Where Is Your Bed?

PART 1 — THE BED YOU’VE BEEN LYING ON

There is a place in Jerusalem that almost no one visited with joy. They did not come singing. They did not come expecting a miracle. They came because they were stuck. They came because they were broken. They came because they had nowhere else to go.

It was called the Pool of Bethesda.

Five porches wrapped around that pool like a hospital waiting room that never emptied and never healed. The Bible says the people who lay there were “blind, lame, and paralyzed.” But if we could step into the story with spiritual eyes, we would see much more than physical illness. We would see what Jesus saw — the stuck, the stagnant, the defeated, the misdirected, the disappointed, the spiritually numb.

Bethesda was not a place of healing.

It was a place of waiting.

It was the porch of stagnation.

The porch of false hope.

The porch of spiritual paralysis.

And Jesus walked straight into that space because it represents the condition of His people. Many believers today are not rebellious. They are not faithless. They are not uninterested in God. They are simply stuck. Emotionally stuck. Spiritually stuck. Stuck in cycles they cannot break. Stuck in pain they cannot name. Stuck in identities they did not choose. Stuck in beds they never intended to lie on for this long.

Bethesda was full of people who could not move… and full of people who did not believe anything else ever would move. And yet they kept coming back to the same place, the same routine, the same pool, hoping that maybe this time something different would happen.

Sound familiar?

---

THE WATER NEVER STIRRED — AND JESUS KNEW IT

One of the most liberating truths about this passage is something most Christians never notice:

The water never had healing power.

Not once. Not ever.

It was a story. A belief. A superstition that grew out of desperation.

People believed that an angel came down, touched the water, stirred it, and whoever was first into the pool would be healed. It was a myth built around a reservoir fed by intermittent springs. Every now and then, the water bubbled — and people assumed heaven had touched earth.

But God had not spoken.

No prophet had declared it.

The Scriptures did not promise it.

Jesus did not affirm it.

And yet multitudes built their hope on a pool that God never stirred.

Church people still do this.

They wait for:

a feeling

a sign

a spiritual wave

a new season

someone else to change

someone else to notice

someone else to help

circumstances to improve

the perfect moment

But the water never moves.

We keep returning to habits that cannot heal us, beliefs that cannot strengthen us, emotional scripts that cannot free us, coping mechanisms that cannot restore us.

We lie down on beds that keep us paralyzed.

That is why Jesus didn’t waste one second blessing a myth.

He didn’t energize the false system.

He didn’t say, “Hold on… wait until the water moves.”

No.

He walked past the superstition and went directly to the man.

Because the answer was never in the water.

The answer was standing beside it.

---

YOUR CHURCH HAS A PORCH

Bethesda is not just a location in Jerusalem.

Bethesda is every church on Sabbath morning.

If you could see what Jesus sees, you would recognize the same five porches:

1. The Porch of Fear

People terrified of failure, rejection, change, or surrender.

2. The Porch of Shame

People who believe God forgives but cannot imagine forgiving themselves.

3. The Porch of Bitterness

People who carry wounds from family, church, or life that never healed.

4. The Porch of Disappointment

People who prayed for something that didn’t happen… and their hope quietly shut down.

5. The Porch of Exhaustion

People spiritually tired, emotionally empty, physically worn down.

And just like in Jerusalem, the porch is full — but the people are not moving.

This is spiritual paralysis.

Not rebellion.

Not unbelief.

Not apathy.

Paralysis.

People who love Jesus but cannot rise, cannot break free, cannot see forward.

Bethesda is the church when the people of God have been wounded long enough to believe that nothing will ever change.

---

WHAT PARALYZES US TODAY?

Jesus sees deeper than symptoms.

He sees the internal forces that make people lie down when they were created to walk.

Fear paralyzes.

Fear tells you, “Don’t try again. Don’t trust again. Don’t hope again.”

Shame paralyzes.

Shame whispers, “You don’t deserve to rise.”

Guilt paralyzes.

Guilt chains you to your past.

Bitterness paralyzes.

Bitterness freezes your spirit and hardens your heart.

Trauma paralyzes.

Trauma teaches your soul to stay where it hurts least.

Disappointment paralyzes.

After years of unanswered prayers, people stop praying for anything big.