“People to meet in heaven: a man at the pool of Bethesda”
John 5:1-9
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
In January of 1990, Pastor Duane Miller was serving the people of Brenham, Texas. It was a good church, and he had served them for some time.
But that January, he caught the flu, and it somehow penetrated the myelin sheath of his vocal chords, an envelope surrounding the nerves, and damaged the tissue beyond repair.
Over the next three years, he saw a number of specialists, but nothing anyone did could help. So he was left with a voice that screeched like the worst case of laryngitis you’ve ever heard.
His church was patient with him and his disability—(what do you if you’re a pastor and you can’t talk?!)--until he resigned in 1991 and moved back to Houston, where his wife became the primary breadwinner of the family. He got a job as a private investigator, (where he didn’t have to talk), but he longed to serve, someday, in the ministry again.
The following year, in April of 1992, when a church’s regular Bible Study leader had to take some time away, members asked if he could fill in instead. When he said he was just too hard to understand, they said, “Then we’ll listen REALLY carefully.”
Then came that day in January, 1993. At the time, he was in deep depression. Two days before, he said, he had sat for hours in his living room with no hope and no reason to live.
But he was scheduled to teach that Sunday and couldn’t find a substitute, so he decided to at least show up. His teaching, he said, was “perfunctory, indifferent, and apathetic, nothing more.”
And as he began his outline, he discussed the word “all.” He said it meant “every single one, without exception.” “Christ forgave all our sin—it’s what makes the good news great,” he said. He had no problem talking about that.
But when he began to talk about healing, he said, “I still believe God heals.” But as he said those words, he thought, “But why not me?” He moved through it as best as he could, and then began his third thought—“He redeems my life from the pit.”
He said, “I have had, and you have had, in times past, pit experiences.” But on that word, “pit,” the pressure that had been on his throat for three years was suddenly gone, as if someone had removed their hand from choking him. He paused, then continued, startled, “We’ve all had times when our life seemed to be in a pit, in a grave, and we didn’t have an answer for the pit we find ourselves in.”
And while he was speaking, his voice returned. His three-years of laryngitis were gone. And he thought, “Is this what I think it is?”
When he saw his doctor a few days later, there was no evidence that he even had a problem. His voice was completely restored.
He said, “If God could do that for me, He can solve whatever problem you have in your life. He loves you every bit as much as He loves me.”
The book of John tells the story of a miracle—a healing at the pool of Bethesda. If you would, please turn in your Bible to page 1132 as I read the words of our text. I’ll start at John chapter 5, verse 1: “After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, He said to him, ‘Do you want to be healed?’”
To give you a little context, only days before, Jesus had said to a man named Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” And He said, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son.” Then, in Samaria, He said to a woman at a well, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give Him will never be thirsty again.” And in Cana of Galilee, He healed a nobleman’s son.
Now here in chapter 5, as John wrote in verse 1, there was a feast of the Jews, so Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
“Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate…” it says. What’s a sheep gate?
In Bible times, there were as many as twenty different gates, twenty different ways to enter the city. There was the “East Gate,” where Jesus entered on Palm Sunday. There was the “Beautiful Gate,” where Peter and John once healed a lame man. There was the “Lion’s Gate,” where Stephen was stoned. And there was a “Horse Gate,” and a “Fish Gate,” and a “Dung Gate,” which, appropriately so, led out to the city dump.
And here, we read of the “Sheep Gate.” It was near the temple, where lambs were led for sacrifice.
And as John wrote, by the Sheep Gate there was a pool. In Aramaic, it was called Bethesda.
We like that word, “Bethesda.” Think of Bethesda Lutheran Home in Watertown, Wisconsin or Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. It’s a name that means, “house of mercy” and “house of grace.”
And as it says in verse 3, beneath its five roofed colonnades, there “lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed.”
Can you imagine the scene? Can you imagine the smell?
First, there was the overwhelming odor of wet wool from the best of Israel’s lambs and sheep—bathed, trimmed, shorn, and prepared for sacrifice. Then came the aroma of bread and breakfast cooked over an open fire. And last, there was the stench of sick, unwashed, diseased human bodies—like a sick bay or hospital ward.
And why was Jesus there? Why wouldn’t He be there? After all, that’s what He once said to the Pharisees—“It’s not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.”
And when you think of the Pool of Bethesda, what image comes to mind? Are you thinking a cool, crystal clear, well-chlorinated, backyard swimming pool? Think again. The water was dark and dirty--more like thick black coffee with a heavy helping of cream.
And as John writes in verse 5: “One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.”
Let me stop there for just a moment to let that sink in—thirty-eight years. For us, that’s 1979, back when Jimmy Carter was president, Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, and gas cost 86 cents a gallon. That’s a long time!
Then, in verse 6, “When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, He said to him, ‘Do you want to be healed?’”
That’s kind of an odd question, don’t you think? “Do you want to be healed?” He’s been sick for thirty-eight years. Of course, he wants to be healed!
But hidden behind that question were two more— “Do you still trust in God or have you lost all hope?”
Then verse 7: “The sick man answered Him, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.”
You see at the time, the people believed that, once a year, an angel came down from heaven and stirred the waters of the pool. And just as soon as the water stirred, the first one in could be healed.
Imagine if you sat in a doctor’s office for thirty-eight years and, once a year, a nurse came out and said, “Who’s next?” And everyone made a mad dash to the door.
But in that moment, with eight simple words, Jesus showed Himself to be the Great Physician, the Divine Healer, the Lord of heaven and earth. He said, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And in that moment, as he took up his bed and walked, his life was never the same.
Phil Callaway is an award-winning author, speaker, and father of three. He’s written twenty-five books that include, Laughing Matters, I Used to Have Answers…Now I Have Kids…and Making Life Rich Without Any Money. His list of accomplishments, he said, are shutting off the TV to listen to his children’s questions (twice), taking out the garbage without being told (once), and convincing his high school sweetheart to marry him (once).
But one day while he was writing in his office, the phone rang. There was silence at first, then his wife’s voice, speaking words he would never forget. She said, “Help me, please help me. I don’t know what’s happening!”
Normally it’s a five minute jog from his office to his house. That day he made it in two. Bursting through the front door, he found his wife lying on the living room couch, with a deep gash running up her leg and blood staining the carpet. Staring at him with vacant eyes, she asked, “What day is it? It’s Monday, right?”
It was Friday, April 10, 1992.
Until that day, life had been everything they had hoped for. They had three children in three years, and couldn’t have been happier. Until her fall and her diagnosis—Huntington’s disease.
Four years later, after seeing twenty-one specialists and scouring libraries for any information they could find, and his wife weighing barely ninety pounds, he prayed, “What do I do now, Lord? Where do we go from here?”
“But there was only silence,” he said. “The windows of heaven seemed shut, the drapes pulled.”
Finally, a doctor’s name came to mind, a member of his church. A few minutes later he called him on the phone.
“I’ve seen this once before,” he said. “Bring her to me first thing in the morning. There’s a new drug to treat it.”
A week later, she was a different person. The seizures ended. God had given him his wife back.
He said, “I’m thankful that in the toughest of times, God’s grace can help us choose joy over bitterness, and help us stay together when our whole world is falling apart.”
So what does all this mean for us?
I’ll leave you with just one thing. Remember the question Jesus asked? As He knelt down beside him, that invalid of thirty-eight years, He asked, “Do you want to be healed?”
Let me ask you a question, a rather personal question. Do you want to be healed? Do you want to be rid of your guilt, your anger, your bitterness, your shame? Or do you want to hold it and keep it inside?
If you want to be healed, and I hope you do, there’s Someone who can cleanse and heal and forgive--the sinless Son of God, the sinless Lamb of God. And He will make you whole again.
We thank You, dear Father, for the good You do, for the grace You show, and the healing You provide. Help us, encourage us, and strengthen us, that we may find our rest in You. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen