The Way
The Pool of Bethesda
The day thirty-eight years of waiting ended
Story
At one of the Jewish festivals, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. By the Sheep Gate there was a pool called Bethesda, surrounded by five colonnades. In their shade, crowds of the blind, the lame, and the withered lay packed together. Among them was a man who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
Jesus knew he had been lying there a long time, so he went to him and asked, do you want to get well? Instead of answering, the man poured out his complaint. Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am making my way, someone else always gets down ahead of me. Jesus said to him, get up, pick up your mat, and walk. At once the man was healed, and he picked up his mat and walked.
That day was a Sabbath. The Jewish leaders stopped him. It is not lawful for you to carry your mat on the Sabbath. Because of this, they began to persecute Jesus. Jesus answered them. My Father is still working, and so am I. At that, they tried all the harder to kill him, because he was not only breaking the Sabbath, but calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
Walk this scene on the map →His Words
Do you want to be made well?
Get up. Pick up your mat and walk.
My Father is still at work even now, and so I am at work too.
Truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and trusts the one who sent me has eternal life, and has already crossed from death into life.
The sayings are fresh renderings of the original meaning in today's language. Text: Jn 5:1–47
Background
Excavations near the Church of Saint Anne in the late nineteenth century uncovered two large reservoirs. Some suggest that colonnades around the four sides and along the wall between the pools would match the five porches John describes.
Pause and Reflect
Can I trust Jesus' word more than circumstances that have gone on for years?