Pool of Bethesda - John 5:1-9

After Jesus calls Matthew to the ministry, He goes to Jerusalem for Passover. It doesn’t specifically say that his disciples went with him, but I would imagine that they do. Jesus comes to the pool of Bethesda where “in these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.” The IM quotes Elder Bruce R. McConkie as giving more insight into this ancient Hebrew practice, saying, “Any notion that an angel came down and troubled the waters, so that the first person thereafter entering them would be healed, was pure superstition. Healing miracles are not wrought in any such manner.” We know that this practice couldn’t have been real, and I wonder about the reaction of people when they saw the first person get out of the water and not be healed. But I can understand that someone who was sick and had no other means of hope or relief would put all of their efforts into this one last possibility.

While there Jesus sees a man who “had an infirmity thirty and eight years.” Jesus, knowing of this man’s predicament asks the man “Wilt thou be made whole?” I never understood why Jesus would have asked the man this question. Clearly the man wants to be healed, otherwise he wouldn’t be here waiting for the troubled waters. Why didn’t Jesus just heal him? I feel that everything Jesus does is because we ask for it, he doesn’t do things without our knowledge or consent. Of course the man wanted to be healed, but did he want Jesus to heal him or did he want to wait and take his chances with the water? I think that we might fall into this trap sometimes because we thing that we know what’s good for someone and so we just do it without them asking for it or agreeing to it, and Jesus doesn’t work that way, he wants our agreement, he wants us to make a conscious choice to accept what he’s offering. JTC comments, “the question was so simple as almost to appear superfluous. Of course the man wanted to be made well, and on the small chance of being bale to reach the water at the right moment was patiently yet eagerly waiting. There was purpose, however, in these as in all other words of the Master. The man’s attention was drawn to Him, fixed upon Him; the question aroused in the sufferer’s heart renewed yearning for the health and strength of which he had been bereft since the days of his youth.”

The man answers “Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.” There are a couple of points that I think are important here and the first is that the Lord never makes us compete with each other for anything. We are all blessed and chastened based on our own individual efforts, never because of where we are compared to another person. The second point that I find interesting is that the man didn’t know what Jesus was about to do, Jesus didn’t come up to him and tell him that he is the Messiah, the Son of God, and ask him if he believed, he only asked the man if he wanted to be healed. For whatever reason, Jesus recognized in the man, a spirit that was open to Him, and dealt with him accordingly. Jesus meets us where we are, maybe the man wasn’t in a place spiritual where he could believe in Jesus as the Messiah, but still saw his willing and humble spirit and rewarded that. Blessings aren’t a goal that we are working towards, they happen all the time, regardless of where we are on the journey, the Lord rewards our efforts, no matter how small.
Jesus tells them man, “Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the Sabbath.” The IM quotes Bishop Merrill J. Bateman as teaching, “Just as the lame man at the Pool of Bethesda needed someone stronger than himself to be healed, so we are dependent on the miracles of Christ’s atonement if our souls are to be made whole from grief, sorrow, and sin… Through Christ, broken hearts are mended and peace replaces anxiety and sorrow… As Isaiah stated concerning the Savior: ‘Surely he hath borne our grief’s, and carried our sorrows… And with his stripes we are healed… The Savior’s atonement in the garden and on the cross is intimate as well as infinite. Infinite in that it spans the eternities. Intimate in that the Savior felt each person’s pains, sufferings, and sicknesses. Consequently, he knows how to carry our sorrow and relieve our burdens that we might be healed from within, made whole persons, and receive everlasting joy in his kingdom. May our faith in the Father and the Son help each of us to become whole.”