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Israel Diary Pool of Bethesda and the Church of St. AnneAbout 200 feet inside the Lion’s Gate, there is a wooden doorway on the right that enters into a hidden garden. Inside this enclave is the Crusader Church of Saint Anne, the mother of Mary, and the Pool of Bethesda, the site where Jesus healed the paralytic. St. Anne’s dates to 1140 AD and in Byzantine tradition was the location of the home of Mary. It is the loveliest church in Jerusalem. The Church presides over the ruins of Bethesda, which was a medicinal bath of the god Serapis. People gathered at the Pool of Bethesda in hopes of a miraculous cure.
The Pool’s name in Hebrew may mean "house of Mercy." The Church and ruins are in the charge of the "White Fathers", a cloistered, contemplative community. The gardens are beautiful. The ruins of Bethesda are interesting to climb around and envision what happened that day when Christ visited a hopeless paralytic in John 5. How could any one help a man on the sidelines of life for thirty-eight years? Jesus could and He did. A simple question, "Do you want to be healed?" We make all the choices in our lives. Oh, we say we don’t have a choice or someone else made us but the truth is that we are the choice makers in our lives. God’s Word says we reap what we sow. Jesus adds, "but we can be healed of bad choices." Do you want to be healed. Go to Jesus for His healing power.
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