Saved by the Well – Jesus at the Pool of Bethesda

Saved by the Bell – Jesus at the Pool of Bethesda.

“Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had… (Please read the entire story in John 5:1-15).

SAVED: The Hebrew word for save is “Yasha,” which means to be set free into the wide open; to be delivered in a time of desperate need; to be saved from destruction and certain death. “Salvation” literally means to become spacious, and refers to “the sense of deliverance from an existence that had become confined, compressed, or cramped.” (Eugene Peterson). When Jesus delivers us from our inner spiritual confinement, we are liberated into a wide open, broad, expansive place. The word for “wide open space” is the opposite of a straitjacket. Without Jesus, our soul will never be freed from our spiritual straitjacket. There are three passages in Psalms that describe this freedom deliverance beautifully:

1. “From my distress, I called upon the Lord. He answered me and set me on a large place. After being in a tight spot, the Lord placed me into a broad space. Because I was hemmed in, I called on Lord Yahweh. He answered me and gave me room.” (Ps. 118:5);
2. “Lord, you have not given me over into the hands of the Enemy; You have liberated me and set my feet in a wide expanse, a good and spacious land. You have given me the freedom to roam at large, where I can freely move. You have given me room to breathe.” (Ps. 31:8);
3. “The Lord rescued me because He delighted in me. He brought me out to freedom into a wide-open space. My soul has been delivered because of God’s love for me, and my soul finally has some elbow room!” (Ps. 18:19).

THE WELL: There are four Hebrew words used in the Jewish Bible to describe the different kinds of ancient wells. There was the traditional well that was a deep hole dug in the ground to tap into an underground source of water. Another type of well was a fountain spring that had naturally broken through the earth’s surface on its own without man’s help. The wellspring is another version of well in Scripture in which fresh water flowed out of the ground in any number of ways to become available for cleansing, nourishment, refreshment, for survival itself. Life-giving wells of water have always been a powerful picture of our dependence upon God for spiritual survival. Just as Creator God has designed the human body to completely depend on water to live, our spiritual life totally relies on His presence in us to not just survive but to flourish. God is our spiritual well of fresh water, the only stable source of nourishment and purity. He is our fountain of life that gushes forth to replenish and cleanse us. God is our eternal wellspring of living water that will never run dry. Each of us is born spiritually dehydrated, and God alone is the constant, reliable water source to bring us back to life. As the silly joke goes, wells are a deep subject, and the biblical wells involve such stalwarts as Hagar and Abraham; Isaac and Moses; Samson and Solomon; the psalmists and the prophets. And of course, the glorious fulfillment of all these ancient stories of wells… Messiah Jesus and the woman at the well.

A Glory-Revealing. This is the third sign in John’s gospel, when Jesus revealed His glory through a miracle. I have included in this particular teaching a number of questions asked of the reader to help engage with the material. Please either consider these questions privately or discuss the questions at the group level. Thanks.

1. Jewish to the Core. All Jewish men, usually accompanied by their families, were required to go to Jerusalem each year to celebrate 3 holy days: Passover, Pentecost, and Shelters. Jesus was merely being faithful to His Jewish faith by being in Jerusalem at this time. He was raised in an observant home with religious parents (Luke 2:41), and He as an adult continued exercising His faith the way He was raised. Jesus was fully Jewish in both race and religion. Do you enjoy certain church or home traditions every year, celebrations that you would never want to stop going to?
2. Bethesda. While in Jerusalem on the Sabbath, Jesus happened to stroll by a big pool of water that was a local gathering place for those with disabilities – the lame, sick, crippled, blind. This place, Bethesda, which means House of Loving Kindness, was often seen as a miraculous pool that healed the sick. The pool was 55 feet long, 12 feet wide, and had 24 steps which led down to the water from the main walkway in the city. It had five porches around the pool in order to shelter the invalids hoping for a healing. It was thought that when the natural spring in the water intermittently caused a bubbling on the surface, it was a healing angel stirring the water. The disabled were desperate to touch the water during the bubbling up, and were looking for any hope they could find to be cured. Does this tradition of the healing angel stirring the water seem silly or foolish to you? Or could there have really been a spiritual power, an angel, doing actual healing at this pool?
3. Lame Man. There was a man lying near the pool who had been lame for 38 years. We never know his name. He was hopeless, in his own mind, because no one had ever helped him touch the bubbling water for healing. There’s a good chance that being lame for this long meant that his condition had become a life style, a way of living, that he had grown accustomed to. No doubt his own identity was wrapped up in his crippled condition. Being crippled for that long probably meant that this is how he sees himself, it’s a part of how he defines himself.
4. A Strange Question. Jesus seemed to have eyes only for this lame man as He approached him and asked him a question… “Would you like to get well?” The lame man lying there helplessly on his mat could be excused for thinking, “What?! Of course I want to get well! Why would you even ask a question like that? Do you think I like being crippled?” Jesus must have had something in mind particular to this man when He asked that question. It’s as if Jesus was asking this lame man a loaded question, just for him. Perhaps that question implied these deeper questions from Jesus that the man needs to answer for himself:

• Your self-identity has been intimately connected to having this disability. That is how you see yourself. Your disability has probably been accepted as an essential component to how you define yourself. Are you ready to let go of that part of your identity? Are you ready to see yourself differently? Are you ready to define yourself differently?
• Everyone has accepted you as a sad, forlorn victim. And no doubt you have accepted that status. And truth be known, you have grown to like the attention it brings. You have been accepting charity and sad looks and pity for so long, you don’t remember what it’s like not to be a victim. Are you ready to remove that victim label? Are you ready for others to look at you differently, to see you as an equal and not as a mere unfortunate? Are you ready to let go of whatever self-pity you may have been feeding on?
• You have not had to take responsibility for your life for so long that it will be difficult for you to be healed. All these years, your friends have fed you, clothed you, and carried you from one place to another. Taking responsibility for yourself will be a foreign experience. You’ll have to work, feed and clothe yourself, and find your own way in life. Are you read to take full responsibility for your own life, and not be dependent on others? No more reasonable excuses. Are you ready for that kind of independence? Are you ready to make your own life-defining decisions?
• You no doubt have learned to be helpless and hopeless. You have developed a lifestyle and mindset that expects the worst. That is not a life of faith. I want this healing to stimulate your spiritual faith, not merely heal your physical body. Are you ready to develop a hopeful faith in God as a result of your healing? Are you ready to acknowledge that the Lord has healed you and that He therefore deserves your trust and faith?  Are you ready to follow me? Can you remember that your healing is not the end of the story?

If you had been struggling with a disability for a long time, which of these implied questions would be the most difficult for you?

5. Healed. Seeing his hopelessness, yet sensing a Yes to His question, Jesus had mercy and healed the lame man, right where he lay. Jesus simply told him to stand up, pick up his mat, and walk. So that’s what the man did! All it took was a word. Jesus never touched him that we know of. After lying on his mat for all those years, it was a miracle that he could even stand. What words would you use to describe how this healed man must have felt? Soon after the healing, Jesus disappears into the crowd, without even telling the man His name. Why did Jesus do that? Why did He just disappear like that?

6. The Law. Sure enough, no one is better at raining on a parade than the rigid Temple leaders, the self-appointed religious police, who are all about keeping all the tiny details of Jewish tradition. They were more concerned with their petty rules, like carrying a mat on the Sabbath, that the fact that a miracle has been done in their presence! The Pharisee leaders thought that the broken rule was more important than the fact that a broken man was healed. This particular law wasn’t even in Scripture, the leaders made it up, and it was one of hundreds of laws they added to the Old Testament law. With this healing, Jesus implied that people are more important than irrelevant or empty rules. Are there any guidelines or rules, not in Scripture, that you think are pointless, and might even get in the way of helping people?

7. Interesting Comment. Jesus saw the healed man in the Temple  a little later, and He told the man to stop sinning, or something worse may happen to him. What did this mean? Perhaps his lameness was the result of a sinful decision the man had made earlier in his life? What are examples now of disease or disabilities that are the direct consequences of bad decision-making? Is this an example of what Jesus once said, that in life you reap what you sow?

8. Consider This. So the strange, rather obvious question that Jesus asked the lame man turned out not to be such an obvious question after all. And when we ask God to heal us or to help us make a major change about ourselves, Jesus is asking the same questions of us. Do you tend to define yourself by what needs to be healed? Are you ready for others to see you differently? Can you claim a complete self-identity without focusing on your deficits or challenges? Can you reject the victim label and take responsibility for your life? Will you recognize God the Healer as also Savior and Sustainer?

9. Big Question. What did we learn about Jesus in this healing story?