The Life of Christ

Jn. 5:2-3 Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes. 3 In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, [ 1 waiting for the moving of the waters;

Bethesda was a pool enclosed within five porches, located by the sheep-market, presumably close to the Sheep-Gate.

• Today the site is marked by St. Ann’s church.

• At the time it was nick-named, “House of Healing” or the “House of Bubbling Up.”

• In the five porches surrounding this pool “lay a great multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered,” each waiting for a miraculous cure.

Jn. 5:4 “…for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted.”

This was only a superstition.

• The popular idea was that an angel descended into the water, causing it to bubble up, and only the first person in would be healed.

• Of course, this bubbling was caused by a natural spring, rather than anything supernatural.

Jn. 5:5 And a certain man was there, who had been thirty-eight years in his sickness.

It was as though Jesus searched out the most wretched among them, a man lame for 38 years!

• He was a hopeless sufferer, one who didn’t even have an attendant or friend to pull him to the water, should the water stir.

• Yet day after day, he would manage to get somebody to carry him to this pool anyway. What was he to do?

Jn. 5:6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, He said to him, “Do you wish to get well?”

Notice that Jesus directly asks this man if he would like to get well. Now notice his response in verse 7:

Jn. 5:7 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.”

This man who has been in this condition for 38 years is so discouraged that he can’t even answer Jesus’ question (“Do you wish to get well?”)

• Instead he begins to tell Jesus why that cannot happen.

• When people are beaten down by their problem for so long, they struggle to have the capacity to even want the solution.

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