Jesus Heals a Sick Man
Later, Jesus went to Jerusalem for another Jewish festival. In the city near the sheep gate was a pool with five porches, and its name in Hebrew was Bethzatha.
Many sick, blind, lame, and crippled people were lying close to the pool.
Beside the pool was a man who had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw the man and realized that he had been crippled for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to be healed?"
The man answered, "Lord, I don?t have anyone to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up. I try to get in, but someone else always gets there first." Jesus told him, "Pick up your mat and walk!" Right then the man was healed. He picked up his mat and started walking around. The day on which this happened was a Sabbath. When the Jewish leaders saw the man carrying his mat, they said to him, "This is the Sabbath! No one is allowed to carry a mat on the Sabbath."
But he replied, "The man who healed me told me to pick up my mat and walk." They asked him, "Who is this man that told you to pick up your mat and walk?" But he did not know who Jesus was, and Jesus had left because of the crowd. Later, Jesus met the man in the temple and told him, "You are now well. But don?t sin anymore or something worse might happen to you." The man left and told the leaders that Jesus was the one who had healed him. They started making a lot of trouble for Jesus because he did things like this on the Sabbath.
But Jesus said, "My Father has never stopped working, and that is why I keep on working." Now the leaders wanted to kill Jesus for two reasons. First, he had broken the law of the Sabbath. But even worse, he had said that God was his Father, which made him equal with God.
The Son?s Authority
Jesus told the people: I tell you for certain that the Son cannot do anything on his own. He can do only what he sees the Father doing, and he does exactly what he sees the Father do. The Father loves the Son and has shown him everything he does. The Father will show him even greater things, and you will be amazed. Just as the Father raises the dead and gives life, so the Son gives life to anyone he wants to.
The Father doesn?t judge anyone, but he has made his Son the judge of everyone. The Father wants all people to honor the Son as much as they honor him. When anyone refuses to honor the Son, that is the same as refusing to honor the Father who sent him.