John 5:4

THE TROUBLING OF THE WATERS

‘For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.’

John 5:4

The graphic story of the pool of Bethesda, which is related by no other evangelist than John, is remarkable and instructive in a very high degree.

We may notice one or two great features.

I. The first is the emphasis laid on the personal element in social or charitable work.—The healing is not to be effected by any mechanical means. There must be personal effort. The absolute need of personal effort, and the evil of charitable work without it, may be seen very clearly on a small scale in the case of indiscriminate almsgiving. Benevolent people, who will not hurt their own feelings by refusing the poor man in the street, and who give money without any effort of personal inquiry into the case before them, are guilty of just this mistake. They are using mechanical means. They are not as the angel that troubles the water.

II. In all kinds of social work it is not money that is most needed. What we want is not money, but men.—Money, which is of little real use in any department of life, is of little real use here. It will not, it cannot, take the place of that humanity and sympathy by which alone men are helped to walk steadily and be strong.

III. But, again, another side of the same truth appears in this passage. It is the need of concentration in social work. Here, we are told, is a great multitude of sufferers, yet to one, only one, the first who can step down, is the compassion of our Lord extended.

IV. ‘The troubling of the waters!’ How eloquent the words become as we lift our eyes and look out on the social condition of the people.—There they lie, the stagnant waters. What are we doing, as Christian men and women, to stir them for the healing of the nations? There they lie, here dead and motionless, there just rippled by the breath of aspiration. What are we doing to make that breath blow strong on them? Each of us, whatever his place and position, has some at least within his reach with fewer of God’s gifts than he; some soul to which he might bring help and strength, whose wounds he might bind up, whose pain he might ease.

—Rev. Canon Alexander.