pool of Bethesda

147:3.1The af­ter­noon of the sec­ond Sab­bath in Je­ru­sa­lem, as the Mas­ter and the apos­tles were about to par­tic­i­pate in the tem­ple ser­vices, John said to Je­sus, “Come with me, I would show you some­thing.” John con­ducted Je­sus out through one of the Je­ru­sa­lem gates to a pool of wa­ter called Bethesda. Sur­round­ing this pool was a struc­ture of five porches un­der which a large group of suf­fer­ers lin­gered in quest of heal­ing. This was a hot spring whose red­dish-tinged wa­ter would bub­ble up at ir­reg­u­lar in­ter­vals be­cause of gas ac­cu­mu­la­tions in the rock cav­erns un­der­neath the pool. This pe­ri­odic dis­tur­bance of the warm wa­ters was be­lieved by many to be due to super­nat­u­ral in­flu­ences, and it was a pop­u­lar be­lief that the first per­son who en­tered the wa­ter af­ter such a dis­tur­bance would be healed of what­ever in­fir­mity he had.

147:3.2The apos­tles were some­what rest­less un­der the re­stric­tions im­posed by Je­sus, and John, the young­est of the twelve, was es­pe­cially restive un­der this re­straint. He had brought Je­sus to the pool think­ing that the sight of the as­sem­bled suf­fer­ers would make such an ap­peal to the Mas­ter’s com­pas­sion that he would be moved to per­form a mir­a­cle of heal­ing, and thereby would all Je­ru­sa­lem be as­tounded and pres­ently be won to be­lieve in the gospel of the king­dom. Said John to Je­sus: “Mas­ter, see all of these suf­fer­ing ones; is there noth­ing we can do for them?” And Je­sus replied: “John, why would you tempt me to turn aside from the way I have cho­sen? Why do you go on de­sir­ing to sub­sti­tute the work­ing of won­ders and the heal­ing of the sick for the procla­ma­tion of the gospel of eter­nal truth? My son, I may not do that which you de­sire, but gather to­gether these sick and af­flicted that I may speak words of good cheer and eter­nal com­fort to them.”

147:3.3In speak­ing to those as­sem­bled, Je­sus said: “Many of you are here, sick and af­flicted, be­cause of your many years of wrong liv­ing. Some suf­fer from the ac­ci­dents of time, oth­ers as a re­sult of the mis­takes of their fore­bears, while some of you strug­gle un­der the hand­i­caps of the im­per­fect con­di­tions of your tem­po­ral ex­is­tence. But my Fa­ther works, and I would work, to im­prove your earthly state but more es­pe­cially to in­sure your eter­nal es­tate. None of us can do much to change the dif­fi­cul­ties of life un­less we dis­cover the Fa­ther in heaven so wills. Af­ter all, we are all be­holden to do the will of the Eter­nal. If you could all be healed of your phys­i­cal af­flic­tions, you would in­deed mar­vel, but it is even greater that you should be cleansed of all spir­i­tual dis­ease and find your­selves healed of all moral in­fir­mi­ties. You are all God’s chil­dren; you are the sons of the heav­enly Fa­ther. The bonds of time may seem to af­flict you, but the God of eter­nity loves you. And when the time of judg­ment shall come, fear not, you shall all find, not only jus­tice, but an abun­dance of mercy. Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you: He who hears the gospel of the king­dom and be­lieves in this teach­ing of son­ship with God, has eter­nal life; al­ready are such be­liev­ers pass­ing from judg­ment and death to light and life. And the hour is com­ing in which even those who are in the tombs shall hear the voice of the res­ur­rec­tion.”

147:3.4And many of those who heard be­lieved the gospel of the king­dom. Some of the af­flicted were so in­spired and spir­i­tu­ally re­viv­i­fied that they went about pro­claim­ing that they had also been cured of their phys­i­cal ail­ments.

147:3.5One man who had been many years down­cast and griev­ously af­flicted by the in­fir­mi­ties of his trou­bled mind, re­joiced at Je­sus’ words and, pick­ing up his bed, went forth to his home, even though it was the Sab­bath day. This af­flicted man had waited all these years for some­body to help him; he was such a vic­tim of the feel­ing of his own help­less­ness that he had never once en­ter­tained the idea of help­ing him­self which proved to be the one thing he had to do in or­der to ef­fect re­cov­ery—take up his bed and walk.

147:3.6Then said Je­sus to John: “Let us de­part ere the chief priests and the scribes come upon us and take of­fense that we spoke words of life to these af­flicted ones.” And they re­turned to the tem­ple to join their com­pan­ions, and pres­ently all of them de­parted to spend the night at Beth­any. But John never told the other apos­tles of this visit of him­self and Je­sus to the pool of Bethesda on this Sab­bath af­ter­noon.