Emerging Pattern

In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, waiting for the moving of the waters. (John 5:3)

I just noticed what seems to be a pattern emerging from this verse. As I look back over the stories that John is relating so far in this book, I see a deepening of the situations in each story as far as sick people are concerned.

At the beginning of this book, Jesus turns water into wine at a wedding. There is nothing in this story about sick people at all, just people who are celebrating life but find themselves in a quandary concerning their party supplies.

Next Jesus disrupts the routine way religion is performed at the temple in Jerusalem, the same general area where this current story takes place. Again there are not apparently any sick people involved, at least physically. But there is some serious spiritual sickness being exposed which does not appear in the previous story.

After that Nicodemus shows up at night as one of the leaders of the religious establishment trying to negotiate and maybe mediate with Jesus. Again Jesus exposes a far deeper level of spiritual ignorance and sickness than can be seen by anyone else. But still there is no physical sickness involved.

After that John relays the story of the people of Sychar in Samaria. This time, especially from a Jewish perspective, there are people who might be considered spiritually sick and even worse than dogs in the eyes of His disciples. Yet Jesus confounds the presumptions and prejudices of His disciples about the labels and the hearts of various people groups and wins over a whole town into trusting Him as their Saviour. But still there is no hint of a miracle involving a physically sick person.

However the next story does involve both a sick person physically as well as a very sick person spiritually. The father of a sick boy is so filled with doubt about Jesus that it is only his desperation concerning the health of his son that drives him to risk talking to Jesus, begging Him to heal his son. Likely he had tried everything else and was only coming to Jesus because he couldn't think of anything else to try. However, Jesus confronted him with his serious faith deficit and exposed this nearly fatal spiritual sickness which prompted this man to not only accept healing for his own heart but his whole household entered into belief with him on top of the physical healing of his son.

But in that story we still are only beginning to be introduced to the fact that Jesus may be interested in more than just spiritually confronting people about their belief condition. For the first time in this book we are starting to see that He can do more than just invite people through various ways to move out of unbelief and trust Him as their Savior. He now begins to demonstrate in a small way that He is also interested in physical sicknesses as well. But still it only involves a single sick boy, and this from quite a distance, not up close and personal.

Now as I move into chapter five I suddenly see this reference to a whole arena full of sick people in which the story is set. John now described there to be a whole a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered... This is in contrast to no references so far in this book to any sick people at all except for the single sick boy from a distance referred to in the last story. Now Jesus is shown as walking around amidst masses of sick people; and yet strangely enough He only focuses on one single individual out of all these multitudes of potential healings. That too seems to be an odd and interesting fact that raises more questions. But it certainly fits the pattern of progression that I am seeing here as far as the type of activities that Jesus is doing as John deliberately takes us through his narrative, showing us vital lessons of what God is like in the person of Jesus Christ.