Scripture a Record of Human Sorrow
I. There lay about the Pool of Bethesda a great multitude of impotent folk of blind, halt, and withered. This is a painful picture, such as we do not like to dwell upon a picture of a chief kind of human suffering, bodily disease; one which suggests to us and typifies all other suffering the most obvious fulfilment of that curse which Adam's fall brought upon his descendants. Now it must strike everyone who thinks about it that the Bible is full of such descriptions of human misery. Little does it say concerning the innocent pleasures of life; of those temporal blessings which rest upon our worldly occupations and make them easy; of the blessing which we derive from the sun and moon and the everlasting hills; from the succession of the seasons and the produce of the earth; little about our recreations and our daily domestic comforts; little about the ordinary occasions of festivity and mirth which occur in life, and nothing at all about those various other enjoyments which it would be going too much into detail to mention. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity; man is born to trouble; these are its customary lessons.
II. God does nothing without some wise and good reason, which it becomes us devoutly to accept and use. In truth, this view is the ultimate true view of human life. But this is not all; it is a view which it concerns us much to know. It concerns us much to be told that this world is, after all, in spite of first experiences and partial exceptions, a dark world; else we shall be obliged to learn it sooner or later we must learn it by sad experience; whereas, if we are forewarned, we shall unlearn false notions of its excellence, and be saved the disappointment which follows them. By being told of the world's vanity at first, we shall learn, not indeed to be gloomy and discontented, but to bear a sober and calm heart under a smiling, cheerful countenance. The great rule of our conduct is to take things as they come. The true Christian rejoices in those earthly things which give joy, but in such a way as not to care for them when they go. For no blessing does he care much, except those which are immortal, knowing that he shall receive all such again in the world to come. But the least and the most fleeting he is too religious to contemn, considering them God's gift; and the least and most fleeting, thus received, yield a purer and deeper, though a less tumultuous joy.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons,vol. i., p. 325.
References: John 5:2. A. Blomfield, Sermons in Town and Country,p. 27 3 John 1:5 :3, John 5:4. Expositor,1st series, vol. vii., p. 194; H. Wace, Ibid.,2nd series, vol. ii., p. 197. John 5:4. G. Colborne, Christian World Pulpit,vol. v., p. 360; Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., p. 242; vol. viii., p. 202. Joh 5:5-14. Homilist,3rd series, vol. ii., p. 20 3 John 1:5 :6. Church of England Pulpit,vol. xiv., p. 112.