The Healing at the Pool

One Sabbath Jesus goes to a Jewish festival in Jerusalem and stops near the Sheep Gate where there was a pool for washing sheep. Many disabled people—blind, lame, and paralyzed—are lying under the covered porches. Tradition said that when an angel (upper right) stirs the water, the first person into the pool will be healed.

Jesus sees a man (in light green at lower right edge of pool) who has been an invalid for 38 years and asks him if he wants to get well. The man complains no one has helped him get in the water.

Jesus says, “Get up! Pick up you mat and walk.” At once the man is cured.

The Jewish leaders (in grey with white head dresses at center of painting) criticize the man for carrying his mat on the Sabbath—but the man blames the man who made him well.

Later Jesus finds the cured man at the temple (lower right corner) and warns him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”

Instead of heeding Jesus’ prophetic word, the man goes away and tells the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who made him well.

From then on, because Jesus did these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders begin to persecute him.

[This man was cured of his illness, but was his heart changed? Compare this healing with the man born blind in chapter 9.]