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Continue ShoppingRemembering the Lessons of Bethesda
Written by James Skeen, author of I Forgave You Yesterday Receiving Christ's Atonement Daily.
The real lesson of Bethesda is that Christ comes into our lives not just to provide relief from pain but also to heal us in our entirety. He performed the Atonement, He suffered in Gethsemane for our sins and worries and fears and stresses and anxieties, precisely because He wanted to be able to heal us. He never meant to provide only an aspirin for the roughest moments of our lives. Every step He took, every word He uttered, every pain He felt, and every drop of His blood that was spilled was for our complete and total healing. He spent every moment of His life preparing to heal us in every moment of our lives, if we will let Him, if we will follow Him. It is exactly as He told us, “For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent” (Doctrine and Covenants 19:16).
I hope you will remember that Heavenly Father’s love is real, and it is happening right now. Christ’s promise of healing is real, and it is happening right now. The Atonement is real, and it is happening now.
So, rise, take up your bed, and start your walk with Christ right now and be made whole.
John Chapter 5 vs. 1 - 17
1 After this there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2 Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches.
3 In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water.
4 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.
5 And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.
6 When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?
7 The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.
8 Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.
9 And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath.
10 ¶ The Jews therefore said unto him that was cured, It is the sabbath day: it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed.
11 He answered them, He that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed, and walk.
12 Then asked they him, What man is that which said unto thee, Take up thy bed, and walk?
13 And he that was healed wist not who it was: for Jesus had conveyed himself away, a multitude being in that place.
14 Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.
15 The man departed, and told the Jews that it was Jesus, which had made him whole.
16 And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day.
17 ¶ But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.