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The Healing of the Paralytic
In Cana of Galilee, Jesus performed the first sign. In Cana of Galilee, Jesus performed the second sign. The first sign is water turning into wine, symbolizing the new covenant inaugurated by Christ.
The second sign of Cana is the son who is alive. An official of the king who lived in Capernaum reaches Jesus in Cana and asks him to hurry and go to Capernaum to prevent his son from dying because he is severely ill. Jesus told him, “Go, your son will live.” The man believed Jesus’s word and went back. He left Jesus and headed home. The next day, he met his servants, who came to meet him, announcing, ‘Your son is alive.’ He asked them when he had begun to improve; they answered, ‘Yesterday at the seventh hour.’
It indeed corresponds to one in the afternoon. However, the time on our clock matters less than the numerical indication. If the Samaritan woman’s scene is set at the sixth hour, the child’s healing happens at the seventh hour. This signifies completeness, fulfillment. The same phrase is repeated three times: ‘Your child will live.’
The second sign that appeared in Cana completes the first cycle of institutions and marks the beginning of the second part of the story, pointing to Jesus’ symbolic creation of the ‘new man.’ The son, created in the image of humanity, regains life after meeting Jesus. This symbolizes the creation of the new man.
This episode occurs at the end of chapter 4, while the entire chapter 5 of the Gospel according to John focuses on another sign—the paralytic. It is the sign that marks the beginning of Jesus’ ministry among people. John mentions only seven signs performed by Jesus. The number is already significant, and he chooses to describe some miraculous actions by the Master because they symbolize realities that point to a deeper, more profound truth. A physical, material fact known to witnesses refers to a more mysterious reality that reveals God’s work for every human being.
The healing of a paralytic who gains the ability to walk is a significant symbol. Humanity is halted by sin, paralyzed, and unable to move forward or follow the law. When Jesus encounters the paralyzed man, he can stand and walk. Chapter 5 will include a lengthy exchange between Jesus and the Jews, focusing on the law. Jesus demonstrates that his work is not against the law but aims to enable people to live by it. First, he performs the miracle of healing the paralytic, then explains that his work is about creating a new capacity.
But let us follow the text. “There was, then, a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” From the accounts in the Synoptics—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—we get the impression that Jesus went to Jerusalem only once, because all three describe first his ministry in Galilee, then his journey, and finally his arrival in Jerusalem, where the arrest and Passion happen immediately. The fourth Gospel, however, describes several visits Jesus made to Jerusalem.
The story features a recurring theme of journeys. In chapter two, we already mentioned that Jesus went up to Jerusalem for the Passover, then returned to Galilee, passing through Samaria. He now goes back to Jerusalem for an unspecified feast but remains connected to the Jewish calendar. “Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes. In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled.”
Strangely, the story starts with a present-tense verb: “There is a pool in Jerusalem.”Why? The Gospel of John was written around 90 A.D., after Jerusalem had been destroyed in 70 A.D. If this sentence had been written in 90 A.D., he would have said there was a pool in Jerusalem. But saying “there is” in Jerusalem suggests the narrator is describing a time before 70 A.D., when Jerusalem still stood. This story is among the earliest written by the evangelist. Keep in mind, the details for 90 A.D. come from the final, most complete versions. However, the evangelist’s work spanned roughly 70 years, from about 30 to 100 A.D. During this time, the Gospel grew and was revised many times. John preached and retold it countless times. Over the years, he naturally added and updated details. The Gospel developed organically, like a small seed that gradually matures into something great.
Over more than 70 years, the Gospel of John has grown as a living organism, and we find occasional clues of its development in its ancient text. The information provided is highly significant. It describes an unknown pool; he even gives it the name Bethesda, a peculiar Aramaic word that various Greek copyists have altered in many ways because they no longer understood it. ‘Bet’ means house, and ‘hezed’ means mercy. In Aramaic, the article is placed at the end, so ‘Bethesda’ means house of mercy. It functions as a sort of hospice, a transit point, a place where the incurable are gathered.
The pool, he says, is located near the sheep’s door. In Greek, it is called ‘probatica.’ ‘Probaton’ refers to the sheep. The door, ‘probatica,’ should be translated as the shepherd’s door; that is, it was the entrance through which animals meant for sacrifice at the temple passed. You can easily imagine that entire flocks of sheep were dirty and, therefore, could not pass through the main walkway, but rather through a service entrance—the sheep door—where the animals destined for sacrifice were gathered in stalls or pens, purified, and then ritually offered at the temple.
Why include all these urban details? Because they hold theological and symbolic significance. John wants us, the listeners and readers of his Gospel, to understand a deeper message. The sheep’s door represents the flock, which is the people, a people destined for slaughter. In that house of mercy, there was a pool with five porticoes. We see the number five symbolized here. It’s the number of fingers on one hand, but more importantly, it refers to the five books of the Pentateuch. The Torah of Moses is divided into five parts, and Jews call it the five-fifths of the law. Five often symbolizes the law itself.
Many commentators suggest that a pool with five porticoes is a detail created by John to symbolize the law. When you think of a pool, you usually picture a square or rectangular shape, which naturally has four sides. So, how could there be five? Archaeologists have found a double pool with five porticoes north of the Jerusalem temple. It has two basins, one lower than the other, surrounded on four sides by gates, with the central dam also serving as an entrance. This shows there were five entrances where people, including many sick, lame, and paralyzed individuals, would gather and be blocked.
It is the people who are sick. Imagine the scene of these porticoes beneath which so many sick are laid, unable to move, act, or live. It is a symbolic and tragic picture of helpless humanity. Those two tanks were connected to the temple’s hydraulic system. As we can easily guess, water was necessary for the sacrifices. It was needed to wash the animals and then clean the utensils, which were stained with blood. It was also required to wash the priests’ linen clothes. By killing the animals, everything became stained with blood. Theplace, the instruments, and the clothing all needed washing. But that blood is sacred; it is part of the sacrifice ritual whereby the wastewater was carried into these tanks on the mountain’s bank beneath the temple.
These large cisterns stored the wastewater, and occasionally, the drain was emptied. The water entered the first tank, which was connected to the second, prompting a transfer of water, and ultimately, the last tank was emptied, flowing into the Kedron stream. This movement of the water was seen as remarkable. Those who were sick gathered under the entrances, waiting for the water to move.
Verse four is placed in brackets in our text. In some editions, it is not even included. It is mentioned in the note because it does not appear in all the ancient manuscripts. It describes a particular legend: an angel would descend into the pool at certain times and stir the water. The first person to enter after the water was stirred would be healed of any disease. The sick waited for the water to be stirred because it was seen as a miraculous angelic event. However, it was probably just wastewater flowing from the temple. Still, these were sacred waters that carried all the blood residue. The first sick person to enter the water was miraculously healed.
There, Jesus encounters a poor man who had been in that situation for 38 years and could never enter the water first because he had no one. It is not this sick man who seeks Jesus. It is important. The evangelist John often emphasizes that the initiative is Jesus’. The prodigious signs are not a response to the man’s request but an initiative of the Lord, who sees the miserable condition of humanity and intervenes to help it. Jesus asks that man: “Do you want to be healed?“ Indeed, he wants to be healed. But the answer is: “I have no one (literally in Greek, he says to him: ‘I don’t have a man’) to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets there before me. Jesus said to him, ‘Rise, take up your mat, and walk.‘ Immediately, the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.
There is an important idea here. Jesus offers healing, not the sacred waters or the disturbance of the waters. The people lying paralyzed under the five porticoes symbolize humanity oppressed by the law. Under the law of five gates, humanity is paralyzed; it cannot save itself or heal. This means that rules and norms are given, but people remain unable to apply them. The novelty of Jesus is not new legislation but healing man’s wounded nature. It is humanity’s inability to do good that enables it to do so.
The law no longer represents oppression but offers the possibility of life. The man who was paralyzed after encountering Jesus can now walk on his legs. He had been paralyzed for 38 years. That number must hold significance; 38 is close to 40, missing two years. Forty symbolizes the Exodus. The healing of the paralytic signifies the start of Jesus’ exodus. After two years of ministry, Jesus will observe the Passover of true liberation, and the man who can now walk might become a disciple.
But it was a Saturday, a holiday, a day of rest when Jesus told that man, take your mat. The Jews blocked him, saying, ‘You are working on the Sabbath; it is not lawful.’ The man defended himself by saying that the one who healed him ‘told me to take my mat.’ Here, a contrast is created. The word of Jesus frees from the oppressive law of the Sabbath, which in God’s plan was for man’s good. However, in the practical application by the scribes and the teachers of the law, it became a form of oppression. Jesus, the liberator, heals the body and interprets the law in favor of man. Jesus then meets the one who was healed and warns him, “Look, you are well; do not sin anymore so that nothing worse may happen to you.”
The theme here is sin, the barrier that prevents humanity from moving forward. Man, instead of obeying Jesus, accuses him. He reports to the Jews that Jesus healed someone and told him to take his mat. Because of this, a conflict between Jesus and the Jews erupts.
In the Gospel of John, we often speak of the Jews with a very controversial tone. We must be careful to understand this detail because it does not refer to all Jews. Jesus himself and his disciples are Jews. When the evangelist John mentions ‘Jews,’ he is talking about a specific group of Pharisees who were hostile to the Christian church during the last decades of the first century. This group within the synagogue was stubbornly opposed to the new church. Therefore, this is not an anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic discourse. It is a discussion within the same religious community but aimed at those who are obstinate in refusing the one sent by God, according to the Scriptures.
From the discourse that starts as a dialogue between Jesus and the Pharisees, we transition to a monologue where Jesus alone speaks and firmly rebukes the Jews who do not accept his role as the Son and creator, capable of giving life and raising the dead. The great discourse concludes with the testimonies. Jesus declares: I have the testimony of John the Baptist on my side; not only do the works I perform guarantee that I am the one sent by God, but also the Father Himself bears witness to me. And fourthly, the Scriptures testify to me. You scrutinize them; you study them, yet you refuse to come to me for life. You don’t even believe in Moses because, if you did, you would believe in me as well—since Moses wrote about me.
Jesus is the focus of revelation. He embodies the law. Moses wrote about the Messiah as the liberator, and Jesus is the one who enables us to fulfill the law. Whoever accepts the Scriptures and believes in Moses also accepts Jesus as the one who completed Moses’s great work.