Homily 37 — John 5, verses 6 to 13

“Jesus said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ The sick man answered him, ‘Yes, sir, but I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up.’” [a]

Great is the profit of the divine Scriptures, and the help that comes from them is all we could need. Paul declared this when he said, “Whatever was written beforehand was written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come, so that through the endurance and the comfort of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15, verse 4, and First Corinthians 10, verse 11). For the divine words are a storehouse of every kind of medicine. Whether we need to quench pride, or put desire to sleep, or trample on the love of money, or despise pain, or take courage, or gain endurance, we can find a rich supply in them.

For who among those who struggle with long poverty, or who are nailed to a painful disease, will not take great comfort when he reads the passage before us? This man had been paralyzed for thirty-eight years. Every year he saw others set free, while he himself stayed bound by his disease. Yet even so he did not give up and fall into despair — though in truth not only his dejection over the past but also his hopelessness about the future was enough to overwhelm him. Now listen to what he says, and learn how great his sufferings were. When Christ had said, “Do you want to be made well?” he says, “Yes, Lord, but I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up.”

What could be more pitiful than these words? What could be sadder than these circumstances? Do you see a heart crushed by long sickness? Do you see all his violence subdued? He spoke no word of blasphemy, none of the things we hear most people say when things go against them. He did not curse his day. He was not angry at the question, and he did not say, “Have you come to make fun of us and mock us, that you ask whether I want to be made well?” Instead he answered gently, with great mildness, “Yes, Lord.” And yet he did not know who it was that asked him, or that he would heal him. Still he mildly tells all his circumstances and asks for nothing more, as though he were speaking to a doctor and wanted only to tell the story of his sufferings. Perhaps he hoped that Christ might be of use to him so far as to put him into the water, and wanted to draw him by these words. What, then, does Jesus say?

Verse 8: “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”

Now some suppose that this is the man in Matthew who was “lying on a bed” (Matthew 9, verse 2). But it is not so, as is clear in many ways. First, from his having no one to stand up for him. That man had many to look after him and carry him; this man had not a single one, which is why he said, “I have no one.” Second, from the way he answers. The other said not a word, but this man tells his whole story. Third, from the season and the time. This man was healed at a feast, and on the Sabbath; the other on a different day. The places were different too: one was cured in a house, the other by the pool. The manner of the cure was also different. There Christ said, “Your sins are forgiven you”; but here he strengthened the body first and then cared for the soul. In that case there was forgiveness of sins — for he says, “Your sins are forgiven you” — but in this one there were a warning and threats, to make the man firm for the future: “Sin no more, so that nothing worse happens to you” (verse 14). The charges the Jews bring are different as well. Here they object to Jesus that he worked on the Sabbath; there they charge him with blasphemy.

Consider now, please, the surpassing wisdom of God. He did not raise the man up at once. First he makes him familiar with himself by questioning him, preparing the way for the faith to come. And he does not only raise him up, but tells him to “take up his bed.” This was to confirm the miracle that had been done, so that no one would suppose that what happened was an illusion or a piece of play-acting. For the man could not have carried his bed unless his limbs had been firmly and thoroughly knit together. Christ often does this, and so shuts the mouths of those who would gladly insult him.

So it was in the case of the loaves. So that no one could claim that the men had merely been satisfied, and that what was done was an illusion, he made sure there were many leftovers of the loaves. So too he said to the leper who was cleansed, “Go, show yourself to the priest” (Matthew 8, verse 4). At one stroke he provided the surest proof of the cleansing and stopped the shameless mouths of those who claimed he was making laws in opposition to God. He did the same with the wine. He did not merely show it to them; he also had it carried to the master of the feast, so that a man who knew nothing of what had been done might, by his own admission, bear him a testimony no one could suspect. That is why the evangelist says that the master of the feast “did not know where it came from,” to show that his testimony was impartial. And elsewhere, when he raised the dead, he said, “Give him something to eat.” He supplied this proof of a real resurrection, and by these means persuaded even the foolish that he was no deceiver and no dealer in illusions, but had come for the salvation of the nature all humankind shares.

But why did Jesus not ask this man for faith, as he did with others, when he said, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” Because the man did not yet clearly know who he was. And it is not before but after he has worked miracles that we see him doing this. People who had seen his power at work on others could reasonably be asked this. But from those who had not yet learned who he was, and who were going to know him afterward by means of signs, faith is asked after the miracles. That is why Matthew does not show Christ saying this at the beginning of his miracles, but only when he had healed many, and then only to the two blind men. [f]

Notice, though, the paralyzed man’s faith in this way too. When he heard, “Take up your bed and walk,” he did not mock, or say, “What can this mean? An angel comes down and stirs up the water, and heals only one person. And do you, a man, hope to do greater things than angels by a bare command and a word? This is mere vanity, boasting, mockery.” He neither said nor imagined anything like this. At once he heard and got up, and once he was well he did not disobey the one who gave the command. For immediately he was made well, and “took up his bed and walked.”

What followed was far more admirable still. That he believed at first, when no one was troubling him, was not so remarkable. But afterward the Jews, full of madness, pressed on him from every side, accusing him and besieging him and saying, “It is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” That he paid no attention to their madness then, but most boldly, in the middle of the gathering, proclaimed his benefactor and silenced their shameless tongues — this, I say, was an act of great courage. When the Jews rose against him and said to him with reproach and insult (verse 10), “It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed,” listen to what he says:

Verse 11: “The one who made me well, that same one said to me, ‘Take up your bed and walk.’”

He all but says, “You are foolish and mad to tell me not to take as my Teacher the one who freed me from a long and painful illness, and not to obey whatever he commands.” If he had chosen to act unfairly, he could have spoken differently, like this: “I am not doing this of my own will, but at someone else’s bidding. If this is something to blame, blame the man who gave the order, and I will put the bed down.” He could also have kept the cure quiet, for he knew well that what annoyed them was not so much the breaking of the Sabbath as the curing of his illness. Yet he neither hid the cure, nor said anything like that, nor asked to be excused. With a loud voice he confessed and proclaimed the kindness done to him. That is what the paralyzed man did. But see how unfairly they acted. They did not say, “Who is it that made you well?” On that point they were silent, and kept bringing up what looked like a breach of the law.

Verses 12 and 13: “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’? And the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd in that place.”

And why did Jesus hide himself? First, so that while he was absent the man’s testimony might be above suspicion; for the man who now felt himself well was a believable witness to the kindness done him. Next, so that he would not inflame the fury of the Jews still more; for the mere sight of someone they envy usually kindles no small spark in spiteful people. That is why he withdrew and left the deed by itself to plead its own case among them. He would say nothing in person about himself; those who had been healed would say it, and the accusers along with them. For even the accusers bear witness to the miracle for a while. They did not say, “Why have you ordered these things to be done on the Sabbath?” but, “Why do you do these things on the Sabbath?” They were not displeased at the breach of the law, but envious at the paralyzed man’s recovery.

Yet as far as human labor goes, what the paralyzed man did was more of a work, for the other was a saying and a word. Here, then, he commands someone else to break the Sabbath; but elsewhere he does the same himself, mixing clay and anointing a man’s eyes (John, chapter 9). Yet he does these things not by breaking the Law, but by going beyond the Law. We will speak about this later. For when the Jews accuse him about the Sabbath, he does not always defend himself in the same terms, and we must observe this carefully.

But let us consider for a while how great an evil envy is — how it blinds the eyes of the soul, to the danger of the salvation of the one who is gripped by it. As madmen often drive their swords into their own bodies, so spiteful people, looking to one thing only, the harm of the one they envy, care nothing for their own salvation. Such people are worse than wild beasts. The beasts arm themselves against us when they need food, or when we have provoked them first; but these people, when they have received kindness, have often repaid their benefactors as though they had been wronged by them. They are worse than wild beasts, like the demons, or perhaps worse even than they. For the demons do keep up an unceasing hostility toward us, but they do not plot against their own kind — that is how Jesus silenced the Jews when they said that he cast out demons by Beelzebub — while these people neither respect the nature they share nor spare even themselves. Before they trouble those they envy, they trouble their own souls, filling them with every kind of distress and dejection, for nothing and in vain. [i]

For why do you grieve, man, at your neighbor’s prosperity? We ought to grieve over the evils we suffer, not because we see others well spoken of. That is why this sin is stripped of every excuse. The sexually immoral man can plead his lust, the thief his poverty, the killer his rage. These are cold and unreasonable excuses, but still they have them to plead. But what reason, tell me, will you name? None at all, except utter wickedness. If we are commanded to love our enemies, what punishment will we suffer if we hate even our friends? And if the man who loves those who love him will be no better off than the pagans, what excuse, what plea for leniency, will the man have who harms those who have done him no wrong? Listen to what Paul says: “If I give my body to be burned, and do not have love, it profits me nothing” (First Corinthians 13, verse 3). And it is clear to everyone that where envy and spite are, love is not.

This feeling is worse than sexual immorality and adultery. Those go no farther than the one who does them; but the tyranny of envy has overturned whole churches and has destroyed the whole world. Envy is the mother of murder. Through it Cain killed his brother Abel; through it Esau would have killed Jacob, and his brothers Joseph; through it the devil killed the whole human race. You, it is true, do not kill now. But you do many things worse than murder. You wish that your brother may disgrace himself; you lay traps for him on every side; you cripple his labors for virtue; you grieve that he pleases the Master of the world. Yet it is not your brother you are at war with, but the one he serves. It is him you insult when you put your own glory ahead of his.

And what is truly worst of all, this sin seems to be a small one, when in fact it is more serious than any other. Even if you show mercy, and keep vigils, and fast, you are more accursed than anyone if you envy your brother. This is clear from the following as well. A man among the Corinthians was once guilty of adultery. Yet he was called to account for his sin and was soon restored to righteousness. Cain envied Abel, and he was not healed. Though God himself kept soothing the wound, he became only more pained and storm-tossed, and was swept on to murder. So this passion is worse than that other one, and does not easily let itself be cured unless we take care.

Let us, then, tear it out by the roots in every way. Let us consider that as we offend God when we waste away with envy over other people’s blessings, so when we rejoice with them we please him, and make ourselves sharers in the good things stored up for the righteous. That is why Paul urges us to “rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep” (Romans 12, verse 15), so that either way we may reap great profit.

So, since even when we do not labor ourselves we become sharers in the crown of the one who labors by rejoicing with him, let us throw off all envy and plant love in our souls. Then, by applauding those of our brothers who are pleasing to God, we may obtain the good things both of the present and of the future, through the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom be glory to the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.