In John 5:2-9, we are presented with a scene at the pool of Bethesda, a place ironically named “house of compassion,” yet filled with multitudes of desperate souls, overlooked and left to their own devices. Among them lay a man, an invalid for thirty-eight years, a testament to the isolating nature of suffering. Jesus, amidst the chaotic scene of Passover crowds and the clamor of the afflicted, saw him. This act of noticing, of singling out the one, is a hallmark of Jesus’s ministry. Unlike the religious leaders of his day, whose focus was on rules and rituals, Jesus’s heart beat for the individual, the forgotten, the seemingly insignificant. Just as he engaged with Nicodemus in John 3 and the woman at the well in John 4, he stopped for this man, acknowledging his pain and offering healing.
Our Jesus challenge, then, is to become more absorbed with the needs of others than with our own preferences. We are to put on compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing one another’s burdens and extending forgiveness. We are called to bring our friends to the beautiful feet of Jesus, where they can find true healing and hope. In a world that often overlooks the hurting, let us be known as those who see the one, love the one, and bring them to the one who truly cares.