An Interpretation of the Miracle at the Pool of Bethesda
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After these things, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem by the sheep gate, there is a pool, which is called in Hebrew, "Bethesda," having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, or paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain times into the pool, and stirred up the water. Whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was made whole of whatever disease he had. A certain man was there, who had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had been sick for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?" The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I'm coming, another steps down before me." Jesus said to him, "Arise, take up your mat, and walk." Immediately, the man was made well, and took up his mat and walked. Now it was the Sabbath on that day. (John 5: 1-9) Jesus' question is an odd one. When you go to the doctor, the first question she asks is not, "Do you want to get well?" but, usually, "What's the problem?" The doctor assumes you want to get well. And this man, after all, had been showing up at poolside for 38 years.
Of course, we know about hypochondriacs, and people who would be lost without their illnesses, whom we might well ask, "Do you want to get well?" But as so often in the Gospel of John, the odd question or phrase points to a deeper level.
At that level, it is a question for everyone. It presupposes an illness from which one might possibly not want to get well. And what illness is that?
It is all that keeps us from being the kind of creature he challenges us to be in the Sermon on the Mount.
How can we be like that? What is the way? The answer of Christians has always been: Jesus is the way. He is the way, because of the way he went in this city so many years ago. That was the way of the cross.
One cannot, by one's own efforts, become pure in heart. One cannot set aside one's own ego, any more than someone sinking in quicksand can pull herself out by the hair.
The Passion Account has many dimensions. In one of them, it is the account of the journey that each soul must make, in order to become pure in heart. This is not a journey one can make alone. Nor can the false self order its own crucifixion. When he asks me, "Do you want to get well?", I may shout in the affirmative (unlike the man at the pool, who gave an excuse). But even as I shout, a part of me is down there tugging in the opposite direction, like Augustine before his conversion, who prayed, "God, make me chaste! But not yet."
If I cannot heal myself on my own, then, what can I do? I can try to hear the question, "Do you want to get well?"
To hear this question is to open up to the possibility of healing.
The Pool of BethesdaThe Via DolorosaStopping at the Stations of the Cross
© 2003 Near East Tourist Agency (NET) Text © 2003 Stephen Langfur
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