The Pool Of Bethesda - on the Via Dolorosa, just inside the Lion’s Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City, is the site of Bethesda. The spring that fed the pools sometimes inexplicably surged in flow. It was full of people presumably waiting for some angel to stir the waters. This is where Jesus famously found the man who had been waiting for the stirring of the waters for thirty-eight years but had been unable to enter the waters for healing. Just as the paralyzed man found no healing outside of Jesus, you too need Him alone

“After this there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 

"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 5:1-3). 

On the Via Dolorosa, just inside the Lion’s Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City, is the site of Bethesda. 

This is where Jesus famously found the man who had been waiting for the stirring of the waters for thirty-eight years but had been unable to enter the waters for healing. 

Jesus famously asked him, “Wilt thou be made whole?”

When the man answered that he was unable to enter the pool, Jesus said, “Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.”

What is fascinating about this story is that the ancient pool itself was in a pagan temple dedicated to the Roman god of healing, Asclepius, and possibly also to Fortuna, the goddess of good luck.

In the Bible, it was full of people presumably waiting for some angel to stir the waters. 

In reality, like most pagan revelations, there is a prosaic explanation. 

The spring that fed the pools sometimes inexplicably surged in flow, causing pools in the city to bubble and stir.

Jesus, in His mission to seek out the lost sheep of the house of Israel, entered this pagan temple, and on the Sabbath day, no less. 

He came there to find a lost Jewish man who was seeking healing where he should not even be, much less stay for thirty-eight years. 

The man did not know it was Jesus who healed him until he spoke with his Healer in God’s Temple, which was perhaps a ten-minute walk away from the pool of Bethesda.

Are you seeking healing in the wrong places? 

Are you uselessly waiting for a natural phenomenon that the lost world mistakes for an angel? 

Just as the paralyzed man in the book of John found no healing outside of Jesus, you too need Him alone. 

If you are a believer, meditate on the fact that our Savior was willing to go to an unclean place dedicated to vile gods on the Sabbath day just to find that one person who needed Him.

John Buckner

enjoyingthejourney.org

You might also like:

ALL things are possible to him who believes - Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and His ability to heal has never diminished over time

The End of Your Broken Dreams - God wants not only to comfort your heart but to restore your hope - leave your shattered world behind and enter the new one God has before you, for he is faithful always

Broken Bread - our world is tragically broken and enslaved to the power of sin and death - something about our brokenness connects deeply to the bread that is broken - this breaking of bread is a holy moment and a sacred experience