Amazing Grace

Today's reading comes to us from John 5:1-17. Here we have the healing of the crippled man at the pool of Bethesda. He has been in this condition for 38 years. Lots of subtleties here. Let's point out a few. "...by the Sheep Gate": The very location speaks of Judaism and the Law, for it was through the sheep gate that sacrifices were brought into the city of Jerusalem. "...having five porches": Five reminds us of the Pentateuch-the first five books of the Law/Moses (Gen.-Deut.) In the Bible, five is also the number of grace, and this pool of Bethesda means "House of Mercy". "A great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed..." When people are spiritually blind, they are also lame and paralyzed in sin, and the Law can't save them. Jesus singles this one man out from among many, just as He singled Israel out from among many nations. The man had this "infirmity [for] thirty-eight years.": Israel wandered in the wilderness for thirty-eight years. The man explains his situation: "Every time I try to get up, someone else gets there first." Then Jesus says, "Rise, take up your bed and walk..." Note what Jesus did and did not do. Jesus did not help the man 'beat' everyone else to the water. He didn't help the man to be first into the pool. Jesus' purpose was to take him out of the competition altogether! The lame man was delivered not by "a man to help him", but by the Son of Man who saved him. "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."
"Amazing grace! how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now I'm found; was blind but now I see."