February 13, Site #4

THE POOL OF BETHESDA
Bethesda means “house of grace.” It was a spring-fed pool in Jerusalem, surrounded by five porches (John 5:1-10). Located near the Sheep Gate, it was originally a sheep dip in order to purify sheep before they were sacrificed. In Jesus’ day it was a place of healing. People waited to step down into the waters whenever it bubbled up from the bottom, because the fresh waters were thought to have healing properties. In 1888, while the Church of St. Anne (the Virgin Mary’s Mother), over which the pool is built, was being repaired, a reservoir was discovered. On the wall was a fresco which depicted an angel troubling the water. The pool today is 55 feet long and 12 feet wide. It was originally much larger, probably 300 feet long and 180 feet wide. It was one of seven open-air reservoirs built during the second Temple period. They provided water for the growing population of Jerusalem.

John 5:1-18 (a healing at the Pool of Bethesda)
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 paralyzed. 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. Now that day was a sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, “It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.” But he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take it up and walk’?” Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath.
But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.” For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.