The fifth chapter of the Gospel of John begins with the story of the healing of the paralytic. The unfortunate man was lying at the Sheep Gate at the bath. This Jerusalem pool is called Bitezda in some manuscripts of the Gospel (Bethesda in Slavonic and Russian), Bethsaida in others, and differently in still others. Therefore, it is not clear what this place was actually called. In the Synodal translation, the word "Bethesda" is explained in a footnote: "House of Mercy," but then in Hebrew it should sound like Bethesed. Other commentaries say that it may have been called Betzafa, "the house of the bath", as it can be assumed that this bath had covered passages around the pool and therefore really looked like a house.

In these passages "lay a great multitude of the sick, the blind, the lame, the withered, waiting for the movement of the waters" (John 5:3). Then there is an insertion, which is absent in the oldest manuscripts (such as the Codex Sinaiticus), but is present in later Byzantine manuscripts (and from there it got into the Synodal translation). This is a very important point. It is about the fourth verse: "For the angel of the Lord went down into the pool from time to time and stirred up the waters; and whoever was the first to enter it after the water was disturbed, recovered, no matter what disease he was possessed with." How did this insert come about?

The idea that the one who entered the pool was the first to recover after the water was disturbed is further contained in verse seven, where the sick man says to Jesus: "... but I have no man to lower me into the pool when the waters are troubled; but when I come, the other has already descended before me." There is no further information in the Gospel about the Angel of the Lord and the fact that the first one who entered the troubled water recovered from the Angel of the Lord. Obviously, this is the commentary of a Byzantine translator who inserted in the eighth or ninth century the text that now constitutes verse 4, based on the meaning of what is said below. At first glance, this text does not distort the content of the Gospel story, but somewhat reduces the degree of its dynamism and expressiveness. However, in fact, this is not entirely true.

Most likely, this bath was a place of pagan worship. It was in this place in Jerusalem that archaeologists discovered the remains of a sanctuary in honor of the healing god Sarapis, the god of the late Hellenistic syncretic religion. The cult of Sarapis developed in Egypt and then was transferred to other countries of the Middle East. In this way, it gained a foothold, in particular, in Jerusalem, where not only Jews, but also pagans, Greeks, Romans, and immigrants from various countries of the East lived. All the cities of the Middle East in Jesus' time were already international—Antioch, Alexandria, Pergamum, and Jerusalem. And the pagans who lived in Jerusalem probably went to the pool, the sanctuary of Sarapis. In this case, it is understandable why Bethesda had a multitude of sick people waiting for the water to move: for it was around such sanctuaries of the healing gods that a kind of shelter was formed for the sick and the poor who came here from all over the world.

And so, a motley, multi-lingual crowd flocked to Jerusalem to the Sheep Gate, to the pool with the sanctuary of Sarapis. And that's where Jesus comes. It is very important to imagine this picture. Jesus comes to a place where people are gathered, speaking different languages, suffering from different diseases, each believing in something different. They have only one thing in common: each hopes to leave here physically healthy. Everything else does not bother anyone here. Interestingly, in such sanctuaries, if a person recovered, he brought votives – objects dedicated to the gods: golden images of eyes, ears, liver, etc., if diseases of these organs were cured.

Jesus' gaze falls on a man who has been living somewhere nearby for 38 years, waiting for recovery. 38 years of human life is, of course, a huge figure, but here it also has a symbolic meaning. This is almost 40 years - the period of wandering of the Jews in the wilderness in the time of Moses. It should not be overlooked that this figure does not simply indicate a specific period. For people of biblical culture, this is almost an idiom. This is an infinitely long time, they simply cannot imagine a longer time. Jesus approaches the paralytic and asks: "Do you want to be healthy?" He appeals to his desire, to his will. Jesus does not heal a sick person against his will, He calls this person to want to be healthy, not to wait for mercy from an unknown deity, but to humanly want his life to change. And the relaxed person turns out to be quite an active person.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus addresses this paralytic with the same words that in the Synoptic Gospels He addresses the paralytic who was brought on a stretcher (Matt. 9; Mk. 2; Lk. 5). But if the sick man was almost indifferent, then in the fourth Gospel the paralytic exclaims: "Yes, Lord." This "so" certainly reflects: "I want."

Thus, the two accounts of the healing of the paralytics, those of the Synoptics and those of John, are very similar, but differ in details. In the synoptic Gospels, the sick person is surrounded by people who take care of him, who bring him in, dig up the roof to lower the bed on which he lies. In the Gospel of John, the paralytic is alone, forsaken by everyone. After answering Jesus' question, "Yes," he adds: "But I have no man to lower me into the pool." The Person who gives him a helping hand is Jesus Himself. At the same time, the miracle of healing does not take place against the background of the fact that the Angel of the Lord disturbs the water, but against the background of a pagan sanctuary. Christ stands in the middle of this sanctuary among people who, from the point of view of an orthodox Jew, are inferior, unworthy, and it is here that He enters into conversation with the unfortunate.

This text has, so to speak, a scandalous connotation. The scene takes place in a place where a pious Jew could not even go, because not only the expectation of a miracle, but also the very presence here was considered as idolatry, as a gross violation of the first commandment. The healing of the paralytic takes place on Saturday. Jesus not only heals the sick man, but tells him: "Get up, take up your bed and walk." It seems to provoke a violation of the commandment about the Sabbath, according to which on this day nothing can be carried in the hands. The Jews are quite tolerant of the healed, they only do not like that he takes his bed on the day when it is forbidden. (Amazingly, the prohibition to wear one's own bed on the Sabbath can be found in the Talmud, so there is a kind of living echo of the religious tradition known to us from the Gospel texts.)

The healing of the paralytic at the font is not the only case in the Gospels when Jesus performs a miracle on the Sabbath. Why? The answer to this question is contained in verse 17: "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work," Jesus says to the Jews. In other words, God continues to create the world every day: children are born, flowers bloom, trees continue to grow, etc., not only on ordinary days, but also on the Sabbath. In the Synodal translation, the Greek verb "poyein" is translated as "to do." However, it should be noted that in the semantics of this Greek verb there is something "muscular" that speaks of work, in contrast to the rather vague semantic field of the Russian verb "to do". Therefore, when comparing the Greek text and the Russian translation, this difference is very felt. Jesus tells the congregation that His Father works daily like a workman, and so does He, Jesus.

A manifested miracle is always a sign that the creative act continues, that God remains the Creator even today, in contrast to the ideas of the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks and other peoples, in whose ideas, having once created the world, God retired to rest and no longer participates in its life. In ancient mythologies, the god Demiurge, the god of craftsmanship, the god of creator dwells in his palaces – for example, Amun, Khnum or Ptah among the Egyptians. The world is ruled by Zeus and other ancient Greek gods.

In the biblical worldview, everything is different. God's creation is not limited by any specific dates, and the miracles that are happening today only remind us that the creative act is not finished. In fact, it cannot be completed if it is done outside of time. The idea that the Earth was created once and for all is a manifestation of paganism. This separation of creation from the rest of life introduces something mechanical into the picture of the world, which is absent in the Gospels.

In the Gospel of John, there is another place where the miracle of healing is told. This is the healing of the man born blind in the 9th chapter. Jesus says, "As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. Having said this, He spat on the ground, made clay from spittle, and anointed the eyes of the blind man with spittle, and said to him, "Go and wash..." All interpreters of the New Testament pay attention to this moment, when Jesus, spitting on the earth, put it to the eyes of the blind man. On the one hand, there are ideas about the healing properties of saliva and earth. But on the other hand, God creates man from the dust of the earth in the book of Genesis: "And God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his face the breath of life" (Gen. 1:7). Jesus, spitting, blows on the dust of the earth, and the earth mixes with His breath, and as if "not completely" created man acquires fullness: his eyes are opened. There is a clear parallel between the text about the creation of man and the story of the healing of the man born blind. And when Jesus says, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work," it is clear that this is an ongoing act of creation.

And then the scandal begins. "And the Jews sought to kill Him all the more, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also called God His Father, making Himself equal with God" (John 5:18).