This article was originally posted on the author’s website: https://www.waynestiles.com/pools-of-bethesda-gods-kindness-and-our-repentance/.
What motivates you most isn’t fear.
Very few people are drawn to God by intimidation. Instead, the Lord urges us to come to Him by revealing the kindness of His mercy. It’s a tremendous motivation. Once we comprehend the depth of our imperfections, and the futility of our own efforts to remove them, we are in a position to respond to God’s kindness.
In this article, you’ll read how Jesus revealed this simple truth one day in Jerusalem with an act of mercy at the Pools of Bethesda.
Just inside Stephen’s Gate in Jerusalem lie several sites Christian visitors seldom miss.
· The Antonia Fortress served as the bunkhouse for Romans troops, and its steps leading down onto the Temple Mount allowed the Romans to quickly quell any riots. The apostle Paul gave a speech on these steps after one such riot (Acts 21:37–22:21).
· The other sites nearby—the Via Dolorosa, the Ecce Homo Arch, and the Monastery of the Flagellation—find their connection to Jesus by way of later traditions, not by history.
But enter the unassuming doorway on the north side of the street, just beyond Stephen’s Gate, and history merges with Scripture.
The Pools of Bethesda
A picturesque courtyard with flowers and foliage leads to deep pits with ancient stone walls. These are the Pools of Bethesda. Even before the time of Jesus, this location may have been a shallow valley dammed to retain rainwater and referred to as “the upper pool” in the eighth century BC (2 Kgs 18:17; Is 7:3). In the first century AD, the site had two adjacent pools with a surrounding colonnade on all four sides and one down the middle. The book of John refers to “a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades” (Jn 5:2). Jesus had mercy on one of the many invalids who lay by the pools and healed him (Jn 5:9). Under the emperor Hadrian in the second century, Jerusalem became the pagan Aelia Capitolina, and the site of the Pools of Bethesda expanded to include a pagan temple involving offerings to the Greek god Asclepius.
Church of Saint Anne
The Byzantines in the fifth century constructed a church to commemorate Jesus’s miracle at the pools. When the Crusaders came into Jerusalem many centuries later, a church still stood on the site—though how it escaped Fatimid caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah’s demolition in 1009 remains a mystery. The church that stands today, the Church of Saint Anne, is one of the most beautiful in Jerusalem and reveals Crusader Jerusalem’s finest architecture. Built in 1138, the Romanesque church allegedly enshrines the homeplace of the Virgin Mary’s parents, Joachim and Anne. The Crusaders also built a chapel by the pools. Its crumbling ruins still stand. In 1192, after the Muslims overtook Jerusalem, Saladin used the Church of Saint Anne as a theological school, placing an inscription above the door that still remains to this day. Over the centuries, the church eventually fell into significant disrepair. Only after the French received it as a gift from the Turks in 1856 did it get restored to the lovely sanctuary we see today. Most well known for its amazing acoustics, the Church of Saint Anne enjoys the voices of thousands of Christian tourists each year singing praises to God.
Devotional Thought for the Pools of Bethesda
Read John 5:1–15.
Modern versions of the Bible indicate that John 5:3b–4 are missing from the earliest and best manuscripts. It is likely that John did not write these verses, but that someone inserted them after AD 400 to explain the superstition the sick man mentions in verse 7. A mystical notion existed that an angel of God would stir the waters at the Pools of Bethesda, and that the first person to enter would get healed. However, not only do the early manuscripts offer no support for this insertion, but good theology also contradicts this cruel, works-based arrangement.
When Jesus asked the sick man, “Do you want to be healed?,” his answer revealed that he believed that healing depended on his ability to outrun the others to the Pools of Bethesda. He clearly believed the superstition, and thus he saw his prospect for healing as hopeless. Jesus’s healing of this man revealed that God’s kindness is available not simply to the swift but to everyone.
When the Lord later searched for him and “found him in the temple” (Jn 5:14), Jesus’s words show that the physical healing represented an act of God’s kindness intended as an incentive for the healed man to repent of his sins.
Think about how God’s kindness has proven abundant in your own life. Indeed, God’s kindness toward us is a huge motivation to urge us to repent and to obey Him.
“Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” —Romans 2:4
