Jesus My Shepherd (Jn. 5)

John. The author of this gospel relates an incident the other gospels do not, of a man long lying in wait for a healing that has not come. 

Bethesda. The house of mercy, house of lovingkindness; ironically, no one had extended any to the lame man lying there, poolside until Jesus does. 

The lame man. Thirty-eight years of misery, hopelessness, (John 5:5, NASB); yet, seemingly hoping against hope to be made well, a man without the life-giving water, lies in wait beside the pool. 

Jesus. The gate for the sheep at the sheep gate’s pool, the one stirred occasionally by an angel of the Lord (v. 3-4); Jesus, the living water, offering entrance to wholeness, to renewed life, to mercy, to lovingkindness, all to a man who doesn’t deserve it.

Jesus, who comes and asks the man, “Do you wish to get well?” (v. 6). Interestingly enough, the man doesn’t respond with an emphatic, “Yes!” or even a pathetic, "No." Instead, he responds with an excuse, but Jesus—already knowing the answer and not one to be put off by an excuse, however seemingly valid it was to the man—tells the man lying there waiting to be healed, “Take up your pallet and walk”  before slipping away into  the crowd (v. 8, 13).

The Jews. Early as it was in Jesus’ ministry, they persecute him already because he has clearly equated himself with his Father in heaven, whose work he is about, even on the Sabbath (v. 16, 18). The Jews, who search the Scriptures for words of life they are clearly unwilling to ingest (v. 39-40), instead seeking to kill the Messiah they purport to be looking forward to receiving. 

The Father. At work even now (v. 17). Because Jesus sees God at work, Jesus, likewise, works to bring life to a world dead in the trespasses of sin and extends hope: “Truly, Truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (v. 17-24). 

I can visualize it very well. Not only has John set the scene here, but the other gospels clearly paint a picture of the Pharisees and scribes following Jesus around the country, jealous of his fame, seeking ways to dispose of him. These Jews use God’s own Word given freely to them against him, the Word of Life. They seek to destroy using the Scriptures God gave Moses, having transferred their allegiance to a mere man (Moses) instead of the man God sent, refusing to believe Jesus’ words (5:45-47). These Jews use Jesus’ own Sabbath work (he who is Lord of the Sabbath, as Luke 6:5 relates) as another weapon in their arsenal against him. Jesus clearly answers them, not running from the attacks on his being (Jn. 5:17-47).

In the chapter preceding this, John has just related Jesus’ telling the receptive Samaritan woman that he Is the living water (Jn. 4:10). In the chapters to follow, John will relate Jesus clearly saying that he is the door, the shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep (Jn. 10:9-11), yet the unreceptive Jews cannot see. This story of the lame man lying at the pool is an intersection of Jesus as the living water and the door. 

Jesus, the living water, miraculously cures the man who never steps foot in the pool but has waited so long. He could have helped him to the pool, led him there even, but he does not. While the man lies mere feet from the pool that he knows would heal him if he could just reach it in time, Jesus tells him to get up, take up his bed, and walk (thus effecting the cure and drawing the Jews’ attention to the now physically whole man). Jesus offers him the opportunity he has long been denied for physical healing and the man obeys Jesus' command: 

Those that were sick of these bodily diseases took the pains to come far and had the patience to wait long for a cure—any of us would have done the same, and we ought to do so: but O that men were as wise for their souls, and as solicitous to get their spiritual diseases healed! We are all by nature impotent folks in spiritual things, blind, halt, and withered, but effectual provision is made for our cure if we will but observe orders. (Matthew Henry Commentary, John 5)

Jesus, the shepherd, immediately seeks and finds the one he has just healed now in the adjacent temple, and he offers him the opportunity for true spiritual healing, his need for which having long been deadened or denied by the physical suffering he has experienced. Jesus doesn’t leave this poor sheep lost in the ignorance of who has healed him. Instead he offers words of life, the door to walk through to salvation, telling him, “Behold you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse may befall you” (Jn. 5:14). Jesus finds him in the temple and offers him words that correlate with how he is living—words of the law—and tells him not to sin any more, to keep the law. Lest the man be like Israel, “continually straying like sheep” while trying to keep the law, Jesus extends this warning to the once lame man now walking, offering him the opportunity to “return to the Shepherd and Guardian of [his] soul” (1 Pet. 2:25). Unlike the law, which couldn’t redeem him (as if any man could fully keep the law, thus the warning), Jesus could. The man’s faith in Jesus could truly make him well but only if he repented of his sin and followed him. Jesus is the door to the sheep fold. The man is left with a choice. 

While I may wonder, I can't know what that lame man chose, but I can know with certainty what this spiritually lame person chooses as I follow him who in his mercy has set me free from the curse of the law (Gal. 3:12-14).

Know that today there is only one way to be saved, and Jesus is this way (Jn. 10:1-18). There is no other way to the Father but through the Son. Don’t be deceived! Jesus clearly states, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me” (Jn. 14:6), and his own witness is verified by many including John the Baptist, John the disciple of Jesus who wrote these words down (Jn. 5:33-35), as well as Jesus’ works (v. 36), the witness of God (v. 36-37) and the witness of Scripture (v. 39-47).

There is a door into the sheepfold of heaven. His name is Jesus. Ps. 23 . . .