Bethesda

There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate
a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes.
In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled.
One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
When Jesus saw him lying there
and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him,
“Do you want to be well?”
The sick man answered him,
“Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool
when the water is stirred up;

while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.

Jesus encounters a man who has been sick for years, and his heart is moved with pity. Jesus looks upon him with love and says to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.” Immediately the man becomes well, takes up his mat, and walks away. 

Jesus is himself the Living Water. He is the place of healing and mercy. His five wounds are the porticoes from which his compassion streams in abundance.

Gospel excerpt from John 5.  Photograph of the reading cloister by Brother Brian.