Day 25 | The Healing at Bethesda

Read John 5:1-15

The healing at Bethesda took place when Jesus went to a Jewish festival and needed to go to Jerusalem. Bethesda was a pool located in the corner of Jerusalem, typically for people known to be disabled, blind, and paralyzed. While Jesus was there, He asked a man who was disabled an essential question, “Do you want to get well?”

When Jesus healed the man, He told him to “pick up your mat and walk.” With this, we learn that Jesus wants to heal the man. We can see that Jesus decided to heal the man in a particular and purposeful way, showing the man abundant grace in the time frame that Jesus saw fit.

We can learn from this miracle that how long we have been suffering is irrelevant to God’s healing. In our culture today, we want healing to be a short term, fast-paced process. Through this, we see that Jesus is sovereign. Jesus heals who He chooses to in a way He chooses to. In our lives, we may believe that if Jesus isn’t improving our situation in the time frame and how we want Him to heal, He isn’t sovereign. We are often led to believe that the longer a person has sinned, the less likely they will get to know God, or the longer our situation continues in a way that we wouldn’t have chosen, the longer hope for Jesus to heal us will never happen. We should remember that passing time doesn’t have to produce hopelessness. Jesus is still sovereign, gracious, and mighty regardless of when or how He decides to heal us.

Pray for 10 minutes