Why Did Jesus Ask the Man at Bethesda if He Wanted to Get Well?

If you’ve ever desperately sought rescue from something — an external crisis or personal battle such as a devastating illness, enslaving behavior that feels impossible to overcome or unprocessed wounds that keep pulling you into anxiety or shame — you might resonate with something I ask the Lord often: Why doesn’t God respond to our desperate cries sooner? And why does healing and transformation take so long? I mean, if He had the power to penetrate our once dark and chaotic universe with light through a mere command, and He did, then surely He can shatter our darkness as easily. 

If you’ve ever found yourself wrestling with these types of questions, you might gain encouragement from Jesus’ interactions with an unnamed disabled man in John 5. 

Some Biblical Anchors Guiding Proper Interpretation

We all bring numerous limiting or inaccurate assumptions to Scripture each time we read. While many of these mental starting points vary from person to person, when it comes to divine healing, many of us consciously or subconsciously read the accounts of Jesus healing or deliverance through common truth distortions. 

First, we tend to view these events in Scripture as prescriptive rather than descriptive. Meaning, if Jesus restored or spoke to someone one way, we expect Him to do the same with us. Yet, as we consider the Bible in its entirety, we discover that God interacts with each person uniquely, based on their particular issues and His plans for them. 

Reflect on some of the ways Jesus brought sight to the blind. In Matthew 9:27-31, He healed two men simultaneously with a touch to their eyes and the simple proclamation, “It shall be done to you according to your faith.” It seems He restored their vision instantly while traveling among the masses. 

In John 9, however, it appears as if Jesus initiated the encounter and healed the man through a two-step process. First, the Lord made mud by spitting upon the ground, which He then placed on the man’s eyes. Then, Christ told him to “Go, wash in the pool of Shalom” (v. 7).

My favorite example, however, comes from Mark 8. In this instance, while Jesus was speaking to His disciples, people brought the blind man to Him and “implored Him to touch him” (v. 22). Jesus did, but likely not in the way these individuals expected. Instead of providing immediate healing, He took the man by the hand, brought Him out of the village, once again used spit in the process, and healed the man in stages. Initially, the man gained the ability to see tree-like shapes. But then, after a second touch, the man “began to see everything clearly” (v. 25). 

Second, we tend to assign God a negative motive when He doesn’t react as we’d hoped. Again, this varies from one person to another, but some commonly distorted views include assuming unanswered prayers mean He’s upset with us, has withdrawn from us, or that our painful situation stems from some unknown moral failing within us. And while Scripture does draw a connection between sin and illness, in my experience, the Father always makes this clear. When we don’t catch His gentle conviction the first time, He speaks the necessary truths to our souls again and again until we do “hear” Him. After this, we either respond appropriately or intentionally resist His Spirit at work within us. 

The other concerns I mentioned lose some of their sting when we remember important foundational truths regarding the Lord’s character, displayed to all humanity. One of the most difficult to grasp, especially if adults demonstrated favoritism in our growing-up years, is the fact that God cares for each person He created equally. Everything He does, doesn’t do and allows stems from His unconditional, inexhaustible and never-ending love. His heart is for us, always, and that won’t change. That holds true for those who appear divinely blessed and those pummeled by one devastating hardship after another. 

With these realities in mind, we’re now better able to process our focus text. 

Unpacking the Biblical Account

Scripture records Christ’s interaction with a disabled man lying among the sick and lame masses in John 5. In verses 2-8, we read:

“Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie — the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, ‘Do you want to get well?’”  

The man’s response indicates that he remained focused on the water. “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me” (v. 7).

We catch another important “clue” in verse 14, which states, “Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.”

This reveals some important details. First, culturally, we see many people believed this place, Bethesda, held healing properties. Second, the man Jesus focused on wasn’t the only one in need of a miracle that day. Third, the man had endured his condition for nearly four decades, and the Lord knew this. Fourth, this person retained some mobility, but apparently, not enough to get himself into the water before any of the others gathered at the pool. And finally, while most disabilities come from the unfortunate effects of living in a broken world, Christ’s words seem to indicate that man’s behavior led to his infirmity, and that persisting in sin could result in more unpleasant consequences. Notice, also, that Jesus didn’t leave the man to figure this out on his own. Instead, He sought the guy out with a clear rebuke. 

Historical Context

This entire situation has long confused me, in part because I didn’t understand the unique cultural elements involved. We need to understand, the masses gathered at the pool did so out of superstition, not truth. 

They believed the water held healing properties for the first person who entered them once stirred by an angel. Although a popular view at the time, this myth isn’t supported by Scripture. This suggests the man either didn’t follow Almighty God, or that he merged the Jewish religion with some degree of angelolatry, a form of idolatry that attributes divine attributes to created, supernatural beings. The fact that Scripture warns against this in Colossians 2:18 and Revelations 22:8-9 suggests this was a common practice that infiltrated the church. 

Based on this, we can reasonably conclude, recovering his mobility wasn’t his greatest need. In God’s economy, the state of man’s soul takes precedence above all else. We see this emphasized throughout Scripture. While the Lord cares deeply about all human suffering and responds with active compassion, He often uses miracles to deepen our faith and transform our souls. 

I was reminded of this recently while reading John Mark Comer’s Practicing the Way. In it, he wrote,

“… one paradigm that I find especially helpful for spiritual formation purposes is the idea of sin as a kind of disease of the soul and salvation as the healing of the whole person. … Jesus famously said, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. …’. Expanding on this, he wrote, ‘Few people realize that the Greek word translated ‘saved’ in the New Testament is sōzō—a word that is often translated ‘healed.’ So, in the Gospels, when you read that Jesus ‘saved’ someone and then read that he ‘healed’ someone, you’re often reading the exact same word. Jesus intentionally blurred the line between salvation and healing.”

I’m intrigued to know that John, who wrote his gospel that we might believe in the risen Christ, is the only biblical writer to include this account. This tells us that he specifically chose to record this event, influenced by the Holy Spirit, to ignite, strengthen and purify our faith. We all have a tendency to experience some degree of deception the Lord is constantly working to correct. The man He sought out at Bethesda needed to realize the ways he’d pursued healing apart from Christ had left him disappointed, if not in despair.

In other words, the Lord often addresses numerous issues through one event. In this case, He seemed to be highlighting the man’s deception and orienting, or perhaps re-orienting, his heart onto truth. Only God, not the actions of angelic beings or the water, could bring him the healing for which he craved. To walk in newness of life, figuratively and literally, he needed to depend entirely on the power and person of Christ. 

An Issue of Misplaced Hope

Hope can feel risky, even dangerous, to the one who’s experienced significant disappointment, as the man in John 5 likely had. Place yourself in this scene. While Scripture doesn’t tell us the precise number of people gathered around the pool, it does indicate that this number was significant. This was a problem because, according to the superstition, only the first person to enter the water once it was stirred received healing. Consider also, we don’t know how often anything (such as the wind) disturbed the water. Now, imagine you’re one of the sick, wounded or lame lying around, desperate for help.

Would you determine the odds were too heavily stacked against you and leave? Would you perhaps approach the pool with anticipation but lose your resolve and emotional endurance after the first couple “signs” of angelic interaction, or perhaps a few days of inactivity, but then give up?

Maybe that’s how you feel now. If so, I encourage you to listen to the Faith Over Fear podcast episode titled, "When Life Feels Unfair: How to Trust God When Hardship Hits."

Add to this the fact that the man had endured his condition for 38 years, and likely had sought countless cures prior to encountering Jesus, and it’s reasonable to assume his hope felt fragile if not nonexistent. And so, it seems the Lord was re-igniting the man’s hope — so that He could fill it.

This is one reason this account holds such value for us. Like this man, we constantly place our hope in insufficient “saviors”: our jobs, paychecks, physical health, relationships, self-control or a thousand other false securities. These all, ultimately, fail us. Only Christ has the power to set us free from our captors and help us experience the thriving life He promised in John 10:10.

But this account conveys another important reminder as well: God deals with us each uniquely, according to our particular struggles, experiences and desires. (If you feel stuck in an area, you’ll gain encouragement from my conversation with Dr. Marcus Warner in the Faith Over Fear episode titled, “When You Feel Stuck and Need a Breakthrough.”)

But He loves us all the same: fully and without reservation. That doesn’t mean He’ll always answer our prayers as we’d like. Although Jesus felt immense compassion for every human gathered at Bethesda that day, Scripture only records His healing of the one. Presumably, everyone else remained blind, deaf, sick or lame. And I imagine it cut deeply to watch Jesus approach someone else and do for them the miracle we ache to experience.

Friend, it’s far too easy to fill that space with lies that tell us God doesn’t see us, doesn’t care about our plight, or holds more value for someone else. And it’s incredibly challenging to cling to what the Bible says is true about Christ, His ways and His heart toward us.

Difficult, but not impossible, because we have the power of the Holy Spirit moving within us, giving us the strength and desire to do what pleases Him. Yet, even when we stumble and slip into despair, God always responds to us with mercy, compassion and grace. 

Photo credit: ©Getty Images/BERKO85

Jennifer Slattery is a writer and speaker who co-hosts the Faith Over Fear podcast and, along with a team of 6, the Your Daily Bible Verse podcast. She’s addressed women’s groups, Bible studies, and taught at writers conferences across the nation. She’s the author of Building a Family and numerous other titles and maintains a devotional blog at JenniferSlatteryLivesOutLoud.com.

She’s passionate about helping people experience Christ’s freedom in all areas of their lives. Visit her online to learn more about her speaking or to book her for your next women’s event, and sign up for her free quarterly newsletter HERE and make sure to connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and GodTube.