What’s this about, this “stirring of the water in the pool”? Whatever it was, most people experience similar things, similar hopes, similar opportunities. And often it's others who seem to get there, not us.
Jesus said to him, “Rise up, lift up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man became whole, and he lifted up his bed and walked, that day being the Sabbath.
Because this man does want to be made whole, Jesus gives him three commands. He himself is to “rise up”. He is to “lift up his bed”. He is to “walk”, carrying his bed. This is way beyond the theoretical. It took place “at once”. He was changed; he could carry burdens; he could walk.
So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to lift up your bed.” But he answered them, “The man who made me whole, that man said to me, ‘Lift up your bed, and walk.’ ” They then asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Lift up and walk’?”
The Jerusalem legal and religious authorities had no power to give strength to the strengthless. But they did have power – so they used the power they did have to oppose the rerstored man, and to oppose Jesus. On “the Sabbath”, he must not “lift up his bed”. Can the world around us (as strengthless human beings) help us? Does it instead oppose Jesus?
Does Jesus demand anything from us when we desire to escape from our strengthless paralysis?
Now the man made whole did not know who it was, for Jesus had turned away, the place being crowded. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See! You have become whole. Sin no more, that no worse thing may come to be to you!”
Jesus avoided all puiblicity. Why was this man now “in the temple”? What did Jesus now want him to do?
