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The Healing of the Crippled Man beside the Pool.

If you would like to hear the story read click the black arrow on the left hand side of the first bar and wait 10 seconds for it to start. When it finishes do the same with the second bar.

healingbypool1l.mp3

healingbypool2.mp3

Picture on left: healing by the pool-Biblepicturegallery

Jesus was in Jerusalem for one of the festivals. He came to a pool which was near to the sheep market.

Round the pool were five porches. Many people went and stayed in these porches all day. Some of them were ill. Some of them were blind. Some were lame and could not walk properly. Now most of the time the the pool was still but from time to time the water was disturbed and it began to move about. We cannot be sure about this but perhaps the people thought that an angel was making the water move. They believed that the first person to get into the water, after it had started moving, would be cured. This meant that when the water started moving, there was a race to get in.

Now the man in this story had been a cripple for 38 years. He had come to the pool often but he could not move very quickly and he never managed to be the first person into the water.

Jesus saw him lying there and asked him,"Do you want to get better?"

"Sir, replied the man, " I have no one to help me to get into the pool when the water starts moving,. I try to get in but someone else always gets in before me."

Jesus answered,"Rise to your feet. Take up your bed and walk." The man was cured straight away. He got to his feet, rolled up his mat and carried it away.

How do you think he felt? I think that when he found he could walk after 38 years he must have been filled with joy!

Now this happened on the Sabbath day. The Sabbath really means the seventh day of the week which is Saturday. The people were to have a holiday or a holy day on Saturday. The law said that they were not to do any work but to worship God on that day. Christians have a holiday on Sunday and worship God on that day. TheJewish law was written out very carefully to tell people all the things they could not do on Saturday. The law said that carrying a mat was not allowed on Saturday.

Some of the Jews saw the man walking and carrying the mat. They should have been pleased that he was now able to walk but they only said,"You are not allowed to carry your bed on the Sabbath." He said,"The man who cured me said, 'Take up your bed and walk.'

"Who is this man," they asked, but he did not know because Jesus had gone away into the crowd.

A little later Jesus met the man in the temple and said, "Do not do any bad things because you may be even more ill." The man went away and told the Jews that Jesus was the man who had healed him.

The Jews told Jesus that he was doing wrong by healing people on the Sabbath day but he said, "God is my Father. He does not stop doing good on the Sabbath day and neither do I."

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