OFFICIAL'S SON

The sign of the cure of the official's son deals with a more physical reality of Christ's ministry. Many of the same elements are however present in this scene. There is a question of trust or faith at the center of the scene; "the man put his trust in the word Jesus had spoken to him and started for home." (Jn. 4:50b). Jesus comments that only by seeing will people believe; and, interpreted on the double level John is often intending, the question of seeing can go beyond physical sight and mean the development of insight into who Jesus is, and what the relationship between Christ and man must be. Of course this is a passage concerning the power Jesus has over death and life, and coming to believe in Christ who is the eternal word / life, but it is also a passage about trust, and man's basic fear of trusting that which is not visible.

Fearing risk is common both in these passages and in any counseling relationship. In spiritual or psychological counselling that person must take the initial risk of accepting the unknown, and this is often the greatest obstacle to growth. Jesus models risk taking and calls for it in his relationships with others.

BETHESDA CRIPPLE

"The general pattern or form of the Bethesda story, like that of several pericopae in the Synoptic Gospels……, is determined by a feature common to them all: that Jesus takes action on his own initiative, without any appeal either from the patient or from his friends."(33) Common to the healing stories is the challenge of Jesus to the sick man, '"Do you really want to become a healthy man?' 'Have you the will to health?' The man's reply is a feeble excuse, which shows that his will to health has been weak. In view of this, the further command, 'Rise, pick up your stretcher and walk!' is felt as a further challenge to the man's enfeebled will, and, in fact, as a demand for his co-operation in the cure."(34)

Once again Jesus deals with the reality of the man's personality: if he does not have the will to be healthy, then he will be unable to accept the cure. The healing process indicated by Christ in this scene is two-fold; the healing power of the Spirit and the acceptance of the healing by the will of the patient, the desire to be healthy. The psychological parallels are so obvious it would be redundant to mention them. One is not cured, one becomes well; and this becoming involves the will to accept, grow, change and live. The responsibility for change belongs to the sick person. Jesus challenges the man to take up his own life and be responsible for it. He also challenges the man not to return to his former behaviour, 'sin no more', recognizing the psychological dimensions of the weak will which made him ill. Christ makes a distinction in the opening lines of the scene between sin and suffering, yet he recognizes the role that the self has had in the cause of the illness. The grumbling character of the sick man illustrates this: "If the paralytic's malady were not so tragic, one could almost be amused by the man's unimaginative approach to the curative waters. He crotchety grumbling……betrays a chronic inability to seize opportunity, a trait reflected again in his oblique response to Jesus' offer of a cure."(35)

THE ADULTRESS

The psychology of the adultress scene in Chapter Eight is similar to the dialogue with the Samaritan woman. Both deal with women of a socially unacceptable class, who are considered guilty of social crimes. Jesus laid down some clear reactions to guilt, both the guilt of the society which causes the women to be ostacised and the guilt of the individual. He proved unshockable, he did not recoil in horror from the woman; he refused to join them in their guilt trip, and he made a clear statement－that the truth of the woman's sin was more acceptable than the hypocrisy of the accusers. Finally he accepted, acknowledged what she had done, but made it clear that he was concerned only with her present and future behaviour.

The writing in the sand is debated, but the majority opinion suggests that he wrote from the Old Testament texts dealing with scandal. The "adultery in Law was concerned with unfaithfulness on the part of a wife, and not with affairs between husbands and unmarried women."(36) Christ indicated the double standard of the accusers. In this scene we are shown "the delicate balance between the justice of Jesus in not condoning the sin and his mercy in forgiving the sinner"; it is "one of the great gospel lessons".(37) It is perhaps the power of Christ's acceptance that enables the woman to stop.

An example of the 'acceptance' of Jesus is found in the discourse in 8:25-26: "What I have been telling you from the beginning. Many are the things I could say about you and condemn; but the only things I say to this world are what I have heard from Him, the One who sent me, who is truthful".

33)Dodd, 174.

34)Id, 176.

35)Brown, Jn., 209.

36)Id, 333.

37)Id, 337.