Basic HTML Version
50
The Ministry of Healing
“Wilt Thou Be Made Whole?”
“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.”
John 5:2, 3
.
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 might have.
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 bank. Shelters had been erected about the place,
that the sick might be protected from the heat by the 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 at Jerusalem. Walking alone in apparent meditation
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 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 evil habits
[82]
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 water would be troubled, those who pitied his helplessness would
bear him to the porches. But at the favored moment he had no one
to help him in. He had seen the rippling of the water, but had never
been able to get farther than the edge of the pool. Others stronger
than he would plunge in before him. The poor, helpless sufferer was