Section 49a
Jesus heals an invalid on the Sabbath
Jerusalem
| John 5:1-9 |
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| 1After this came the feast of the Jews, so Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called Bethesda in Hebrew, which has five porticoes. 3In the porticoes were lying a great multitude of disabled people, including the blind, the lame, and the paralyzed, who were waiting for the moving of the water. 4For at times an angel would go down into the pool and stir up the water. The first person who stepped in after the water was stirred up was healed of whatever disease he had. 5One man was there who had been suffering in his disability for thirty-eight years. 6When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been in that condition for a long time already, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” 7The disabled man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am going, another goes down before me.” 8Jesus said to him, “Rise, pick up your mat, and walk.” 9Immediately the man was made well, so he picked up his mat and began to walk.Now that day was a Sabbath. |
Notes
Pool of Bethesda
Part of the area of the twin pools associated with the healing of the paralytic has been excavated in the yard of the Church of St. Anne. The pools can still be seen in the northwest and northeast corners of the excavation trench. A dam separating the two pools carried a street across to what may have been the “house of mercy” associated with healing. The columns of the Byzantine church may have been reused from the original colonnades mentioned in John 5:2. In A.D. 135 a pagan sanctuary was built over the area which, oddly enough, confirms the location: small offerings found in the area identify the pagan structure as a healing sanctuary. Christians in the middle of the fifth century A.D. built their church over the remains of this sanctuary.