” or “place of outpouring” in Hebrew. Archaeological excavations have revealed a complex of pools with five porticoes, exactly as John describes, making this one of the most archaeologically verified locations in the Gospels.
Then there’s that strange detail about the 38 years. John could have said “many years” or “a long time,” but he gives us the exact number. Why? Some scholars notice that Israel wandered in the wilderness for 38 years before entering the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 2:14). Could John be suggesting that this man’s healing represents the end of his own wilderness wandering? The parallel is too specific to be coincidental.
What Would the Original Audience Have Heard?
When Jesus tells the healed man to “pick up your mat and walk” on the Sabbath, every Jewish reader would have immediately understood the controversy this would create. The Mishnah – the oral law that interpreted Torah – specifically prohibited carrying objects on the Sabbath. But here’s what makes it even more provocative: Jesus doesn’t just heal on the Sabbath, he commands the man to do exactly what the religious authorities considered work.
This wasn’t an accident or oversight. Jesus was making a deliberate theological statement about the nature of the Sabbath and his authority over it. The pool of Bethesda sat near the temple complex, in the heart of religious Jerusalem. Everyone who mattered in Jewish religious leadership would hear about this within hours.
Did You Know?
The Pool of Bethesda was actually a ritual purification complex connected to the temple. Sick people gathering there would have been seen as ritually unclean, yet Jesus enters this space and brings healing – a powerful symbol of how his ministry reaches the marginalized.
The man’s response is telling too. When confronted by the religious leaders about carrying his mat, he doesn’t defend his actions or argue theology. He simply says, “The man who healed me told me to pick it up and walk” (John 5:11). He doesn’t even know Jesus’ name yet, but he trusts the authority of the one who gave him back his life.
Wrestling with the Text
Here’s what puzzles me about this story: Why does Jesus slip away after the healing? John 5:13 tells us Jesus disappeared into the crowd before the man could even identify him. This seems so unlike the Jesus we see elsewhere in John’s Gospel, who’s usually eager to reveal his identity and explain his actions.
I think the answer lies in what happens next. Jesus finds the man later in the temple courts – not the other way around. Jesus controls the timing of their second encounter, choosing the perfect moment to reveal himself and deliver a warning about sin (John 5:14). It’s strategic, not evasive.
Wait, That’s Strange…
Notice that Jesus doesn’t ask the man about his faith before healing him, unlike many other healing stories in the Gospels. The healing seems to be purely an act of divine compassion, not a response to demonstrated faith.
But then the man immediately goes and tells the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who healed him. Some commentators see this as betrayal, but I wonder if it’s actually obedience. Jesus had just told him to stop sinning, and perhaps the man understood that hiding the truth would itself be a sin. His identity reveal might be his first act of integrity in decades.
How This Changes Everything
The healing sets up the real drama of John 5: Jesus’ defense of his actions and his explosive claims about his relationship with the Father. Starting in John 5:17, Jesus doesn’t apologize or explain away the Sabbath violation. Instead, he doubles down with one of the most audacious statements in human history: “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.”
The Jewish leaders immediately understand the implications – Jesus is claiming to be equal with God (John 5:18). In their minds, he’s crossed the line from controversial teacher to dangerous blasphemer. But Jesus doesn’t back down. He launches into a discourse about his unity with the Father that’s so intimate and exclusive it would make every monotheistic Jew in earshot deeply uncomfortable.
“The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”
This isn’t just a claim to divine authority – it’s a description of divine relationship. Jesus is describing a partnership so complete, so unified, that his actions are literally the Father’s actions. The healing wasn’t just Jesus being compassionate; it was God being compassionate. The Sabbath “violation” wasn’t rebellion against divine law; it was divine law being perfectly fulfilled.
The passage ends with Jesus’ warning about judgment and resurrection (John 5:25-29), making it clear that his claims aren’t just theological abstractions. He’s announcing that the future of every person listening depends on how they respond to him. The stakes couldn’t be higher.
Key Takeaway
Sometimes God’s greatest mercies come disguised as disruptions to our religious comfort zones. The very thing that offended the religious leaders – healing on the Sabbath – was actually God’s compassion in action. Our systems and traditions, no matter how well-intentioned, should never become barriers to experiencing God’s love and power.
Further Reading
Internal Links:
External Scholarly Resources:
- The Gospel of John by D.A. Carson
- John by Andreas Köstenberger
- The Gospel of John: A Commentary by Rudolf Bultmann
Tags
John 5:1, John 5:6, John 5:8, John 5:14, John 5:17, John 5:18, John 5:24, Healing, Sabbath, Divine Authority, Jesus’ Identity, Religious Opposition, Pool of Bethesda, Paralysis, Faith, Mercy
