Chapter 21—Bethesda and the Sanhedrin
This chapter is based on
John 5
.
“Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is
called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these
lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting
for the moving of the water.”
At certain seasons the waters of this pool were agitated, and it
was commonly believed that this was the result of supernatural power,
and that whoever first after the troubling of the pool stepped into
the waters, would be healed of whatever disease he had. Hundreds
of sufferers visited the place; but so great was the crowd when the
water was troubled that they rushed forward, trampling underfoot men,
women, and children, weaker than themselves. Many could not get
near the pool. Many who had succeeded in reaching it died upon its
brink. Shelters had been erected about the place, that the sick might be
protected from the heat by day and the chilliness of the night. There
were some who spent the night in these porches, creeping to the edge
of the pool day after day, in the vain hope of relief.
Jesus was again at Jerusalem. Walking alone, in apparent medita-
tion and prayer, He came to the pool. He saw the wretched sufferers
watching for that which they supposed to be their only chance of cure.
He longed to exercise His healing power, and make every sufferer
whole. But it was the Sabbath day. Multitudes were going to the
temple for worship, and He knew that such an act of healing would so
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excite the prejudice of the Jews as to cut short His work.
But the Saviour saw one case of supreme wretchedness. It was
that of a man who had been a helpless cripple for thirty-eight years.
His disease was in a great degree the result of his own sin, and was
looked upon as a judgment from God. Alone and friendless, feeling
that he was shut out from God’s mercy, the sufferer had passed long
years of misery. At the time when it was expected that the waters
would be troubled, those who pitied his helplessness would bear him
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