After this, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep (Gate) a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes. In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be well?" The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me." Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your mat, and walk." Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked. Now that day was a sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who was cured, "It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat." He answered them, "The man who made me well told me, 'Take up your mat and walk.'" They asked him, "Who is the man who told you, 'Take it up and walk'?" The man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there. After this Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him, "Look, you are well; do not sin any more, so that nothing worse may happen to you." The man went and told the Jews that Jesus was the one who had made him well. Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus because he did this on a sabbath. (Jn 5:1-16)
Archaeologists say that there was a place in Jerusalem, in fact north of the temple mount, called Bethesda. There was a pool and it was a well known place of healing. It was also said that the waters would bubble up periodically, when it happened, the first person to get in to the water would be healed. Bubbling up of water was considered to be by the action of the angel.
The man who was sick and was healed by Jesus was there for thirty eight years. He has almost spent his whole life there. Probably he got used to living there. He got accustomed to the people, the situation, the surrounding that he would consider to be feeling at home there. That is the reason that Jesus asked him whether he wanted to be healed or to continue to carry on living there as he was accustomed to.
When the man wanted to be healed Jesus worked the miracle. For Jesus the person was important and his desire to be healed was important. Jesus was ready even to break the Sabbath rules to assist a man who wanted to live; and live well.
