Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place.
This reminds me of a story my sister shared with me years ago. She said they were enjoying an afternoon meal at a local restaurant when one of her young ones, then just a baby, began choking on a piece of food. She said that she was terrified as the baby’s face began to turn blue as apparently he was not able to breath and appeared to be suffocating to death. She told me a man approached the table, did something to the baby to dislodge the food. The obstruction was removed and the baby was able to breath again. However, the man that did this had promptly walked away and left the restaurant. There was no opportunity to know he was or to thank him.
Jesus seems to have done something similar. He departs before the man can even ask his name. The text doesn’t read that Jesus moved away because there was a crowd. Although some commentators interpret this as the reason of Jesus’ departure. Perhaps that’s because other texts seem to indicate this as a reason for why Jesus leaves various situations.
But if it wasn’t the crowd that motivated Jesus to leave, what was it? Calvin thinks the following:
He therefore withdrew for a little, that the Jews might have it in their power to judge of the fact itself, without reference to any person.
There is a lot of people in this area. It is the sabbath. Jesus commanded this man to pick up his bed, carry it, and walk. That’s a volatile situation that Jesus has ignited. Jesus then walks away.
Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”
“Afterward” doesn’t specify the amount of time that elapsed between verse 14 and what went on before. Most seem to think it was the same day, though there’s nothing in the text that would seem to require that interpretation.
The man is in the temple. That’s where you go to offer worship and thanks to God. That seems to be the appropriate response by one that is grateful for what God has done. The Church is not the temple of God, but like the temple, it is where the people of God congregate to worship and give thanks. Those that have been healed by God have a natural disposition to gravitate toward worship and thanksgiving.
Here Jesus links suffering to sin. Many commentators take this as evidence that the man’s 38-years of misery and suffering were attributable to some past sin in the man’s life. That’s certainly possible. Sin does have physical consequences. Consider 1 Corinthians 11.27-30:
Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.
Sin is a disease that affects us physically. But sin is not the only thing that affects us physically. For this reason, one cannot attribute sin to every illness. That is made evident in passages such as John 9.
Physically, it might have been hard to imagine something worse than the suffering this man experienced over the course of the prior 38-years. For this reason, Piper sees Christ’s warning relating to the final judgement:
I take that—final judgment—to be the “worse thing” (in verse 14) that will happen because there aren’t many natural things worse than the 38 years this man endured,