Looking for a bible passage

October 10, 2007 6:25 AM

I'm looking for a passage in the bible.

A crippled man is attempting the reach healing waters day after day but gets trampled by able bodied people and never makes it to the river. Jesus asks the crippled man something along the lines of, Don't you want to be healed? Don't you want to be better? You must not because you never make it to the river.

Does this ring a bell for anyone? I've tried Googling without success.

Thanks.

posted by LoriFLA to religion & philosophy (10 comments total)

Doesn't ring a bell at all, and I remember most of the things that happen in the Gospels... you're sure you've got the source right?
posted by Jeanne at 6:31 AM on October 10, 2007

John 5:1-8 is what I think you're referring to. There's a pool of water people think heals the first person to touch it after the water is disturbed. This guy is there and never makes it to the water in time. Jesus sees him and asks if he will be healed. The guy says I have no one to carry me to the water (he's lame). Jesus tells him to get up and walk and the guy does.
posted by ericales at 6:37 AM on October 10, 2007

You might be thinking of John 5:1-15, which reads as follows:
Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?"

"Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me."

Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, "It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat."

But he replied, "The man who made me well said to me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.' "

So they asked him, "Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?"

The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, "See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.
posted by leapfrog at 6:39 AM on October 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

Oh, forgot to say, that's John 5:15 (NIV).
posted by leapfrog at 6:40 AM on October 10, 2007

I did some searching here and although I didn't find the passage, you may want to look as well. You can search multiple translations of the Bible, which is convenient.
posted by nkknkk at 6:40 AM on October 10, 2007

I cannot find it off the bat, but perhaps this link will help you.
posted by ForeverDcember at 6:41 AM on October 10, 2007

This does not sound anything like Jesus. Are you sure it's in the Bible? If it's a story about Jesus it pretty much has to be in Matthew, Mark, John or Luke. A lot of the lore of Christianity is nowhere to be found in the Bible, even things like trinity and hell are pretty hard to locate. This sounds like some kind of New Age creation.
posted by creasy boy at 6:42 AM on October 10, 2007

Thanks all.

To creasy boy and jeanne: It very well could be loosely interpreted or simply made up. Someone relayed this story to me yesterday and it grabbed my attention. I've never heard of it either, but then again I am not well versed in the least.

ericales and leapfrog's answers from the Book of John is where this is probably coming from.
posted by LoriFLA at 6:47 AM on October 10, 2007

Definitely a reference to John chapter 5, and definitely an idealized, inaccurate interpretation of the event portrayed in the Scriptures.

Jesus was certainly not reprimanding the man for some sort of lack of faith or desire; in contrast he was rewarding the man's faith. Other translations indicate that Jesus' was already aware of the man's plight: Seeing this man lying down, and being aware that he had already been [sick] a long time, Jesus said to him: “Do you want to become sound in health?” (NWT). Therefore, Jesus knew that he had not only been impaired so long but had tried to follow the proper methods to be healed. When he questioned him directly about whether he wanted to be healed, he was drawing the man out and giving him an opportunity to voice his faith and desire.

A comparable passage may be Luke 8:43-48, which describes a woman subject to a "flow of blood" for twelve years. She approached Jesus and touched him having complete faith that he could heal her. Jesus instantly became aware that she had done this and told her that her faith had made her well. He could have reprimanded her for even touching him, as she was unclean under the Law code, but his compassion was abundantly evident.
posted by sprocket87 at 7:33 AM on October 10, 2007

As one of the resident Bible experts around here, I'd say the closest thing you are going to find is the John 5 story that's already been mentioned. I can't think of anything else that's as similar to what you remember.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:30 AM on October 10, 2007