HE had been waiting a long time for his healing—this man who outlined. In fact, we are told that for thirty and eight years he had practically lain in one spot with his eyes fixed on the one place from which he believed his healing was to come; but it had never come. Then one day a strange thing happened. His attention was turned another way; and he who had looked so persistently in the wrong direction, suddenly discovered that as soon as he looked in the right direction he was healed, and healed within a very few minutes. He is known to Bible students as "the impotent man," and his story is briefly told in the fifth chapter of John's gospel.
Most of us are familiar with this man's experience, how he lay with "a great multitude of impotent folk" at the pool of Bethesda, waiting for the water to be "troubled" that he might step in and be healed. We remember how Jesus found him there, patient and uncomplaining, as honestly mistaken persons often are, and how the great heart of the Master was so moved with compassion that it is one of the few cases on record wherein he offered assistance without being asked. "Wilt thou be made whole?" he said. One can easily imagine the tenderness and sweetness of that voice, and how the sick man must have turned with sudden interest to see who the questioner might be.
Evidently he did not recognize the man whose wonderful miracles of healing must by that time have been known throughout Jerusalem, for even with the dear Christ standing so near, so ready to bless, he continued his outlining. "Sir," he replied, "I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool." His eyes were fixed on the Master, but his thought was still fixed on the pool —that little muddy pond which was to bring him his healing! And he who had said to the woman of Samaria, "If . . . thou wouldest have asked of him, ... he would have given thee living water," stood beside him, but he knew him not! There must have been a moment when the two men silently looked into each other's faces, just one momentous moment, never to be forgotten by at least one of them. Then the Master said to that seemingly helpless one, "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk," and the man who outlined found that he was healed, but not in any particular as he had expected.
