The Pool of Bethesda

The pool had five porticoes.

Lying in them was a multitude of invalids.

Blind, lame, paralyzed.

People believed that when the water was stirred, the first one in was healed.

So they came and waited.

Near the water that might move.

Jesus came to the pool.

He saw the man lying there.

The text says he knew he had been there a long time.

Not just noticed. Knew.

He went to him specifically.

Past the rest.

To this one man.

He asked him: Do you want to be healed?

A strange question. For someone who had been waiting thirty-eight years.

The man said: Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up.

While I am going, another steps down before me.

He answered with an explanation. Not with yes.

He had rehearsed the problem so many times that the answer to do you want to be healed had become a description of the obstacle.

Jesus said: Get up. Take up your bed and walk.

And immediately the man was healed.

He took up his bed and walked.

The religious leaders were angry because it was the Sabbath.

They asked who told him to carry his bed.

He said he didn't know.

Jesus had withdrawn into the crowd.

Later Jesus found him in the temple.

He said: See, you are well. Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.

The man went away and told the leaders it was Jesus.

He gave his healer's name to the people who were angry about the healing.

Maybe he didn't understand what he was doing.

Maybe he didn't know who Jesus was even then.

He had been healed by someone he never quite understood.

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