“The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.”
Then Jesus said to him, 'Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.' — Jesus' command is abrupt, without the mediating ritual (the pool) the man expects. The Greek egeiro (get up) and perpateo (walk) are acts of resurrection; Jesus calls the man to a new mode of existence. The command assumes both divine authority and the man's capacity to obey.
Church Fathers on John 5:7
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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