John 5:12
New International Version – UK
So they asked him, ‘Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?’
For Meditation
His healing was instant and otherworldly. Who commands a human body to attention and wholeness like the Carpenter from Nazareth? His word had healed the man. He could go home to live an everyday life like he did before his predicament, but was it the goal of his healing? What about the man who healed him?
Jesus, in His mercy and grace, had purposefully come to the pool to heal this man. He chose not to heal anyone else. This was a profound privilege for the man, a cause for immense joy and deep thankfulness.
The day Jesus healed the man was a Sabbath, and the law of the Pharisees and Sanhedrin forbade carrying a burden. Picking his mat infringed on the Sabbath law, he therefore faced inquisition. So they asked him,
“Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk (12)?”
The man was in a state of perplexity. He could not comprehend Jesus, as He had slipped away from them. This leaves us with a mystery, inviting us to ponder over the man’s character and his encounter with Jesus at the temple later on.
Grace had healed him, and grace had more to do with his life, so the Lord warned him.
See, you are well again. Stop sinning, or something worse may happen to you (14).
You would think the man would go down at Jesus’s feet and thank Jesus for His grace that healed him, but he didn’t. Instead, he ran to the authorities and reported Jesus to them. Pleasing the authorities over the temple and its worship system became his priority instead of the Person the entire Levitical worship system represented. As Paul said in his exalted prosecution of humankind in his Epistle to the Romans:
“They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen” (Romans 1:25).
How much time do we commit to deepening our relationship with Jesus, our Savior, to commend Him to others by our lives and word?
The man was so preoccupied with pleasing the authorities that he missed a crucial opportunity. He failed to prioritize knowing and worshiping the Creator before whom he stood. This scenario, unfortunately, is all too familiar in our churches today. We often prioritize our leaders and the traditions we’ve established, neglecting the true worship of the Lord of the church.
The world asks us the same question the Jewish leaders asked the man: Who is the fellow who told you to get up, pick up your mat, and walk from your sin paralysis? Can we give a testimony that articulates the identity of Jesus to the inquiring world?
Let us pause and consider: have we spent enough time with Jesus, knowing Him and reflecting His image to the world? This is a question that each of us must answer for ourselves.
Through the Eyes of the Spirit 