The Pool of Bethesda

Continuing with Fouard's Life of Christ:

Book Fourth: Second Year of the Ministry of Jesus

Chapter I: The second Paschal Season in the Ministry of Jesus

I: The Pool of Bethesda

John v. 1-47.

The Pool at Bethesda. J-J Tissot.

About this time the Saviour was minded to go up to Jerusalem for the approaching festival season.  The Gospel does not mention this celebration by name; but the most ancient Fathers looked upon it as being the second Passover in the Ministry of Jesus, and we entirely coincide with their conclusions.  It was to be the last in which He could take part without hazard of His life; and so He interrupted His mission in Galilee, joined company with one of the caravans of Pilgrims, and ascended with them to the Holy City.  He went thither in obedience to the commands of His Father, that He might once again offer His ungrateful city the Salvation which they had disdained; and so His first thought now, as it had ever been, was to seek out the desolate and distressed that He might comfort and relieve them.

"Now there is at Jerusalem, hard by the Gate of the Flocks, or pool called in Hebrew Bethesda" (The House of Mercy).  It was a huge basin, "with five sides surrounded by porticos.  Here, lying upon the ground, was a great multitude of infirm, blind, lame, and men with withered limbs, waiting for the water to be set in motion.  For an Angel of the Lord descended at a certain moment into the pool and stirred the waters, and the first to enter therein after that he had moved upon them was cured of whatsoever malady he lay under."

In the shadow of these porches a man was stretched, who had lain there for now thirty-nine years.  He had always been expecting to be cured; but because he had no one to help him, each time was doomed to see some other of his fellow-sufferers forestall him.  He was so lonely and desolate, his hopes had been disappointed so many times, that the wretched fellow was quite cast down and discouraged.

Jesus perceived him lying upon the ground, and knowing that he had been ill for such a long time was filled with pity for him.

"Take up your bed, and walk." J-J Tissot.

"Do you wish to be cured?" He said to him.

The paralytic scarcely grasped the meaning of this question; but he felt that it was a compassionate offer from a stranger, who would perhaps be willing to aid him at the favourable moment.

"Sir," he said, " I have no one to carry me to the pool when the water is troubled, and the moment I reach their another goes down ahead of me."

"Arise!" said Jesus; "take up your bed, and walk."

Instantly the poor creature arose, caught up the mat on which he was lying, swung it over his shoulders, and started to walk.  Beside himself with joy, he looked about him to thank his Benefactor; but Jesus had disappeared in the shadows under the crowded galleries.

It was on a Sabbath-day that the Lord performed this cure.  The witnesses of the miracle were too astounded to hinder the paralytic from carrying his bed off with him; but the Elders of the people, whom he met on the road, were horrified at this violation of the holy repose.

"It is the Sabbath!" They exclaimed; " it is not lawful for you to carry your bed."

"He who cured me told me himself: Take up your bed and walk," was his response.

"Who is the man," they demanded, "who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk?’"

The poor paralytic did not know; but the councillors of the Sanhedrin, whose deliberations were now constantly concerned with the doings of Jesus, detected His handiwork in this new prodigy, and they betrayed their hatred and their suspicions at the same time by their manner of questioning this man, not wanting to know "Who has healed you?" But, " Who told you to carry your mat?" Or, in other words, to break the Law?

And so they let the humble offender go, whom under other circumstances they would have punished severely, and turned their whole attention to the fact that Jesus was present in their city.  However, the delighted cripple, who had been made whole after so wonderful of fashion, wished at least to return thanks to God, and at once went up to the Temple for this purpose.  There Jesus encountered him; always careful to renew the soul at the same time as the body, He said to him:

"I have given you back your health; hereafter guard against sin, for fear lest some worst evil should happen to you."

The man forthwith went in search of the Jews, and told them that it was Jesus Who had healed him.

By this act he did not mean to betray his Benefactor, but on the contrary to glorify Him and give some token of his own gratitude.  The result was not such as to gratify his desires; for this news only increased the anger of the Sanhedrin by confirming its suspicions.  In that same hour they resolved to put down this Man, who violated their observances.  We do not know whether it was in the Temple or in Jerusalem that they found Him; but wherever it may have been, they were overcome with astonishment, when they heard Him, Whom they had come to rebuke, declare in their presence that, as He was the Son of God, He had all power over the Sabbath.

To the casuists who accused Him with having broken the Law, Jesus replied, therefore, that the of repose of the Sacred Day is not the inertia of death, but a suspension of corporal labour, whose excess does indeed wither and destroy the soul; but that it is at all times lawful to do good, and that if God, after the Creation, has made His habitation within an everlasting Sabbath, this His Attribute is not, so to say, the offspring of sterile sloth; but rather He thus conservates the indwelling life of all creatures by continuing to be, what He is in His Essence, the Life eternal, the eternal Quickener unto life.  In like manner He, being the Son of God, and God even as is His Father, could not know any surcease of activity in His operations: "My Father ceaseth not to work," He said, "and I work likewise."
This response incensed the Sanhedrin Councillors, who saw nothing in the Christ but only an impious fellow and a blasphemer.  Henceforth they were determined to compass His death, "not only because He had broken the Sabbath, but also because He said that God was His own Father, making Himself equal to God." But for the present moment, not daring to proceed to extremities, they submitted to listen to His word, which like a sword of fire cleaved their spirit, piercing to the innermost recesses of the soul; for Jesus, far from concealing His office in the presence of the princes of Israel, proclaimed openly Who He was.

Declaring that He is God as His Father is God, the Saviour added, moreover, that He possessed three divine Attributes of the Godhead, the power of restoring spiritual life to those dead in sin, the power of judging, and the power of raising up from the grave unto life all flesh, at the last day.  To establish such lofty prerogatives as these, the testimony of John was not enough, being that of man.  Jesus appeals to three Witnesses which come of God, His Miracles, the unmistakable sign of His Mission; the Voice of the Father which at the Jordan had proclaimed Him His well-beloved son; finally, the Authority of the Scriptures.

"Search them," He said, "since you think you find eternal life there in; they themselves give testimony of Me.  And you will not come to Me that you may have life!...  I know you; I know that you have not the love of God in you.  I am come in the Name of My Father, and you receive Me not.  Let another come in his own name, him you will receive."

These reproaches show that the Saviour was not content to enlighten the Sanhedrin as to the Truth, but he sought to move their hearts as well.  Yet this effort was to be all in vain; the great men of Judaea were too haughty to adore the Son of a carpenter as the Christ.  Though they did not dare to give vent to their hatred and contempt, they preserved a perfect secrecy as to what He had said to them; for His claim that He was the Son of God, confirmed and justified as it was by so many miracles, would have caused the people to proclaim Him as their Messiah.  On the other hand, as Jesus had transgressed the Pharisaic precepts by healing a man within the limits of the Sabbath, they directed all their public attacks upon this one point, and accused Him of contemning the Day of the Lord, assuring themselves that the people would side with them in any quarrel which involved the sanctity of the Day of Rest.

Indeed there was no institution more holy in the eyes of the Jews.  They looked upon it as the one individual characteristic which distinguished them from all other nations, and esteemed themselves as chosen by Jehovah solely to guard its observance.  The ancient directions were far from satisfying their scrupulosity.  After the Captivity, the Great Synagogue had drawn up a list of Thirty-nine Articles, called "Aboth," or Principal Provisions.  These, in turn, had given birth to an infinite number of "Toledoth," or descendants; and these secondary restrictions, embracing every detail of daily life,2 did, so to speak, really render any action impossible during the Sabbath Day.

We can see how the Pharisaic customs must have hindered and hampered the ministry of Jesus; and how easily the Sanhedrin, by exaggerating each least infringement upon its edicts, gradually so prevailed over the general mind that at last popular indignation demanded its Victim that had been thus made ready for the Sacrifice.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam