IN Jerusalem, in our Saviour’s days, there was a pool called Bethesda, which signifies House of Mercy, or, Place of the Flowing of Water; and this pool, as is the case with many others in Eastern lands, had a colonnade round it, where people could rest and be shaded from the heat. The wonderful thing connected with this pool or tank was, that at certain times in the year God sent an angel from heaven to disturb its still, cool waters, and when this was done, whoever stepped first into the pool was cured of whatever disease he had. How the sick people of Jerusalem must have valued the pool of Bethesda; this place of flowing water was to them indeed a House of Mercy! And very many poor, helpless people, were often carried to the porches or colonnade, and laid down there, waiting and hoping for God to send the angel and for the troubling of the water.
But one day a greater than the angel visited this well-known spot. He came and looked at the poor sick people, and, as He looked upon them, their longings for health filled His breast with divine compassion. It was Jesus, the great Healer of men’s diseases, who came that day to this House of Mercy. The eyes and thoughts of the sufferers were fixed upon the water; but the eye and thought of Jesus were fixed upon the sufferers. And He came to one man and looked upon him, He knew that the poor man had been a long, long time in his helpless and hopeless state, and Jesus said to him, “Wilt thou be made whole?”
No one, during the thirty-and-eight years the poor man had been ill, had asked him such a question. He had been an invalid before Jesus had come from heaven into the world, and all the years that the Lord had been going about doing good the poor man had been helplessly lying under the arche round the pool, and becoming more and more hopeless as time went on.
When the Lord’s words, “Wilt thou be made whole?” fell upon his ears, the poor man did not even understand them; he only thought of his own weakness, and how others not so bad as he pushed by him and got into the water before him, and how he who pushed in first came back quite strong and well. To lie for so long quite close to the place of healing, to see so many others healed, and yet to have no hope whatever of receiving the mercy of God himself, was a sorrowful state indeed in which to be.
You need not feel as he did, since you have heard of Jesus, and of His loving heart, and how He says to you in your helpless state of soul, “Wilt thou be made whole?” He is near to make us whole, and He can do this by one word. How happy it is to believe on Him!
It is a great comfort to be able to say, Jesus knows all about me; He knows how long I have been a poor helpless sinner. He knows all my thoughts, difficulties, and disappointments, and He it is who, today, says to me, “Wilt thou be made whole?”
Jesus does not ask you to do anything to make yourself whole, for a helpless sinner can do nothing. The impotent, that is, the powerless man, the man having no strength, could do nothing for himself. And his heart was as lifeless as his body. He did not even understand what Jesus said to him. How like ourselves, for how dull and stupid we also often are when the Lord speaks to us!
But, dear young reader, Jesus still speaks to you, and may you hear His voice. The great Healer of the soul is near you just now. Hearken as He says to the impotent man, “Rise, take up thy bed and walk,” and see how at His bidding immediately, the man, who for thirty-eight long years had been carried about, was made whole, and he arose and took up his bed and walked.
Yes, the Lord’s work is perfect. He heals for time and for eternity the very moment He speaks. Do you know the healing power of the Saviour’s words? Are you made whole, and are you walking to the glory of God? May it be so, and may you glorify the blessed Jesus, who died for us that we might live. “When we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly.”