Who doesn’t wish to feel whole and healthy? In the King James version of the Bible, the book of John tells of “a certain man” who waited for 38 years to be healed of an unnamed malady, so he could carry on a fuller life (see John 5:2–14). Every day, he sat by the same pool—called Bethesda—hoping for the periodic angel visitor to stir the water. He believed that if he could just dip his toe in first, he would be healed.
One might picture this man as in a health resort of his day, surrounded by five porches where “a great multitude of impotent folk,” including those who were blind, crippled, and paralyzed, waited for their turn to be healed. Since this man never quite got into the water before someone else passed him by, he returned day after day, hoping for another chance. One can imagine the discouragement he must have felt as the years mounted, yet he saw no other option.
On the day recorded, Christ Jesus picked him out of the crowd and asked, “Wilt thou be made whole?” The Amplified Bible renders this verse: “Are you really in earnest about getting well?” The man must have been completely taken off guard by the query, since he had long sought the very thing Jesus questioned. He responded with an explanation: “I have nobody when the water is moving to put me into the pool; but while I am trying to come [into it] myself, somebody else steps down ahead of me.” Rather than delving into the man’s answer, Jesus counseled, “Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.” And the man did!
