When Jesus Saw Their Faith...

My Journal - Agatha Nolen

Only in John’s Gospel do we read the story of Jesus healing the paralytic at the Bethesda Pool by the Sheep’s Gate in Jerusalem. Tradition held that the first person immersed in the water would be completely healed. When Jesus encounters a man outside the pool and learns he has been an invalid for 38 years he asks him if he wants to get well (John 5:6). The man really doesn’t answer Jesus’ question but complains, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

Jesus appreciates the man’s predicament and heals him on the spot, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk. At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.” (John 5:8-9)

The Synoptic Gospels all have another story about a paralyzed man on a mat being healed, but it is slightly different (Matthew 9:1-8, Mark 2:1-12, Luke 5:17-26).

In these stories, Jesus is outside of Capernaum and a crowd has gathered in a house to hear him teach and preach. It is so crowded, no one else can get in. But four friends of a paralyzed man have also heard of Jesus’ healing power, and they are determined to get their friend close to Jesus. So, they cut a hole in the roof and lower the man on his mat into the house where Jesus is.

In these accounts, Jesus doesn’t ask the man on the mat any questions, instead all three Gospels recount, “When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven…So he said to the paralyzed man, ‘I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.’ Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God. (Luke 5: 20, 24-25)

At the Bethesda pool, the man has no friends to help him; in the Synoptic Gospels the man is healed because of his friends, “When Jesus saw their faith...” In all these stories, the paralyzed man isn’t asked to demonstrate his faith in order to receive healing.

In studying these Scripture verses, I’ve been asking myself two questions:

1. Are there people I know that need my prayers (to get to the healing pool (Jesus) first)?

2. Will Jesus recognize that my faith is strong and heal the people I pray for?

Blessings, my friend,
Agatha

Image: Baptistry Wall Painting: Christ Healing the Paralytic, Paint on Plaster, ca. 232 CE, Yale University Art Gallery