Life of Christ 53
Jesus, while attending
the second Passover of His public ministry, takes time to visit the Pool of
Bethesda. This was a rectangular, distinctively man-made pool, open to the
elements, surrounded on all four sides by covered porticoes, and intersected in
the center with a wall that also had a covered portico on it, and that
controlled the flow of water between both sides. Apparently, according to John,
sick people gathered here waiting for an occasional troubling of the waters
that resulted in healing. I confess I do not understand that, but the infirm man
had been waiting 38 years there and had seen it happen many times.
For some centuries
theological liberals would use this story (John 5.1-16) to attack the veracity
of John's Gospel because there was zero archaeological evidence for a five sided
and covered man-made pool near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem. They asserted that
the Gospel of John was fabricated centuries after the life of Christ by someone
who obviously had no knowledge about Jerusalem whatsoever.
There is an old
statement in archaeology that says absence of evidence isn't evidence of
absence. In other words, just because it hasn't been dug up yet doesn't mean it
never existed. This is often conveniently ignored by those who attack the
Bible, well, at least until their faces are rubbed in it when something is dug
up.
Yep, you guessed it, the
Pool of Bethesda was found, right where it was supposed to be. The November 3,
1888 Richmond Examiner carries an article attributing the discovery to Conrad
Schick, a German missionary had lived in Jerusalem for decades. The intervening
century and a third has largely vindicated him, and now nobody attacks the
authenticity of John's Gospel on the basis of the Pool of Bethesda.
I do not know why Jesus
chose this particular man to heal rather than any of the multitude of others
who were waiting there, but I do want you to put yourself in his position for a
moment.
You have been infirm for
decades. As the years pass you bitterly come to realize that you will never be
able to get into the Pool at the right moment. Suddenly, an obscure Galilean
rabbi appears with a small group of followers, engages you in conversation, and
the next thing you know you are in better health than you have ever been. He
tells you to pick up your bed and carry it away. You do, never stopping to
think for one moment that it is the Sabbath and you aren't supposed to carry
your bed. Suddenly, around you a commotion arises.
'Hey, bud, put that bed down! You're not
allowed to carry that!'
You answer, 'There was a guy and He healed me,
and He told me to pick it up and carry it, and I'm gonna' listen to Him.'
They say, 'Which guy?'
but suddenly you can't find Him anywhere. You search and search but you don't
ever find Him so you head, naturally, to the Temple, a place you haven't been
able to visit for years, not since you were a little boy. You are eager to
praise God for the wonderful fortune that has befallen you. There, He finds you
again. He engages you in a spiritual conversation about sin and Himself, and
you come to believe in Him as your Saviour and Messiah. You run back to the
Pool and tell everybody you know, 'I found Him! His name is Jesus. And He is
wonderful! He made me whole!'
Are you empty? Are you
incomplete? Are you missing something that you just cannot quite put your
finger on? Are you searching? When you find Him, and He is what you are looking
for whether you know it or not, you will find just exactly what is needed to
make you whole.
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