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?” 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.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.
John 5:2-5, ESV
It may have been legend - the healing pool of Bethesda.
Folklore - a story passed down from one generation to the next and believed to be true.
Or it may have been real...
God responding to the faith of the blind, the lame, and the paralytic that desperately clawed to the water's edge with the help of their family and friends in hopes of restoration during its stirring.
Whatever the case may be - this pool is our setting for the next of Jesus' miracles.
Jesus asks the paralytic, "Do you want to be healed?"
"Sir, I have no one..." he responds.
How these words break my heart.
They tell a story of a man who once carried within him a hope of healing...and now held nothing within him but its dying embers.
A man alone.
A man forgotten.
An "invalid for thirty-eight years."
That's how old I am. Thirty-eight.
I imagine what he must have felt...being so close and yet so far from the water's stirring.
Thirty-eight years of birthdays...
Thirty-eight years of life observed...
Thirty-eight years of missing out...
Watching others reach the water...
But having no one to help HIM reach it.
And then I imagine what his heart must have felt as Jesus said the words,
"Get up, take up your bed, and walk."
"Do what is impossible for you to do."
It would make sense for the man to question it.
It would make sense for the man to doubt...
To laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of what He was being told to do.
But he didn't.
The Bible says, "Immediately he was made well, took up his bed, and walked."
And I wonder, "Would we have done the same?"
Would we have believed?
Would we have dared to try?
I like to think that we would.
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Tonight, if you find yourself reading this through eyes filled with tears, relating to the man's cry, "Sir, I have no one..." - I pray that you will hear this truth loud and clearly:
JUST LIKE HIM, YOU DO HAVE SOMEONE.
YOU HAVE JESUS.
He will never leave you nor forsake you (Heb. 13).
He will be with you to very end (Mt. 28) -
an ever-present help in times of struggle (Ps. 46).
And, if you feel like the paralytic - having hoped for so long it feels like the last remnants of your hope are fading - I pray that you would be encouraged by this story to KEEP BELIEVING.
There is absolutely nothing our God cannot do.
"For with God NOTHING is impossible."
- Luke 1:37
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