To his contemporaries Christ Jesus was a doer and a sayer of the unexpected. No wonder! His words and works opened up new vistas of freedom and responsibility hardly glimpsed before.
Take his healing of a man who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. In a moment the hopelessness of those years was gone. The man could walk. He left the pool of Bethesda under his own power. We can imagine the unspeakable joy that filled his heart as he rejoiced in his newfound strength.
But the story does not end there. The Bible records a second brief encounter. Jesus not only knew how to heal disease through divine power; he knew as well the obedience that God as Principle demands of men. Evidently this latter point was unclear to the one healed. We read in the Bible account, "Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee." John 5:14;
