Cure on a Sabbath

 Today's Reflections

Cure on a Sabbath

graceandspace.org

Jn 5:1-16

¹There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ²Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep [Gate] a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes. ³In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled. [⁴] ⁵One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. ⁶When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be well?” ⁷The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.” ⁸Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.” ⁹Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.

Now that day was a sabbath. ¹⁰So the Jews said to the man who was cured, “It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.” ¹¹He answered them, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’ ” ¹²They asked him, “Who is the man who told you, ‘Take it up and walk’?” ¹³The man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there. ¹⁴After this Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him, “Look, you are well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse may happen to you.” ¹⁵The man went and told the Jews that Jesus was the one who had made him well. ¹⁶Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus because he did this on a sabbath.

Reflection:

Rise, take up your mat, and walk. Jesus’ command suggests that he knows that he is going to arouse an unfavorable 

reaction to his healing of the sick man at the pool of Bethesda. And sure enough, some unfriendly Jews say to the man, “It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.”

For Jesus, the good of the human person prevails over the literal demands of the law. God wills the good of the human person. Whenever we interpret commands of the law, human or divine, let us consider not only the letter but also the intent of every genuine law, which is the salvation of the human person and the attainment of the common good. Many people take refuge in legalities, but what is legal is not necessarily moral when it goes against the good of persons and of society.

A person “steals” food to feed

another dying of hunger

—what seems illegal may be moral.