Jesus

by James Martin

  The Pool of Bethesda is one such place. According to the fifth chapter of the Gospel of John, while visiting Jerusalem, Jesus heals a paralyzed man beside a pool “which has five porticoes.” It is one of my favorite stories in the Gospels, primarily because of the reversal of the man’s extreme situation: he has been paralyzed for thirty-eight years. Moreover, as the man tells Jesus in a heartbreaking line, he has “no one” to help him. But Jesus, friend to the friendless, heals him.

  Until the nineteenth century, however, many scholars believed that the pool did not exist. Either it was, as some believed, an “allegorical” pool, or the entire story was fabricated and added to the Gospel later. Some believed that the idea of the “five porticoes” was an allegorical representation of the five books of Moses or was simply a “construct of the imagination.”2

  But at the turn of the twentieth century, excavations in Jerusalem revealed not simply a pool but, as the archaeologists gradually cut into the rock, the foundations for colonnaded walkways or porticoes—exactly as John had described it. In another confirmation of the ancient tradition, Bethesda was said to be the birthplace of Mary. And what did the excavators see just a few yards away from the newly unearthed Pool of Bethesda? The Crusader-era Church of St. Anne, dedicated to Mary’s mother.

  GEORGE AND I STUMBLED upon the Pool of Bethesda by accident. Rushing headlong through Jerusalem on our second day, anxious to see all that we could, we were headed to the Garden of Gethsemane, threading our way through the Old City. In my haste, I spotted a sign pointing to an archway that said, “Church of St. Anne.” That sounded dull—certainly nothing related directly to Jesus’s public ministry. But on our little map I saw a minuscule notation, “Pool of Bethesda.”

  I stopped so fast I almost tripped over my feet. “The Pool of Bethesda!” I said to George. Earlier that month I had read the story of the rediscovery of this place and knew I wanted to see this, a physical confirmation of a Gospel story.

  George trailed me as we walked under a limestone archway and stopped at a ticket booth. The quiet courtyard was paved with broad white stones and dotted with tall pine trees. A handful of pilgrims ambled around. I breezed past the Church of St. Anne, a simple but imposing structure in Jerusalem stone, with clean lines and little ornamentation, and made a beeline for the Pool of Bethesda.

  The excavations revealed the general outlines of the pools, the bases of the colonnades and, yes, the porticoes mentioned in John’s Gospel. The complex was surprisingly large; many people in antiquity would have come to bathe and seek healing here. The pool may have had its origins first as an ancient reservoir and later as part of a Roman asklepion, a temple dedicated to Asklepios, the god of healing. Today you can peer down over a metal railing into the complicated series of pools and cisterns.

  At first, it was difficult to get a sense of what was where—is that the pool over there or some sort of patio? But it didn’t matter. Jesus had been here. That’s all that mattered to me.

  Unlike the other spots we had seen in Jerusalem the Pool of Bethesda was untouched by accretions. There was no church, basilica, shrine, or gift shop nearby. Certainly there was the imposing Church of St. Anne next door, but the pool itself was almost naked, with few indications that this was a holy site. As George snapped some photos, I descended into the ruins. Several metal staircases took you lower and lower into the excavations. Afterward, seated on a bench, surrounded by aromatic trees and bushes, I prayed for all those who needed healing.

  One person I prayed for was my six-year-old nephew. My sister had been worried about his rather obsessive tendencies to frequent hand washing, sometimes several times in one hour, despite her reassuring him, “Matthew, your hands are clean.” She hoped it wasn’t reflective of any psychological problems. My cousin was also undergoing breast cancer surgery that week, and I was glad to pray for her as well at this holy place.

  Closing my eyes, I imagined Jesus healing both of them right here. Afterward, I texted my sister and my cousin, to let them know of my prayers, and attached a photo of the Pool of Bethesda. My cousin’s surgery was successful, as was her later treatment, which lasted several months.

  Matthew’s healing was euthus. After I returned from the Holy Land, my sister told me, with astonishment, that a few hours after I texted her, Matthew said, “You know, Mommy, you’re right. I don’t need to wash my hands all the time. They’re already clean.”

  Over the next few days I returned to this spot every time I could. I loved being where I knew with near certainty Jesus had been, a place that was a graceful response to those who thought that all the Gospel stories were just stories.

  The second time I dropped by a surprise awaited me: a White Father I had known in Kenya. A little background: The Missionaries of Africa are a Catholic religious order that has been active in East Africa since the nineteenth century. The order has cared for the Church of St. Anne since 1878. Members of the order are popularly known as the White Fathers, not because of the color of their skin, but of their habits. As one African-born member of the community told me in Nairobi, “You can be a black brother and still be a White Father!” Père Michel had heard that I had dropped by earlier (I had asked if any of the White Fathers were around) and greeted me with a big grin.

  He gave me an extensive tour of the Church of St. Anne. Murphy-O’Connor has high praise for the edifice, located in the Muslim Quarter: “Crusader Jerusalem is seen at its best in the simple strength of St. Anne’s (A.D. 1138), certainly the loveliest church in the city.”3 From as early as the fifth century, a church commemorating Jesus’s miracle stood by the pools, and that church survived the destruction visited on some other churches by Islamic rulers in 1009. Later, a community of Benedictine nuns erected a small chapel in the middle of the large Byzantine church; still later, that structure was replaced by the current church. Finally, it was enlarged by builders who extended the façade by seven meters. The architectural additions are evident; you can see clear differences in size and height among the supporting piers inside. Although the church survived, the famous pools were gradually covered up, first thought to be “lost” and then “legendary.”

  The chatty White Father led me through the cool interior of the austere church. Père Michel described how St. Anne’s was intentionally designed to be “imperfect and asymmetrical” to remind us of our human imperfections. He also related the story of a group of architecture students who made a careful study of St. Anne’s under the tutelage of their professor. As the professor intended, the students pored over their architectural renderings and mathematical calculations and reached the conclusion that the almost thousand-year-old lopsided structure should not be standing!

  The building’s acoustics are justly famous; the little pamphlet from the ticket counter celebrated its “special echo.” To demonstrate, Père Michel ushered me to the front of the aisle, and said, “What shall we sing?” Without waiting for a response, he began to sing a Swahili hymn called “Simama” at the top of his lungs. I laughed—it was one of my favorite hymns, with an easy, joyful melody. Simama means “stand firm,” in this case for God. I marveled at the universality of the church. There we were, a White Father from Canada and a Jesuit from the United States singing a Swahili hymn from Kenya in a church built by European Crusaders in Jerusalem. Our song echoed perfectly throughout the church.

  Afterward Père Michel led me down into the pools of Bethesda. He pointed out two huge piers that supported the fifth-century church and the healing baths. Then we descended a rickety metal staircase into a darkened cavern. At the very bottom of the well, water was trickling into the pools as it had since the eighth century BC, when a dam was built to capture runoff rainwater. Here I felt connected to Jesus through the living water, as I had at the Sea of Galilee.4

  IRONICALLY, WITH ALL THIS emphasis on historicity, the event at the pool is a double-edged historical sword, for it occurs during one of Jesus’s visits to Jerusalem, a topic on which the Synoptic Gospels disagree with the Gosp
el of John. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus makes a single journey to the holy city, a momentous trip that includes his Passion, death, and resurrection. In John’s retelling, Jesus, an observant Jew, travels there at least three times for the annual Jewish festivals. (This also means that John counts Jesus’s ministry as lasting for at least three years.)

  The fifth chapter tells us that Jesus is in Jerusalem “for the festival of the Jews,” which might be Passover or any number of festivals. He comes upon a pool near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem. At the pool are gathered the “many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed.” The place is called “Bethesda” or “Beth-zatha” (in Hebrew and Aramaic, either “House of Mercy” or “House of Shame,” perhaps a double meaning given the presence of the sick).5 Later explanatory additions to the Gospel, included in most modern versions, add that the sick waited for the “stirring of the water,” when it was believed that an angel caused the movement, making it the best time to seek healing. A natural explanation for the “stirring” is the flow of water from the subterranean current.

  Beside the pool is a man who has been ill for thirty-eight years. Jesus somehow knows that the man has been ill for many years, and asks him, “Do you want to be made well?” It’s a strange question that may make the reader wonder, “Why would he ask that? Of course a paralyzed man sitting by a healing pool wants to be healed.”

  The man, unaware of Jesus’s identity, tells the Galilean pilgrim a poignant story. “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.”

  Whenever I read the man’s words, I hear two things, both mirroring the experiences of many who are sick. First I hear the voices of those who desperately hope for healing but have met only failure: “I’ve seen so many doctors, and none of them seem to know what to do.” “They told me about some experimental surgery, but I didn’t qualify.” “I tried that medicine, but it only made it worse.”

  Second, and more poignant, I hear a terrible loneliness. The man has “no one” in his life (Kyrie, anthrōpon ouk echō: “Lord, a person I have not”). He is alone. Why else would no one have helped him in thirty-eight years? It’s almost unbearably sad to think of the friendless man calling out daily to complete strangers and hurried passersby for help. Or perhaps he has stopped trying—his long illness may have led him to the brink of despair. Worse, when he is able to make a tentative move toward the pool, probably by slowly and painfully dragging himself along the ground, another person steps in front of him.

  This may explain why Jesus is drawn to him. The disciples or perhaps those around the pool might have pointed him out as the one who had been suffering the longest. This may be how Jesus knows of his long illness. Or perhaps Jesus instinctively knew who was the loneliest. Barclay writes, “He had no one to help him in, and Jesus was always the friend of the friendless, and the helper of the person who has no earthly help.”6

  After the man shares his plight, Jesus says to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” The man is instantly healed—the Greek hygiēs means “made healthy” or “made whole.” Jesus’s word alone is sufficient to do this. Now healed, the man does what he is told. He takes up his mat—his krabattos, the same kind of pallet or stretcher that the four friends used to lower the paralyzed man through the roof in Capernaum—and walks.

  The man’s response is one of unquestioning obedience after his healing. “At once (eutheōs) the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.” He has moved from confusion over Jesus’s identity to a prompt response to his word. There is no record of the response of the crowd surrounding the pool, many of whom would have known the man, who was by his own admission a frequent visitor. We can presume them to be, as so many others are described in the Gospels in the face of miracles, astonished.

  But there is a dark note sounded by the Gospel. “Now that day was a sabbath.”

  At this point “the Jews” enter the picture. We must be extremely careful not to assume that this means “all Jews,” and even more we must avoid a condemnation of the Jewish people, then or now. John’s Gospel often tries to distance the story of Jesus from “the Jews,” because the Christian community was beginning to pull away from its Jewish roots around the time the Gospel was being written, around AD 100. Because of antagonism between the Jewish community and the early Christians, John is sometimes divisive; and some of his words have led to centuries of Christian persecution of the Jewish people. At the beginning of this story, he notes that Jesus is not only going up to Jerusalem for a festival, but for “a festival of the Jews.” It’s a superfluous addition here, probably meant to underscore the division between the early Christians and “the Jews.” Raymond Brown, in commenting on this passage, speaks of John’s “lethal antipathy” toward the Jews.7

  Here “the Jews” can be taken to refer to a particular group of Jews who, given their respect for the Sabbath, object to what the man is doing for legitimate reasons. Presumably they see him walking through the streets carrying his pallet. They accuse him of working on the Sabbath, which is forbidden. The man responds that he is simply following Jesus’s orders. “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’” Still the man does not know Jesus’s identity.

  Jesus then takes the initiative of finding the man in the Temple, where presumably the man is praying, and says to him, “See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.”

  Is Jesus telling the man that his illness stemmed from his sin? This is unlikely, because later in the same Gospel, Jesus rejects that explanation when confronted with a blind man. More likely, Jesus is saying that sin can lead to something worse than physical illness. After this the man does not follow Jesus, but simply “went away.” He goes off to tell “the Jews” of his healing. Some see in this a kind of betrayal of Jesus, because he reveals how Jesus healed him on the Sabbath.8 I prefer to see him as unable to contain his joy, insistent on telling his good news—it’s been thirty-eight years!

  The man’s departure is a reminder that not all were called to follow Jesus in the same way. This man has met Jesus and continues on with his life, made whole, transformed to be sure, perhaps returned to hope from despair, perhaps returning to a family who had given up on his ever being healed. Perhaps his healing was the sign that enabled his family to believe. There are many ways to follow Jesus.

  John tells us that the miracle led to persecution by “the Jews,” since Jesus had done work on the Sabbath. Amy-Jill Levine and Mark Zvi Brettler, in The Jewish Annotated New Testament, note that although curing a life-threatening illness was permitted, even encouraged, a chronic illness, such as this man’s condition, was not deemed sufficient to break the Sabbath restriction on work—it could presumably be healed after the Sabbath.9 Jesus responds directly to the prohibition on work by saying, “My Father is still working, and I also am working,” and so he transgresses the law: by working on the Sabbath and by implicitly equating himself with God. The work of God, says Jesus, and my work are the same.

  All these things, says John, increased the hatred of “the Jews” and led them “to seek all the more to kill him,” because he had done these things on the Sabbath.

  IT’S NOT SURPRISING THAT some of “the Jews” would be disturbed by an apparent rebuke to monotheism and an apparent profanation of the Sabbath (though, needless to say, that some were plotting to kill him is less excusable). My love for this story lies more in the figure of the paralyzed man who has lain beside the pool for thirty-eight years.

  I’m writing these lines in the middle of a particularly painful bout with carpal-tunnel syndrome, something that I’ve had for the past twenty years. Without going into much detail I’ll just say that the onset came suddenly during theology studies, when I was typing far too much. Within the space of a few days, I developed stabbing pains in my hands and arms and for the next two months could barely turn a doorknob or hold a pencil without feeli
ng like someone was plunging a knife into my wrists.

  At the beginning of this very minor medical saga, doctors (orthopedists, neurologists, even “hand specialists,” a branch of medicine I had heretofore never imagined) found the condition a diagnostic challenge. After a year of visiting a variety of hospitals, clinics, and physical therapists, it was determined that I had either “repetitive strain injury,” “carpal tunnel syndrome,” or an “autonomic nerve disorder.” “Or some combo,” said one doctor, as if he were describing a special at a seafood restaurant. Surgery wouldn’t work, and the symptoms probably wouldn’t subside, the hand specialist finally said with a shrug.

  The pain threw me into a state of confusion. After all, I was in the midst of graduate school and was expected to type papers every week. And I was just beginning to think that if theology studies went well, I might ask to pursue a doctorate in Scripture. My first course in the New Testament had proved so inspiring that I had begun to consider making an academic career of it. But after much discernment, I saw that particular hope extinguished. How could I write a dissertation if I couldn’t even type a sentence?