Lessons from Bethesda – John 5:1-18

Do remember hearing stories from your parents and grandparents; stories of things that framed their lives? I don't remember many of them myself, but the ones I do remember are memorable to me for a reason. They have served as life lessons for me; they continue to do so. I think God includes some of his own stories in Scripture for the same reason: to be life lessons for us.

We're going to look at one such story today. It is the story of the man healed at the pool of Bethesda. The text of the story doesn't offer a whole lot by way of Christian doctrine. It doesn't reveal God's deepest, darkest secrets. By all accounts, it's just a narrative of something that happened on a particular day in Jerusalem. But there are some life lessons to be learned from it. We will look at one of those lessons today.