“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?””
John 5:1-6 NKJV
To be sick, blind, lame, or paralysed in the days when Jesus lived in Palestine was a terrible and hopeless condition to be in. There was no remedy from the medics, such as they had, or anyone else. But there was a glimmer of hope in the gloom. Apparently, someone had discovered that the turbulence caused by the spring that fed the Pool of Bethesda had healing powers, because they believed it was caused by an angel, who came down from Heaven and stirred up the waters. Whoever made it into the Pool first was then healed. As a consequence, the Pool was populated by a “great multitude of sick people”, all there in the hope that they would be the first to make it into the Pool. The verses today don’t say how often the waters were stirred up, but in a society without any other alternative, there was no other choice.
In modern times, there is another spring of water with, it is claimed, healing properties. This spring is at Lourdes, in France, and many Catholic visitors go there to bathe in its waters, also in the hope that healing powers can be found. There have been many documented miracles, enough to attract thousands of sick visitors every year. To many of these people, Lourdes is a last resort. They have been told that there is little or no hope that they will get better from whatever ails them, and these people have much in common with the sick people lying around the pool of Bethesda. From Wikipedia, “According to Catholic tradition, the location of the spring was described to Bernadette Soubirous by an apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes on 25 February 1858. Since that time, many millions of pilgrims to Lourdes have followed the instruction of the Blessed Virgin Mary to “drink at the spring and bathe in it”.”
Picking up the account in our verses today, we see that during His visit to Jerusalem, Jesus visited the Pool of Bethesda. We are not told why He went there, but, in the knowledge Jesus only did what His Father commanded, He was there for a purpose. We also don’t know if His disciples were with Him, though John must have been to include the story in his Gospel account. But by the Pool, Jesus found a man with an “infirmity”. We don’t know what this was, but it was such that he was practically helpless, needing someone to help him into the pool when the waters bubbled up. But then, Jesus asked the man a strange question, “Do you want to be made well?” Surely the man wanted to be healed because otherwise why was he there? I have met two ladies with illnesses or disabilities who have responded to prayer for healing. One was made totally well, but the other, although apparently healed, quickly lapsed back into her previous state. The first lady bravely faced into the consequences of her healing with the loss of disability benefits and consequent financial challenges. The second lady realised that through healing she would lose her identity as the “lady in a wheelchair”, as well as the loss of a full time carer and other financial benefits. The first wanted to be healed. The second didn’t. But they were both healed through prayer and by a miracle of God’s grace.
The man at the pool had been in a desperate paralysed condition for thirty eight years, and amongst all the people sitting or lying around the Pool, he was the only one that Jesus sought out. Why was that, I wonder? The quick answer is that I don’t really know. There have been suggestions, such as Jesus might have known the man from a previous encounter, or that for most of the people there, God had already supplied a miraculous solution for the first person to enter the water after it bubbled up. Of course, Jesus may have healed others, but John’s Gospel account doesn’t record any.
We pilgrims know that God, regardless of our human state of health, can heal us. He does so through the medical profession, but He also heals through miraculous encounters with the Holy Spirit. Through our faith in Him, we trust Him with our life on this earth, and the life to come. There is no other way.
Dear Father God. You are the One who heals us, and we give You all the glory for the occasions when that happens. Please forgive us for our lack of faith. Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 