Homily 36 — John 4, verse 54, to 5, verse 5

“This again is the second miracle that Jesus did, when he had come out of Judea into Galilee. After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” [a]

In a gold mine, a man skilled in the work will not put up with passing over even the smallest vein, because it yields great wealth. In the same way, in the holy Scriptures it is impossible to pass by a single letter or a single stroke of the pen without loss; we must search into everything. For all of it is spoken by the Holy Spirit, and nothing useless is written there.

Consider, for example, what the evangelist says here: “This again is the second miracle that Jesus did, when he had come out of Judea into Galilee.” He did not add even the word “second” without reason. He added it to raise the praise of the Samaritans still higher, by showing that even after a second miracle had been done, those who saw it had not yet risen as high as those who had not seen a single one.

“After this there was a feast of the Jews.” What feast? I think it was Pentecost. “And Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” At the feasts he is constantly in the city, partly so that he would be seen keeping the feast with them, and partly so that he might draw to himself the crowd that was free of guile. For in those days above all, the simpler people flocked together more than at other times.

Verses 2 and 3: “Now there is at Jerusalem a sheep pool, called in the Hebrew language Bethesda, which has five porches. In these lay a great crowd of sick people, the lame, the blind, the withered, waiting for the moving of the water.”

What kind of cure is this? What mystery does it point to for us? For these things are not written carelessly or without purpose. They sketch out things to come, as though in a figure and a type, so that something exceedingly strange would not arrive unannounced and damage the power of faith among the many. What, then, do they sketch out? A baptism was about to be given, one of great power and the greatest of gifts: a baptism that cleanses all sins and makes people alive instead of dead. These things, then, are drawn beforehand as in a picture, by the pool and by many other things as well. First a water is given that cleanses the stains of our bodies — defilements that are not real but only seem to be, like those that come from touching the dead, or from leprosy, or from other such causes. Under the old covenant you can see many things done with water for this reason. But let us now go on to the matter in hand.

First, then, as I said before, he has the defilements of our bodies removed by water, and after that illnesses of various kinds. For God, wanting to bring us nearer to faith in baptism, no longer heals defilements only, but diseases as well. The figures that came nearer in time to the reality — of baptism, of his suffering, and of everything else — were plainer than the older ones. Just as the guards close to the person of the prince are more splendid than those who go ahead of him, so it was with the types. And “an angel came down and stirred the water” and gave it a power to heal, so that the Jews might learn that the Lord of angels could far more heal the diseases of the soul. Yet here it was not simply the nature of the water that healed — for then it would have happened all the time — but water joined to the working of the angel. So too in our case, it is not the water alone that does the work; but once it has received the grace of the Spirit, then it puts away all our sins.

Around this pool “lay a great crowd of sick people, the blind, the lame, the withered, waiting for the moving of the water.” But back then, illness stood in the way of anyone who wanted to be healed. Now each person has the power to come near, for now it is not an angel who stirs the water; it is the Lord of angels who does it all. The sick man cannot say now, “I have no one”; he cannot say, “While I am coming, another steps down before me.” Though the whole world should come, the grace is not used up, the power is not exhausted; it stays just as great as it was before. The sun’s rays give light every day and are not exhausted, nor is their light made less by giving so rich a supply. In the same way, and far more, the power of the Spirit is in no way lessened by the number of those who enjoy it. And this miracle was done so that people, learning that water can heal the diseases of the body, and being trained in this for a long time, might more easily believe that it can also heal the diseases of the soul.

But why did Jesus leave the rest and come to a man who had been ill for thirty-eight years? And why did he ask him, “Do you want to be made well?” Not so that he himself might learn — there was no need of that — but to bring out the man’s perseverance, and so that we might know that this was why he passed by the others and came to him. What, then, does the man say? “Yes, Lord,” he says, “but I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred; while I am coming, another steps down before me.”

It was so that we might learn these facts that Jesus asked, “Do you want to be made well?” He did not say, “Do you want me to heal you?” — for the man had as yet formed no high idea of him — but “Do you want to be made well?” The paralyzed man’s perseverance was astonishing. He had been ill for thirty-eight years, and every year he hoped to be freed from his disease; he kept on waiting there and did not leave. If he had not been very persevering, would not the future, even if not the past, have been enough to drive him from the place? Think, I ask you, how watchful the other sick people there were likely to be, since the time when the water would be stirred was uncertain. The lame and the crippled could watch for it, but how did the blind see it? Perhaps they learned of it from the shouting that went up.

Let us be ashamed, then, beloved, let us be ashamed and groan over our great laziness. For “thirty-eight years” that man had been waiting without getting what he longed for, and he did not leave. And he had failed not through any carelessness of his own, but because others pushed him aside and used force against him; and even so he did not lose heart. But we, if we have kept on praying for something for ten days and have not received it, are too lazy afterward to show the same zeal. On men we wait for so long a time — going to war, enduring hardships, doing the work of slaves — and often in the end we are disappointed in our hopes. But on our Master, from whom we are sure to receive a reward greater than our labors — for the apostle says, “Hope does not put us to shame” (Romans 5, verse 5) — on him we cannot bear to wait with the diligence we should. What punishment this deserves! Even if we could receive nothing from him, should we not count the very act of talking with him continually as the source of ten thousand blessings? [g]

“But praying continually is hard labor.” And what is there in virtue that is not hard labor? “That is just it,” someone says. “This very point is full of great difficulty: that pleasure is attached to vice, and labor to virtue.” And many, I think, raise this question. What, then, can the reason be? At the beginning God gave us a life free of care and exempt from labor. We did not use the gift rightly; we were corrupted by having nothing to do, and were banished from paradise. That is why he made our life from then on a life of toil, as though giving mankind his reasons for it, and saying: “At the beginning I let you lead a life of enjoyment, but freedom made you worse. That is why I commanded that from now on labor and sweat be laid on you.”

And when even this labor did not hold us back, he next gave us a law with many commandments, putting it on us like a bit and a curb on an unruly horse to check its prancing, just as horse trainers do. That is why life is laborious: because not laboring is apt to be our ruin. For our nature cannot bear to do nothing; it easily turns aside to wickedness. Suppose the self-controlled man, and the one who rightly practices the other virtues, had no need of labor but did everything in their sleep. Even so, how would we have used our ease? Would it not have been for pride and boasting?

“But why,” someone says, “has great pleasure been attached to vice, and great labor and toil to virtue?” Why, what thanks would you have had, and for what would you have received a reward, if the thing had not been difficult? Even now I can show you many who by nature hate intercourse with women and avoid talking with them as something impure. Shall we then call these men chaste? Shall we crown them, tell me, and proclaim them winners? Not at all. Chastity is self-restraint, the mastering of pleasures that fight against us — just as in war the trophies are most honored when the struggle is fierce, not when no one lifts a hand against us. Many people are by their very nature free of passion; shall we call these even-tempered? Not at all. And so the Lord, after naming three kinds of eunuchs, leaves two of them without a crown and admits one into the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 19, verse 12).

“But what need,” someone says, “was there of wickedness?” I say the same. “What, then, made wickedness exist?” What but our own willful carelessness? “But,” someone says, “there ought to have been only good people.” Well, what belongs to the good man? To keep watch and be sober, or to sleep and snore? “And why,” someone says, “did it not seem good that a person should do right without laboring?” You are speaking words fit for cattle, or for gluttons, or for those who make their belly their god. To prove that they are words of folly, answer me this. Suppose there were a king and a general, and while the king was asleep or drunk, the general endured the hardships and set up a trophy. Whose would you count the victory to be? Who would enjoy the pleasure of what was done? Do you see that the soul is most attached to the things it has labored for? That is why God has joined labors to virtue: he wants to make us attached to her. For this reason we admire virtue even when we do not do right ourselves, while we condemn vice even when it is very pleasant. And if you say, “Why do we not admire those who are good by nature more than those who are good by choice?” we reply: because it is just to prefer the one who labors to the one who does not. For why is it that we labor at all? Because you did not bear the life without labor with moderation.

What is more, if we look into it closely, idleness is apt to undo us in other ways too, and to cause us much trouble. Suppose, if you like, we shut a man up and do nothing but feed and pamper him, not letting him walk or taking him out to work, but letting him enjoy his table and his bed and live in luxury all the time. What could be more wretched than such a life? “But,” someone says, “to work is one thing, and to labor is another.” Yes; but back then it was in man’s power to work without labor. “And is that possible?” he says. Yes, it is possible. God even wanted it so, but you would not put up with it. That is why he placed you in the garden to work it, marking out a task for you but joining no labor to it. For if man had labored at the beginning, God would not afterward have laid labor on him as a punishment. It is possible to work and not grow weary, as the angels do. To prove that they work, hear what David says: “You who are mighty in strength, who do his word” (Psalm 103, verse 20, as the Greek Old Testament reads it). It is lack of strength that makes so much labor now; but then it was not so. For “the one who has entered into his rest,” one writer says, “has ceased from his works, as God did from his” (Hebrews 4, verse 10). He does not mean idleness here, but ceasing from labor. For God is at work even now, as Christ says: “My Father is working until now, and I am working” (John 5, verse 17).

So I urge you to lay aside all carelessness and be zealous for virtue. For the pleasure of wickedness is short, but the pain lasts; with virtue, on the contrary, the joy never grows old, and the labor is only for a season. Even before the crowns are handed out, virtue cheers on her worker and feeds him with hopes. Vice, even before the time of vengeance, punishes the one who works for her, wringing and terrifying his conscience and making it quick to imagine every evil. Are these things not worse than any labor, any toil? And even if these things were not so, if there were only pleasure, what could be more worthless than that pleasure? As soon as it appears, it flies away, withering and slipping off before it has been grasped — whether you mean the pleasure of beauty, or of luxury, or of wealth, for these never stop wasting away day by day. But when, besides this pleasure, there are punishment and vengeance as well, what could be more miserable than those who chase after it? Knowing this, then, let us endure everything for virtue’s sake. So we will enjoy true pleasure, through the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom be glory to the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.