John 5:1–16
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.
Reflection
Do I wait all my life for the stirring of
the water?
How safe it is not to
see, not to have to move?