Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

There's a quiet corner in the old city of Jerusalem with manicured gardens

outside a beautiful church and off to the side you can walk down the stairs to

the pools of Bethesda. You can even see the remains of the five porticos where

one of my favorite stories happened. In Jesus Day, this pool is where the invalids of Jerusalem

gather. One of the reasons they like this spot is because the word on the street is that these

waters have healing powers. From time to time the waters start to swirl and people

say that if you jump in when that happens you'll get healed. Your Bible may have a footnote that says some ancient

versions of this text include a local rumor that it was angels stirring the waters. Maybe, but there's

a bit more evidence that the bubbling and swirling is from a natural spring or a hot spring

that would occasionally rear its head. And those can and do sometimes have the effect of helping

aches and pains. Regardless, this is a place of hope for invalids.

Jesus rolls up to the pools of Bethesda one day

and starts a conversation with the man who has been there for 38 years.

Jesus asks if he wants to be healed,

and the man doesn't give a yes or no answer.

Maybe because he doesn't want to get his hopes up.

So instead, he tells Jesus why healing seems impossible for him.

After all, he's been there for 13,870 days.

And in that time, he's probably had to watch other people get the healing he's longed for.

But Jesus meets him in the midst of his hopelessness and gives him the thing he can't even

imagine as possible, and he picks up his mat and walks off.

...