The Healing at Bethesda

 

John 5:1-9 “After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed,

waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had. Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked.

In continuing through my reading of a short study of the gospel of John, I’ve found that the word “Bethesda” translates to the term “house of kindness”. It is actually a site featuring two pools at Jerusalem’s Sheep Gate. There Jesus met a man who “had been an invalid for 38 years” and was paralyzed or so weak that he could hardly move; definitely couldn’t get into the pool on his own. This man was at the pool of Bethesda with a number of other disabled people, all of whom cane there expecting healing.

The lesson states that it is special to note that Jesus selects that lame man out of the crowd of many people who were unwell. The Lord exercises His sovereign prerogative to heal when and where He would choose, thus only asking this man if he wanted to be healed. It is also notable that there is almost no indication that the man had faith in Christ when Jesus healed him because later verses state that he did not know who Jesus was at the time of his healing.

I have always found in ironic that when Jesus asked the invalid man if he wanted to be healed and the man replied that he had no man to put him into the pool, Jesus didn’t say, “since it is the pool that heals, I’ll help you in.” Do you catch that? He healed him beside the “healing pool” without the healing pool. He healed by His word. The point being that you cannot put the “Great Physician”/ Almighty God into a box of physical restraints of “this is how the Lord should or must do blessing and healing”. What, when, where, how and why are not the issue; it’s WHO. God’s sovereignty determines what, when, where, how and why to act. Two things I know for sure: There is a God and He is not me. By Him our sins are healed.

Thanks be to God!

In Christ, Brian