HOPE! - Jesus Love the Outcasts

In John 5 we see the story of Jesus healing a paralyzed man at the Pool of Bethesda. And this story is actually one of the stranger stories we get of Jesus healing somebody.

For one thing, the setting of the miracle is at an odd location - The pool of Bethesda. This pool was situated to the north of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and had been a sort of pilgrimage site for many people since around 150 BC. They came because they believed that the waters of Bethesda contained the power to heal people. People were still crowding around the pool to be healed during the time of Jesus.

One of the weird things here is that Jesus usually healed people in just plain old ordinary locations – nothing particularly special about them. But in this story, Jesus heals somebody in a place of healing.

Another weird thing about this healing is that Jesus doesn’t ever touch the paralyzed man. He often touched the people he healed. Jesus also doesn’t use any of the healing water from the pool to restore the man. Jesus was known to use various things around him when he performed miracles, such as when he made mud and put it on the blind man’s eyes, or when he used the five loaves and two fish to feed the multitude. But this time, Jesus only uses the power of his word to heal.

Another strange thing in this story is the attitude of the man himself. After he is healed, he shows no sign of having put his faith in Jesus at all. He appears to not even know or care who Jesus is.

When Jesus goes to him and finds out how long he had been lying there – for decades – he asks him, “Do you want to get well?”

But that man almost changes the subject, and he says, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

It almost seems like the man is so focused on the pool that he can’t see anything beyond the pool. It’s like he doesn’t even look Jesus in the face because he’s always got one eye on that dumb pool.

Often when Jesus heals people he tells them that they have been healed because of their faith, and many times it seems that Jesus’ power is limited by the amount of faith people have in him to heal them. The Gospels even tell us that in some towns Jesus was only able to heal a few people because of their lack of faith.

But for some reason, the paralyzed man’s lack of faith doesn’t seem to prevent Jesus from healing him.

Another odd thing about this story is what Jesus says later when he bumps into the man. He says, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” This stands in stark contrast to the words of comfort Jesus spoke to many other after he had healed them.

Later, in chapter 9, we learn that Jesus does not believe that people suffer or get sick because God is angry with them. So why does Jesus tell this guy that something worse may happen to him?

Well, perhaps a little background on the location of the miracle would be helpful. Here’s what the archaeologists of Yale Divinity School found out when the excavated the site:

Between 150 BCE and 70 CE, a popular healing center was located in this area… The baths, grottos and a water cistern were arranged for medicinal and religious purposes. After bathing, patients could sleep in a grotto. “Priests” were available to interpret dreams as part of the healing ritual.

Now, when you look into the background here, you find that this description of events is exactly what the pagan priests of Asclepius, the Greek god of healing, did in their own rituals to him.

And so through archaeology, we have learned that the Pool of Bethesda was actually holy shrine to the pagan god Asclepius.

This is where Jews who had given up on their own God would go to seek healing.

So why did Jesus go here in the first place?

Well, it sounds like he went there to challenge the title that Asclepius held of being the “great physician.” Jesus shows that he doesn’t need the sacred water and he doesn’t even need to touch the man to heal him. Even the man’s lack of faith in him doesn’t stop him. Let there be no confusion. Jesus heals here. And Asclepius does not.

But there’s more to this story than Jesus confronting a pagan god. Jesus has compassion on someone who doesn’t even care who he is.

But it goes deeper than that.

Of all the people who sat waiting at the pool, hoping to be healed, Jesus chooses this one man, the man who had apparently been there the longest. Jesus chooses the man who had no one to help him. The man who was ignored. The man that even Asclepius, the supposed great healer, had overlooked for so… so… long.

Because Jesus loves the outcasts.