John 5 and 9: Two Healings

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Previous lesson on John by Keeley

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John 5 and 9: Jesus’ Two Healings

I. Introduction

We’re looking at two different healing stories here.

1. In the first story, John 5:1-15, we’ll see that Jesus heals even the most “hopeless” people and calls us out of our patterns of sin. 

2. In the second story, John 9:1-12, 35-41, we’ll see that Jesus heals physical and spiritual blindness so that we may see God’s glory in our lives.

We’ve chosen these healings because they have some common patterns in the stories, such as: Jesus deals with each man differently; Jesus heals them both, but in different ways; Jesus sends them both out from where they are, and they must tell their story; and we see Jesus discuss both physical and spiritual conditions.

Jesus’ heals our seemingly hopeless conditions, so that others may see God’s glory in our lives.

II. The Stories

Let’s look at each story, ask the same 5 questions of each, so that we can compare and contrast them, and then we’ll see the different responses of the men and the ways that Jesus interacts with them.

STORY 1: Jesus heals the paralyzed man at Bethesda

READ John 5:1-15.

What is the Situation?

We encounter in this story a paralytic, a man paralyzed in his legs, who is waiting by the Bethesda pool.  There is a story of healing associated with this pool where when an angel would stir the waters and the first one in would be healed (see verse 4 in your footnotes).  This man is here hoping to be healed by this water.  It is his only hope.  He had been lame for 38 years (no telling how long he had been coming to this pool hoping for a miracle). This man is physically broken.  Also, this man was utterly alone.  He had no one to help him in the pool because someone would always get in ahead of him.  He is spiritually sick as well, because he blames others for his not being able to be healed.  

How does Jesus’ interact with him?

Jesus passes by and notices him.  Jesus seeks out this man.  Jesus initiates this encounter.  Jesus asks him a rather intuitive, but highly significant question: “Do you want to get well?” (v. 6).  This man has been unable to use his legs for 38 years, and Jesus wants to know if he wants to be healed and be better?  The obvious response would be “yes, but how?” But instead this man responds sort of with a “yeah, but…it’s not possible.”  The man doesn’t know that the person talking to him is able to perform miracles.  We see in his response a resignation to his fate of never being healed.   So when Jesus asked him this question, why didn’t he just answer with “yes” instead of what he did say: “I have no one to help me” (v. 7).  Jesus is challenging him to awaken; to see the possibility of another way of life.  Jesus asks him to believe that he can be made whole again, that he can be restored.

Jesus then speaks and performs a miracle.  Jesus says: “Get up, pick up your mat and walk” (verse 8 ).  Jesus is challenging him to believe and accept a new way of life.  The man is healed at once (verse 9).  He picked up his mat and walked.  These words Jesus speaks are the same words he spoke to the paralytic who was let down through the roof in Capernaum to be healed because the house was so crowded.  Jesus said first “your sins are forgiven,” so that they would know he had the power to forgive sins, then he said “get up, pick up your bed, and go home” (Matt 9:6; Mark 2:11; Luke 5:24).  Here too (John 5), we see that Jesus is concerned with this man’s sins.  He’s concerned that the man is blaming others and has given up hope.  The man is spiritually broken, in addition to not being able to walk, and Jesus calls him out of this way of life.  So Jesus heals the man, and what seemed like a hopeless condition, then sends him out on his way.

How does the man react?

He obeyed, but right away, he attracts attention from the Pharisees for carrying his mat on the Sabbath (local Jewish traditions had a rule that you could not carry a “load” on the Sabbath).  He comes under fire from the authorities, but he responds by resorting to his former patterns: he blames Jesus.  “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”  This paraplegic has just experienced a miracle performed by Jesus, but he responds out of fear of what they might do to him.  He’s afraid of the Pharisees, so he throws the blame off of himself and onto the man who healed him.

Jesus continues pursuing him.  Jesus finds the man in the temple and says “See you are well again.  Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you” (v. 14).  Jesus made the man well, he healed him, restored his ability to walk, but the man persisted in his sin.  He did not learn from the encounter with Jesus and we do not see him making a confession of faith.  Jesus had just warned the man to stop sinning, yet he keeps on.  He fears man and what they can do to him, more than he fears the man who has just made him well.  Conflict begins to pursue Jesus because he healed on the Sabbath.  The Pharisees begin to persecute him and even seek to kill him (v. 16, 18). 

What is the Significance of this story for us?

This story points out the link between physical healing and spiritual healing.  The man was healed physically, but he refused to turn from his past way of life and enter into relationship with Jesus.  His sins ended up being the real problem.  He forgot the amazing fact that he could now walk because of Jesus.  We need to see that sometimes there is a link between our personal sin and our spiritual suffering, but Jesus offers forgiveness and we need to accept it.  We have to change our way of living and viewing the world.

This story also shows us God moves toward us in our sin and in our suffering and calls us to live with him and to have wholeness.  Jesus recognizes that there are the different levels of brokenness in our lives—physical and spiritual.  He wants us to stop blaming God for our aches, stop blaming others for our problems, and to stop waiting for someone else to take care of us.  He calls us to stop sinning even as he heals us. 

How do we apply the lessons of this story?

See yourself in new way, respond to God asking us to be healed, whether physically or spiritually.  We need to ask for insight and confess our sins and receive, truly receive, his forgiveness. 

Where have you felt physical pain and suffering or spiritual struggling?  Think about it…Respond to Jesus and ask him to make you well.  Examine your life and sin patterns, and ask his Holy Spirit to help you see and change.

Recognize that Jesus heals even the most “hopeless” people (like he did with this man who endured 38 years of suffering and he can for you) and calls us out of our patterns of sin.

STORY 2: Jesus heals the blind man

READ John 9:1-12, 35-41.

What is the Situation?

We encounter in this story a man who was born blind.  He has lived his entire life without sight.  He has never seen the light of day.  He has lived in darkness.  (Close your eyes and imagine that you can’t see…See how quickly, when without something to distract you, you want to open your eyes again.)  This man is physically broken.  He also is a beggar (v. 8), who had to sit on the streets and beg.  He couldn’t support himself, so he had to live off the streets and off other people’s generosity.  Like the paralytic, he too would experience great loneliness and lifelong suffering.

When the story begins, the disciples ask a theological question.  They, seeing the man, want to know who sinned, his parents (at some point in their life) or him (this would have to imply in the womb somehow), so that he was born blind?  They assume that his disability and suffering must be the result of someone’s sin and so God must be punishing him for that sin (as Job’s comforters accused Job of sin in his suffering, which he denied).  Jesus, here, denies that anyone sinned.  This man was just born blind.  In fact, Jesus says (v. 3) that the world would see the work of God displayed in his life.  There was a greater cause to his suffering.  Jesus was doing the work of the Father who sent him.  He was in the world to be a light to those in need of restoration.  Jesus says (v. 5), “I am the light of the world.”  He shines light into darkness.  He gives sight where there was none.

How does Jesus’ interact with him?

Jesus also sought this man out.  Jesus pursued him.  In this encounter, Jesus simply announces that this man has not sinned, that Jesus is the Light of the world, and then he performs the miracle.  He literally shines light into this man’s eyes.  Jesus spits on the ground to make mud with the saliva.  Saliva was considered to have healing powers—this was an ancient custom and belief.  Jesus uses ordinary means, like physicians today, to heal this man.  He spit, put the mud on the man’s eyes, and told him to “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (v. 7).  The Sent One, Jesus, now sends this man out.

Jesus heals his physical brokenness and sends him out.  He opens his eyes so that he can see (literally), but also begin to truly see (spiritually).  Jesus heals his physical blindness so that we may see God’s glory working in his life. 

How does the man react?

He responds to Jesus’ command by going, washing in the pool, and then going home, seeing.

We learn from the section I didn’t have us read, that a lot of controversy and conflict also pursues as a result of this healing.  I’ll just say that again, people want to know who healed him, and he says “Jesus.”  His neighbors were involved, the Pharisees were brought in to question him, his parents were summoned, and the man himself was interrogated two times.  Again, the conflict is over Jesus breaking the Sabbath and doing “work” by making the mud.

In verses 11-12, the man at first is not entirely sure who Jesus is or where he is now, but then (look at verse 25) in an amazing statement of testimony, the man says, “Whether [Jesus] is a sinner or not [for breaking the Sabbath], I don’t know, One thing I do know.  I was blind, but now I see!” 

We see a spiritual awakening also occurring in this man.  He progresses in his knowledge of who Jesus is.  At first the blind man just said Jesus was a man (v. 11), then he calls him a prophet (v. 17), then “Lord” (v. 38), and finally, from verses 35 and 38, we see that he believes that Jesus is “the Son of Man.”  He believes; then worships Jesus.  This man was blind; then healed.  He falls on his knees and worships the man who has made him whole again.  What a contrast with the paralytic of the other story!

In the aftermath of this encounter, even though the man was kicked out of the synagogue, he stood firm in his testimony of Jesus and witnessed to what God had done, and Jesus never leaves him alone.  Jesus continued to pursue this man too.  He comes back to him and reveals even more of who he is.  Jesus gives this man spiritual insight in addition to physical sight.

What is the Significance of this story for us?

This story again points out the link between physical healing and spiritual healing.  The man was healed physically, and because he desired to enter into relationship with Jesus and know him better, Jesus pursued him and revealed more and more of who he was.  Jesus opens the eyes of the physically blind, like Isaiah prophesied of the day when the deaf would hear and the blind would see (Isa 29:18; 35:5; 42:7).  Jesus heals physical and spiritual blindness.

We also learn that suffering is not always the result of sin.  This is important to know.  Just because we suffer does not mean God is punishing us for some wrongdoing.  We must be careful to first examine ourselves (like the man in the first story should have done), but we cannot assume that suffering is just punishment from God.  Jesus doesn’t tell us in this story why people suffer; only that this story was to show the work of God.  God is concerned for sufferers and he meets them.  God pursues, he heals, he forgives, he comforts, and he reveals. 

III. Application

How do we apply the lessons of this story?

Do you ever feel like you don’t know the Bible well enough to tell someone who Jesus is, this man didn’t either at first, but he told what he did know, then he learned more and became more spiritually aware.  Ask yourself if you know Jesus well enough to tell others what he’s done for you and how others can find him.  Tell what he’s done for you, how it happened, and what’s the difference in who you were before and who you are now.  This man was not afraid of confessing who Jesus was.  He was not afraid of man.  What a great testimony, “I was blind, but now I see.”

I want to share a personal note about how I really wrestled with these texts.  I woke up Monday night at 2:30am, tossing and turning, wondering how I was going to teach these texts, because I didn’t want to over-spiritualize them, but I wasn’t sure whether I really believed Jesus truly physically healed us today.  I finally got out of bed around 6am to begin working, and once I did, God began to reveal to me how we could look at these texts, how to make them relevant to you and your situations, and what he wanted me to know about them.  During this time, I ran across in some of my old files a prayer that I had written 2 1/2 years ago.  It was called “My Prayer for Healing.” (Read my prayer for healing.)  I was amazed to find this prayer I had written years ago for physical healing.  God had answered this prayer for me in my life, and he was now showing me how he knew that I really do believe in his power to heal us physically as well.

So, see that Jesus meets these people face-to-face, like he meets us and wants to meet us even they don’t know how to view the world.  They are just living life, struggling to get by, hoping someone else will give them a hand, or begging for their survival.  Jesus saw their need.  He cared.  He approached them.  He approaches you and me each day because he has sent his Holy Spirit to live inside of us.  He reaches out each day.  He is there and with you. 

Jesus came to give us light, to shine in the darkness and to open our eyes.   Open your eyes to see him.  Psalm 119:105 says that “[God’s] word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto the way.”  Jesus is that light, that lamp, that way.  And we encounter him in his word and his community.  If you’re struggling to be in his word, remember that it’s not just a duty or something all good Christians should do, but it’s the lamp, the light, the way that we come to know Jesus (who is all those things).  If you’re struggling to know him or see him really in your life, are you spending the time it takes to get to know him?  Is it a priority for you to daily encounter the man who loved you so much that he went to the cross to show you what love means?  Come to Jesus.  Meet him.  He will heal you in ways that you didn’t even know you were broken.  God “heals the brokenhearted and binds up all their wounds” (Ps 147:3). 

Recognize that Jesus heals physical and spiritual blindness so that we may see God’s glory in our lives.

IV. Conclusion

In conclusion, see that these stories are about hope… hope for those who suffer.  Jesus cares about our deepest pain, our deepest wounds, even our deepest sins.  He calls to us, he meets us face to face, and he heals us.  On the cross, he enters into our suffering and redeems it, he identifies with us.  He died to make us whole.  He gives up his life to give us new life.  Jesus himself suffered so much for us on the cross.  He knows pain and loneliness and alienation.  His suffering showed the works of God to the world.

And like he does for the paralytic and blind man, Jesus offers us a way out too.  He offers to make us whole.  Will we let him?  “Do you want to get well?” he asks.  “Do you want to get well?”  Jesus is able to heal even you and me today.  1 Peter 2:24 says “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.”  Physical and spiritual healing is offered in the name of Jesus and in his death.

Jesus’ heals our seemingly hopeless conditions (by his own wounds), so that others may see God’s glory in our lives.

Questions for Discussion and Application

1. How do you relate to these two stories? 
2. What is a way that you have witnessed Jesus’ healing power in your life lately?

Other Helpful Resources

• My Prayer for Healing
• A Prayer for Healing for Knee Pain | Knee Prayer

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