The Man at the Healing Pool
7 “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.”
I was pondering this verse, not for the first time, but one of many times, since if talks about healing, and I like others have areas of my life that I would like to have healed. Things I've had pastors, prophets, apostles, evangelists and little old ladies in their homes pray to be healed over many decades.
I have been clearly healed two specific times in my life that I know of for certain. I have also prayer for others who were healed. I have also prayed for many who have not been healed. The majority were not immediately healed, or as far as I know never healed.
In the times people were clearly healed, they were so happy, they came back sometime later and told me about it. One person I prayed for, I didn't see again or hear from for six months. When I did see him, he was with a group of pastors and leaders, he him was the mentor of those leaders, and he said, "This is the man who healed me". All of those with him suddenly merged upon me and began asking me questions about how I did it, how to heal. I had to tell them to their disappointment, that I was/am no one special when it comes to healing. I responded to what the Holy Spirit told me to do, and I didn't even know they had gotten healed until that moment, because I didn't see them again for six months.
It is now, 18 years later since that day, and the last time I prayed for someone who went to their doctor and was confirmed healed was probably around 16 years ago. But why does God heal sometimes, and not others? Whose faith is it that matters? When I prayed for the people mentioned and others who were healed, I had little faith. My life had been ruined by my former employer, my reputation had been ruined, I lost all my money, I was sleeping in a room on a broken mattress that poke me when I lay on it. I was discouraged, disappointed, and I was the last person in the world anyone would expect God to be able to use to heal anyone.
Prior to that time, I had studied healing ministry at bible university I attended and I was being mentored by a person who had been trained under John Wimber. Perhaps that anointing carried over from then. But honestly, I only knew/know that it was biblical, it went against everything I had been taught growing up in the Southern Baptist Churches. The congregational church where I was first exposed to it, kicked the college pastor out along with his ministry team for doing it. I was in between churches at the time.
I had spent several years listening to John Wimber teach on healing when I was right out of highschool. A friend and I used to go to down to Anaheim, about an hours drive on Sunday nights to hear him teach.
So there is and was some underlying foundational new teaching, in my early adult Christian years. But in 2015 to 2024 I have known a lot of people who needed healed, were prayed for by very enthusiastic people, and are now dead.
I heard one jerk, I mean person, teach the idea that "they received their healing and are now whole". We'll that's only true if you consider being dead, whole and healed. Healing isn't for the dead. You don't get healed when you die, according to Jesus, you either go to hell or you go to heaven. At least in heaven you get a new spiritual body that doesn't need healing.
So healing is for now, today, for here. while were here. When we leave here, the only healing that could happen would be if we came completely back from the dead like Lazarus, or a zombie apocalypse. I personally haven't seen either happen in my lifetime, to date.
So I was in the shower today, its where I do a lot of my praying, especially about areas in my own body that need healing. Probably because in the shower is the one time I am focused entirely on my body, getting it clean, shaving, washing my hair, I see my feet without socks or shoes, etc.
The Bible depending on the version, talks about this healing pool that was reportedly known for healing when the water stirred. Supposedly, an Angel was said to come down once in a while and stir the water, and whoever got into the pool first while the pool was being stirred would be healed.
I had never spent to much time pondering this verse before. But since I have been praying for areas of my life where I need insight, where I need healing, and I haven't seem to be seeing any results, I was thinking about examples of healing in the bible, and this verse came to my mind.
It dawned on me that other than this one mentioning of the pool, its not mentioned again in the bible. Now in many churches I was once a member of, pastors often talked about this pool as an authentic place where healing occurred. I probably never thought about it since some translations of the bible mention an Angel being involved.
However, I was thinking of the few times I prayed for people who had gotten healed, and they were excited about, they were telling their friends about it, their skeptical doctors about it, their church friends about it, social media about it. When Jesus healed people, he had to tell them not to tell anyone, because that is exactly what they did, they told everyone. If they had Facebook back then or Twitter, the story probably would have ended up in the media.
How come there are no mentions of anyone getting healed in this pool. No individual accounts recorded? I began pondering. I can't recall a single witnessed event in the bible of anyone actually being healed at this pool.
If there had been any authentic healings at this pool, there would of been no standing room anywhere around it, no place for the lame, crippled, blind. I can make this assumption, because when Jesus healed even one person, massive crowds surrounded him wanting healing. When he went out into the hills or fields or by the short to talk, massive amounts of people followed him, and the bible records that he healed them.
Then I began pondering the whole history of the pool and the idea of an Angelic participant.
If people actually were being healed at that pool, why wouldn't people still be gathering at that pool today, assuming it still exists. If it was real, I would have to assume that it would have been greatly protected against invasion, damage, weather, etc. There should be historical records of people traveling from other nations to it then and now. But there are none.
If an Angel was involved, why would the Angel have stopped? I might speculate it was because Jesus the healer had arrived, and then his apostles. But, they were rejected by the Jews. I could speculate it was because the healing pool was under the old covenant which Jesus fulfilled, but again no evidence recorded.
The bible doesn't explain anything beyond what it says. That suggests that it was not important. Not only was this healing pool insignificant, I speculate it was a local legend or myth someone started. Perhaps people used to toss coins into it for good luck or in expectation of blessings? Jesus didn't seem overly impressed with the pool. He didn't proclaim that a mighty Angel was among them when he healed the man.
No, I suspect the healing pool was just a myth, a legend, as was the Angel that came around to supposedly stir it. I recall reading an article or watching a documentary film more likely about the pool. If I recall, they believe the pool still exists. If I recall, scientist discovered geological activity, or in other words, the stirring of the water occurred naturally when the earth released gas or water.
I'll probably never know, but It did cause me to pause and wonder, what other parts of the bible that are mentioned merely to establish geographical locations of events, etc, have been misinterpreted or poorly translated, or joined together with other books that lack strong evidence. The entire Apocrypha books do not even exist in the evangelical versions of the bible, but do exists in the roman catholic versions.
I know healing exists, I don't know why healing appears to be rare, despite the bible seeming to suggest that it should be common, at least when Jesus was talking to his disciples.
Sometimes it seems like such a struggle to follow God in this world. There is pressure to go full on extreme and seek God for things as simple as what kind of TV should I buy, to the opposite, of just reading my bible and living a "good" life.
I do not have the answers, but I am writing some of these contemplations down, because there has to be somewhere in the middle where the answer is right.