“When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?”
The sick man answered, 'Sir, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.' — the man's response reveals his condition's psychology: he is trapped in ritualistic hope (the stirred water) and feels victimized by others' speed. He cannot conceive of healing apart from the pool's mechanism, showing the limitation of his faith and understanding.
Church Fathers on John 5:6
After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
The feast of Pentecost. Jesus always went up to Jerusalem at the time of the feasts, that it might be seen that He was not an enemy to, but an observer of, the Law. And it gave Him the opportunity of impressing the simple multitude by miracles and teaching: as great numbers used then to collect from the neighboring towns.
The pool by the sheep-market, is the place where the priest washed the animals that were going to be sacrificed.
Read all 19 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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