General News
29 June, 2025
In good faith
One of the things of great significance about the Middle East, and Israel in particular, is the amount of archaeology that has been done.
Even today, archaeological sites continue to be excavated, with the discoveries being made which provide valuable insights into the way that people in those areas lived over thousands of years.
One highly valuable aspect of this particular science is in that it provides indisputable proof of the settings of many of the accounts given in the Bible.
One such setting is the pool of Bethesda.
Located in old Jerusalem, it was buried and lost for hundreds of years until 1888, when, during the renovation of Saint Anne’s church, it was unearthed and rediscovered.
However, it was not properly investigated for nearly 100 years.
The pool of Bethesda is a spring fed pool surrounded by five porticos.
It was a place where the sick and the invalids came to be healed. It appears that periodically, an angel was said to stir the waters of the pool, giving someone the opportunity to be healed by entering the water.
The first one in would be healed of whatever their ailment was.
The apostle John records in chapter five of his book an incident in which Jesus visited the pool and miraculously healed a crippled man who had been there for thirty-eight years.
He writes, “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 paralysed.
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?” “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”
At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.”
Did you notice how, when Jesus asked him if he wanted to be healed, he did not give an answer, just an excuse?
This man, paralysed for so many years, had lost hope and had fallen into despair.
Lost hope is a profound emotional, psychological and spiritual state of being, and one which is all too common in the modern era.
It happens when one feels that they are utterly overwhelmed by the circumstances of the world, perceiving that things will never get better.
Yet for the Christian, no matter what happens in this world, there is always hope.
The Christian understands that our time in this world is short, and often difficult, but no matter what happens, regardless of how difficult things may get, we are assured of a wonderful eternity with Jesus.
Solomon wrote many years ago, “The hope of the righteous brings joy”, and the apostle John wrote, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
– DAVID YOUNG