…. even so the Son gives life to whom He is pleased to give it.
John 5:21

Jesus was in Jerusalem and visited the pools of Bethesda. There many sick, paralysed, blind, lame and crippled people lay in 5 porticoes. Whenever an angel of the Lord touched the water and made it boil, the first person to jump in would be healed. There was a man who had been sick for 38 years. Jesus looked at him and then asked, “Do you want to get well?” – Then the man enumerated all the difficulties why he could never get well. “Someone else is always faster and gets into the water before me.” Jesus told him, “Get up, take your stretcher and walk!” – And the man immediately got well and walked.
Bethesda means in German: house of mercy.
God wants us to bathe in this healing water. We are to immerse ourselves completely so that all impurity is washed away. The water is to penetrate us completely and we are to soak it up like a sponge. It is to make us completely healthy, from head to toe, and also the heart and the soul and our spirit. This water of life, this stream of life in Ezekiel, is the Holy Spirit. Only when we immerse ourselves completely in Him do we become truly alive again. Everything dead and unclean falls away from us and the life of God permeates us completely.
But the price is high: we have to leave everything behind. Everything that is important and valuable to us, everything we cling to, we have to leave to the Lord; – nothing may slip over into the new life and defile us anew. The price is high, but the gain of life is much, much more.

Yes, Jesus, I long for You, for constant communion with You, for the peace You give, for the joy that is with You. I give my own self and my life to death and want the divine life within me. Oh, flood me with the living water! Come, Holy Spirit!!