Thoughts for the Day

After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralysed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ 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 making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’ At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

(Church in Wales Lectionary, New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

When I was twenty I spent months in hospital in Larnaca in Cyprus on traction to try and cure a back problem. That Christmas I was one of only five people in the hospal. I couldn't get out of bed but was forced to sleep on my back with weights hanging from my legs. This meant I had to gaze up into the bright overhead strip lighting. Most uncomfortable. However, when the weather was good, the nurses would slide back the huge glass windows (they were more like walls really) and push my bed out onto the terrace. It was heaven to look out over the bay and feel the breeze.

In this, the third sign (or miracle) in John's Gospel, we see a man who has been paralysed in some way for thirty-eight years but he has no-one to help him. Tradition says that the Pool of Bethesda would heal the first person into the water after its surface was disturbed. Imagine the frenetic movement of the sick at this point, and the jostling to get there first. When Jesus appears all eyes are fixed on the water in the pool. What is it about this one man that attracts the attention of Jesus when there are so many sick people around him? Perhaps it's the hopelessnes, for he knows that there is no point in trying, But more likely it's because he's the only one to actually look at Jesus. Is there hope in his eyes? Whatever it is, Jesus heals this one man.

When life seems hopeless we too should look towards Jesus, with hope, and ask for help. Expect things to be different then!

Lord Jesus Christ,
when our life is hard,
and someone we love is sick,
or when we can see no way forward,
give us the faith
to look to You with hope
knowing that You will have an answer,
and help us to accept that You know best
and love us as Your child.
Amen.