Jesus says to him, Arise, take up thy couch and walk.
A man had been ill for thirty-eight years, lying by a pool whose moving water he could never reach in time. Then a stranger spoke a word of command, and in a moment the man had everything the pool had promised and never given.
The man expected help into the water. What came instead was a word, and the cure was total from the first moment.
He never imagined that the stranger, who had shown interest by His question, could be not a helper but the Healer. Jehovah who heals was standing before him. So now came the word — the word of power and of command, "Get up, take up your bed, and walk" (8). Who said that? A voice from heaven? No, a man upon earth, even the Son of Man. Power at once reinvigorated the limbs. He was made whole. It was no gradual recovery working up by degrees to full health. For he took up his bed, and walked.
The pool was real mercy, but it worked on a condition the sick man could not meet — you had to be strong enough to use it.
The pool did not only work now and then. Its help was also incomplete and conditional. Like the law, it required enough strength to use it. He that was quite powerless lay there in vain. Another stepped in before he could be put into the water when troubled by the angel. To will was present with him, but not to do. "O wretched man that I am!" was all he could feel. He needed the only One Who could speak the effective word: "Get up, take up your bed, and walk." Then he obeyed at once, Sabbath though it was. What was an angel's act next to that?
One writer sees in the man a picture of Israel, "under testing; incapable of ever meeting the divine claims of the covenant" (George Davison).
This is the difference between a demand and a gift. The order to get up would be cruelty if the strength to obey did not come with it.
"Get up, take up your bed, and walk" gave the bedridden man at the pool of Bethesda all the power he needed to obey the command. But the law of Moses did not do that. The law came to a man who had no strength to meet its righteous demand, and it cursed him for his disobedience. But grace gives the soul the power it must have, so that he can respond with thanks to the word spoken to him.
The bed is not a detail. The Lord tells the man to pick up the very object that had held him for years, and to need nothing else.
And here the Lord Himself speaks to the poor crippled man of nothing but His own healing power: "Get up, take up your bed, and walk." He was to carry the bed that once carried him, while he lay waiting by the pool. He needed nothing else. He knew the healing of the Son of God, and he was free.
The Lord could have healed him and left him lying there. Instead He sent him walking through the city on the one day when everyone would notice a man carrying his bed.
He picks out a completely helpless and hopeless man. At His command the man carries his bed through Jerusalem on that very Sabbath, and this proves the cure is real. But it was a witness to more than the power of Jesus. It also showed the authority He had as the Son of God to set aside the customs of the law.
Christ's word did the same thing at a grave, and it does the same in a soul that is dead.
"Lazarus, come forth" brought the dead man out of his grave, with the life blood running through his veins and the bloom of health on his face. And when the word of life comes in the power of the Spirit to a soul that is morally dead, that soul is made to live in the life of Christ.
Later in the chapter Jesus speaks of the Son giving life. Another writer points out that the verb there is the one He used at the pool.
Now the Son comes in to give life, "even so the Son gives life to whom He will". … The word "raises" in chapter 5 is the same as the one said to the man at the pool, "Get up, take up your bed, and walk" (see John 5:8 and 21).
- Helpless. The man's problem was not the pool but his own weakness — like the law, it demanded a strength he did not have.
- Word. No water touched him. A spoken command from the Son of God did what thirty-eight years of waiting could not.
- Power. Grace does not only tell a man to rise; it supplies the strength the command calls for.
- Witness. He carries what once carried him. His bed had been the proof of his weakness. Now it walks through Jerusalem as proof of the cure.
- Life. The word that lifted him is the word Christ uses of raising the dead. The same voice still makes a dead soul live.
And immediately the man became well, and took up his couch and walked and on that day was sabbath.
One word from Jesus, and a man who had not walked for thirty-eight years stands up and carries his mat away. John then adds a short note that turns the whole scene into a fight: the day was the Sabbath.
John's wording marks how fast the change came.
Power at once restored strength to his limbs. He was made whole. It was not a recovery that improved step by step until he was fully well. For he took up his bed, and walked. Before he was struck down he could have done all this. After thirty-eight years of forced disability he could do it again — and at once, in front of all the crowd of sick people. He rose up. He carried his bed. He walked.
The mat is the detail to watch. For years it had held a helpless man.
"Get up, take up your bed, and walk." What powerful words! The man is strengthened. Power runs through his long-weakened frame. This is a picture: he now stands on the ground of resurrection. He had known what the weakness of death meant. He is now in the vigour of life. He carries his bed; what was proof of his weakness becomes the witness of the power given to him by Christ.
For thirty-eight years nothing had made this man well. One writer explains why the law could never have done it.
Yet by his confession he admitted that he wanted to be made whole. The word of the Lord made him completely sound at once. The law could not do this for him, because it was weak through the powerlessness of his flesh. The Son of God, now present on earth, did it in an instant as His own work. The man was able not only to walk but also to carry the bed which had once been proof of his helplessness. The Lord told him to do this even though it was the Sabbath.
John's closing note is not a stray detail. Commentators see a clash here between man's idea of rest and God's.
Man does not know what the Sabbath truly means. So he insists on keeping it outwardly, to gain a religious reputation. But while he insists on that outward keeping, he does not care at all about the sin that broke into the rest. The blessing of Sabbath rest belongs to a people who keep the law, not to a people who break it. Man may be content to rest in the presence of sin and the misery it brings. God cannot rest where sin and misery exist. His holiness demands that He deal with sin; His love drives Him to work for the relief of the sinner.
The cure was complete without the mat. One writer asks why the Lord added the order.
A man lay helpless beside Bethesda, waiting for an angel to come down. He found that One greater than all angels was there, who did not need to stir the waters. A word was enough; for power went with it, and the man was healed. But Jesus told him to get up, take up his bed, and walk, Sabbath though it was. Could he not have left his bed there, or at least left it for that day? Yes. But when he acted at the word of the One who healed him, that was a plain testimony, and a very irritating one: God had no fellowship with their Sabbaths.
The reaction came at once, and it did not stop with the man.
The law of the Sabbath was very strict. All kinds of work were forbidden, even picking up sticks and lighting a fire. So the Jews were up in arms at once when they saw the man carrying his bed. He had a ready and sufficient answer. The Man who had healed him had told him to do it, and a little later he could name that Man — Jesus. Their zeal for the Sabbath was so great that from that moment He became the object of their hatred and persecution.
For the crowd this was a broken Sabbath. For the man himself, another writer suggests, it was the opposite.
It was the first true day of rest for him. All his useless efforts after life and health stopped. He rested entirely in the grace and power of Another.
- At once. The cure was total and instant, in front of a whole crowd of sick people.
- A word, not a pool. No angel needed to stir the water. The word of the Son of God healed him in an instant.
- The bed. What had been proof of his helplessness became the proof of the power given to him.
- The Sabbath. God cannot rest where sin and misery exist. His holiness makes Him deal with sin. His love makes Him work for the sufferer.
- True rest. His own rest began the day his useless efforts stopped and he rested in the grace and power of Another.