Where is your Bethesda Pool?
John 5:1-15
Where is your Bethesda Pool? How long have you been sitting there? There were many people sitting by the pool that day. Jesus observed them sitting there with problems of long standing. In fact this man had his problem for 38 years and after that long a time, he probably didn’t have any hope of getting any better. Maybe he thought the time limit on his getting better had expired. When Jesus came along, He knew the man had been there a long time but just the same he asked him, “Will thou be made whole?” Jesus knew that it had been a problem of long standing, but He still asked him, “Do you want to get well?” The man had tried to get into the pool before when the angel troubled the waters, and it was always the same. Someone jumped in ahead of him. He answered Jesus by saying, “I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up.” It was as simple as that. Somebody always beat him to it. Maybe he didn’t even try anymore because it was always the same. Jesus zeroed in on this particular person when he said, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” After all this time of no change, no improvement, something happened. He arose and walked and immediately was well. He didn’t even know who had healed him. When people asked him, he didn’t even know who it was. Later Jesus saw him and spoke to him and said, “You’re well now. Sin no more lest a worse thing come upon you.” It doesn’t say how the man responded. As with others who were healed, it doesn’t say that he hilariously leaped and praised God. We don’t know how he reacted, but he was now well and he picked up his bed and walked off and was criticized because he was carrying his bed on the Sabbath day. I don’t think people who saw the mass of sick people sitting around the pool were excited about any one getting well especially after no improvement for such a long time. One year after another rolled by for them and for him. He lived in a state of more or less just existing. He learned to live with his disability and that was his way of life. Same old same old. He had listened to people too long. They had given up on him and he had probably given up on himself. Could anything change at this late date? Had the limits on his getting better expire? To him they probably had. He probably told himself, “Learn to live with it” but then Jesus came along and asked him a question? “‘Do you want to be well?” He didn’t say, “Oh, yes.” Instead he said, “I don’t have anyone to put me into the pool.” Has there been a time when you have given up on yourself? You have listened to people too long and have felt that delay is denial, but delay does not have to be a denial. Jesus is the “same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). What he could do then he can do today as well as in the future. There is not a time limit on healing where it expires if we don’t see it happen immediately. Don’t be satisfied until you see your recovery take place. To others Jesus said, “according to your faith be it unto you” (Matthew 9:29). So do you believe that He is the same? That it can happen to you in spite of time going by? In his case Jesus approached the man, but in most cases the sick people approached Jesus. He didn’t do it all for the man. He worked in cooperation with the man by saying, “You get up—You rise, take up your bed and walk.” You do something. What is it that Jesus would have you to do to see his miracle take place? To be well we have to go after it. Had the man said, “Oh, it won’t do any good.” Refusing to stand up, he would have still been sitting by the pool. He could have said, “Thank you, but no thank you.”
The Bible doesn’t say what happened to any of the others who were sitting by the pool that day. The miracle worker was right there in their presence that day, and the others were probably not even aware of it.
On another occasion in Luke 5:17, it tells us that “the power of his presence was there to heal.” How many tapped into His presence on the various occasions that Jesus was in an area? The man at the pool didn’t even know who it was that made him well. In this particular case Jesus singled out a particular person to demonstrate His power of what He could do. When prayer is offered in the Name of Jesus or hands are laid on a person for healing, the person must believe that something is working to bring about healing and restoration. The power of God is present to drive out sickness and disease at it was in Jesus’ day. The “power of his presence was there to heal” (Luke 5:17). That makes a difference. That’s what occurred that day to the one man at the pool. When Jesus said, “Rise and pick up your bed, the power of His presence was enough to restore the man where he could walk in spite of a problem of long standing. In this man’s case there was not a dramatic emotional healing that took place. Jesus just said, “Rise up and walk” and he did. Sometimes people are looking for something more spectacular and overlook the presence of the Lord to heal. It is there all the time nd will do the work as you do your part to believe first and then do whatever else the Lord tells you to do. In his case he was simply to stand up, pick up his bed, and walk. Are we sitting around our pool just waiting for something—not sure what when the power of his presence is there to heal us all the time if we just say “Lord, I believe, and I receive you now to do whatever is necessary in my life and in my body. Lord, I receive. I don’t have a spectacular sign. I am rising and being healed now in the Name of Jesus. Thank you Lord.”
