Sick and Sinning
When Jesus went to Jerusalem, he did not spend his time in elite hostels; nor did he concentrate his ministry merely in the temple or give attention to the rich and famous who could help him politically and financially with his ministry. He concentrated on people in need, which for the elite of society was part of his problem. In this story he visited the pool below the temple where the helpless dregs of society lay in a pathetic state. Most “proper” people probably avoided places where they had to pass among the sick and suffering both because it was an uncomfortable setting and because of the potential for violation of ritual purity rules. But Jesus went out of his way to visit such a place, and he found there a paralytic, helpless man, who had experienced the wilderness of abandonment for what seemed to have been an eternity: thirty-eight years (5:5).
and they waited for the moving of the waters. 4From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had.
Sabbath
The assumption in the Scripture seems to be that ‘work’ refers to one’s customary employment; but judging by Mishnah (Shabbath 7:2; 10:5), dominant rabbinic opinion had analysed the prohibition into thirty-nine classes of work, including taking or carrying anything from one domain to another (except for cases of compassion, such as carrying a paralytic). By Old Testament standards, it is not clear the healed man was contravening the law, since he did not normally carry mats around for a living; according to the ‘tradition of the elders’ the man was breaking the law, since he was contravening one of the prohibited thirty-nine categories of work to which the law was understood to refer.
religon ves Jesus
They therefore inquire who the healer was (v. 12), but the healed man has no idea. There may also be a hint of irony (much more strongly developed in the healing of Jn. 9): the Jews hear of the wonderful healing and of the formal breach of their code, and are interested only in the latter. They think they see what is important, but in religious matters there are none so blind as those who are always certain that they see (cf. 9:39–41). Jesus himself had quickly slipped away (v. 13), acting in accordance with what became a consistent policy (cf. notes on 6:15).
Stop Sinning lest
These arguments do not hold up to close scrutiny. (1) The issue is not whether this man was a pre-eminent sinner, but whether some tragedies in Scripture (and this one in particular) are seen as the outcome of specific sin. The answer is surely affirmative (e.g. Acts 5:1–11; 1 Cor. 11:30; 1 Jn. 5:16). This does not mean that everyone who commits these sins will inevitably fall ill or die; it does mean that some instances of suffering are the direct results of specific sin. (2) Syntactically, the two clauses, ‘Stop sinning’ and ‘something worse may happen to you’, cannot be interpreted independently. They are tied together: the meaning is ‘Stop sinning lest something worse happen to you’. The unavoidable implication is that the bad thing that has already happened was occasioned by the sin which the person must not repeat. (3) Luke 13:1–5 has its own message for those who look on the tragedy of others: they must not interpret such tragedy as signifying that those who have suffered are morally inferior. We are all guilty; unless we repent, we too will perish. Meanwhile, it is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed. But Luke 13:1–5 says nothing to the person who is suffering, and is therefore irrelevant here. (4) It is a commonplace in many strands of Jewish and Christian theology that suffering and tragedy are the effluent of the fall, the corollary of life lived in a fallen and rebellious universe. In that sense, all sickness is the result of sin, but not necessarily of some specific, individual sin. In Matthew, Jesus’ healing ministry functions in part as a sign that the deadly effects of the fall are being rolled back (Mt. 8:16–17; cf. Carson, Matt, pp. 204–207) by the one who came to save his people from their sin (Mt. 1:21). But although suffering and illness have this deep, theological connection with sin in general, and although John elsewhere insists that a specific ailment is not necessarily the result of a specific sin (9:3), there is nothing in any of this that precludes the possibility that some ailments are the direct consequences of specific sins. And that is the most natural reading of this verse. (5) If so, it is just possible John is also telling us that the reason Jesus chose this invalid out of all the others who were waiting for the waters to be stirred, was precisely because his illness, and his alone, was tied to a specific sin. If this interpretation is right, the syntax of Stop sinning is chosen to stress urgency. The something worse must be final judgment (cf. v. 29).
Jesus looks for down and outs
In this story he visited the pool below the temple where the helpless dregs of society lay in a pathetic state. Most “proper” people probably avoided places where they had to pass among the sick and suffering both because it was an uncomfortable setting and because of the potential for violation of ritual purity rules. But Jesus went out of his way to visit such a place, and he found there a paralytic, helpless man, who had experienced the wilderness of abandonment for what seemed to have been an eternity: thirty-eight years (5:5)
