The man healed in this story is perhaps the least willing and the least grateful of all the people Jesus heals in John’s Gospel. If ever we’re tempted to think that God’s healing depends on the quality or quantity of a person’s faith, this passage tells us otherwise. The complete opposite of the Samaritan Leper we read about last week, the man Jesus heals here shows no sign of faith in Jesus or gratitude for being healed.
When confronted by the religious authorities about carrying his mat on the Sabbath, he deflects blame to the man who healed him, whose name he has not even bothered to learn. And when he meets Jesus again and learns his name, he immediately tells the authorities the identity of the man they seek. Perhaps the man thinks that if the authorities go after Jesus, they’ll leave him alone. The religious authorities are convinced that Jesus is a sinner because he heals on the Sabbath. From the perspective of John’s Gospel, however, unbelief is the fundamental sin; specifically, the rejection of the One sent by God. When Jesus meets the healed man in the temple, he tells him, “See, you have been made well! Do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.”
The “sin” that Jesus refers to is the sin of unbelief. There are worse things than being reproached by religious authorities for breaking the Sabbath. If the man persists in his unbelief and indifference to Jesus, he risks incurring the judgment of God, which matters far more than that of the religious authorities.
One might wonder why Jesus chose this particular man to heal out of all the invalids lying around the pool of Bethzatha. It seems like he could’ve made a better choice! Yet here we see that the compassion and healing power of Jesus aren’t reserved only for those who are “deserving,” for those whose faith is great and who respond to healing by believing in and following Jesus. Certainly Jesus heals such people also. But here, Jesus heals one whose lack of faith leads him to cooperate with those who persecute Jesus, who even seek to kill Jesus. What’s that about? John doesn’t say.
John’s Gospel does not answer the question of why certain people are healed and others are not. But this passage makes it clear that healing is not a matter of having “enough” faith (as if that could be measured). That isn’t how Jesus operates. Clearly, Jesus isn’t looking for gratitude or praise or devotion. He heals people simply because this is the work of his Father.