Pool of Bethesda : “The Gate”
“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?” (John 5:6)
A Reflection
Directed by the Apostle John
John is an interesting director. Think of the four Gospels like four biopics about the same person. Each filmmaker is working with the same source material, but each one frames the story differently, highlighting certain moments, arranging scenes with intention, and emphasizing themes that matter most to them. John is the kind of director film lovers obsess over. One of his signature moves is layering scenes from Jesus’ life with visual and thematic callbacks to the Old Testament. He “blocks” his Gospel so that earlier Scriptures echo through each moment, inviting the audience to recognize Jesus’ true identity and the long spiritual battle God has been fighting on humanity’s behalf. John 5 is no exception.
Requesting a Rewrite
In John 5, Jesus is in Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Near the city stood the Pool of Bethesda, a place where the sick and disabled gathered. Among them was a man who had been paralyzed for thirty-eight years. Notice what John does here: the man is never named. He’s described simply as an “invalid.” His “unreasonable” situation has become his identity. He is fully defined by what he cannot do. Some Bible translations include a fourth verse stating that an angel would occasionally stir the waters and that the first person to enter the pool would be healed. However, the earliest available manuscripts of John do not include this verse. According to a note in the NET Bible (a collection of Biblical translator notes), this seems to be an addition by scribes who were aware of this superstition in the third century and included it to explain verse 7, where the man says he can never get into the pool in time.
Here’s the scene John paints for us. It’s a portrait of the human condition:
A man identified entirely by his limitation stuck by a pool surrounded by superstition and false hope.
A society that says begging is his most honorable option, since he can’t work.
A religious system that will later forbid him from carrying the very mat that has carried him
A worldview shaped by one sentence: “Everyone else gets there before me.”
When Jesus walks into the scene, we expect him to heal the man or help him into the pool. But instead, Jesus asks the man this in John 5:6, “Do you want to get well?” At first, it sounds almost offensive. Of course, he wants to be well! Why else would he be there? But Jesus isn’t being cruel. He’s cutting through the noise. Have you ever been overwhelmed by all of the things you can’t do? Have you ever felt stuck? This man has been stuck for so long that his condition has become his story. Jesus’ question gently presses on something deeper: Are you willing to let go of the voices that have defined you? Are you open to imagining a different ending to this scene? Sometimes we stay stuck not because healing isn’t possible, but because brokenness is the only narrative we know how to tell.
Hidden in Plain Sight
John loves visual Easter eggs, and he hides several in this scene. He tells us the pool is called Bethesda, which in Aramaic means “House of Mercy” or “House of Grace.” He also notes that it is surrounded by five covered colonnades, a number often associated with grace in Scripture. But most importantly, this pool is located near the Sheep Gate. This wasn’t a literal pen for sheep; it was the entrance where sacrificial lambs were brought into Jerusalem.
In John 10:7-8,10 Jesus says, “…I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them….The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy…” When we return to the image of the paralyzed man, something becomes painfully clear. Everything that came before Jesus in his life—culture, superstition, religion—has stolen from him. He is sitting at the Pool of Grace, yet has never tasted grace. He is a wounded sheep, stranded near the gate, hearing every voice except the Shepherd’s. Then the Word himself shows up. When the man couldn’t get to the water, Living Water came to him.
The man doesn’t abandon his broken story. He still lists his reasons. But Jesus doesn’t argue with his logic. He overrides it with authority. “Get up. Pick up your mat. Walk.” And the man does. But that’s when the real conflict begins.
Take With You
“The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” (John 10:3-5)
As soon as the paralyzed man was healed and began to carry his mat, all of those voices that tried to keep him stuck for thirty-eight years came rushing in. John 5:9-10 says, “The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.” A miracle has just happened—and all they can see is a rule violation.
John tells us the man had been paralyzed for thirty-eight years for a reason. Israel wandered in the wilderness for thirty-eight years after the Exodus from Egypt. They were rescued, yet still stuck in a cycle of skepticism. When the Religious leaders call out this man for carrying his mat on the Sabbath, John is capturing the same attitude: where freedom is seen as a burden, not a blessing.
In John 5:11, the man responds powerfully. “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ” Societal thinking that had trapped him before didn’t heal him. Religion and Superstition didn’t lift a finger to help. But the Word spoke—and restoration followed. That is how sheep recognize the Shepherd. Not by volume, not by fear, but by the authority and life attached to his voice.
John 5 | NET Bible. NetBible.org. (n.d.). https://netbible.org/bible/John+5
