The Angel of Bethesda

As a child, my literary taste was decidedly for the narratives of the Old Testament. That’s where the really riveting action always took place. In Genesis, it was the overwhelming catastrophes of Noah’s Flood or brimstone engulfing Sodom and Gomorrah. Exodus contained the plagues of Egypt, pillars of cloud and fire, and the near-magical quality of Moses’ staff to part a sea, determine a battle, bring water out of a rock, or even wax serpentine. To my eleven-year-old mind, this was Scripture at its finest and I always felt a little disappointed when confronted with sermons on New Testament texts, or at the very least, a touch unfulfilled. Pauline texts were the most burdensome as they contained the least proportion of what I deemed to be “the good stuff.” At least in the Gospels (and in Acts) I was back on narrative ground, though even then I was suspicious of the highly moral atmosphere. When Shamgar picks up an ox-goad to wallop a horde of Philistines, no one urged me to “go and do likewise.” Similar ethical freedom did not exist in illo tempore.   A lesson to be learned lurked around every corner. As a result, my childhood imagination most treasured Gospel passages that have proven to be off the beaten exegetical track.  They are those instances or asides that most curiously rebuff ethical significance and are most certainly not material for exhortation.  With these memories in mind, I intend to salvage something of these passages where they have sunk like ancient shipwrecks deep in my imagination and bring a handful of their hidden treasures to light.

In the fifth chapter of St. John’s Gospel, we find Christ healing a man who has been a paralytic for decades. After languishing by the pool of Bethsaida for thirty-eight years, this invalid can take up his own pallet and walk. Now, told thus far, this story should be just as enthralling as similar Old Testament miracles like Elisha and the widow of Zarapheth or David soothing King Saul with his harp. However, my keen and youthful mind could discern even then, that St. John was not going to leave well enough alone. It was never just a miracle; there were always complications that upstaged the wonderful events. In this case, the story is ultimately about Christ’s authority to heal on the Sabbath. On the surface, this Gospel healing seems to belong in the same genre as the cleansing of Namaan’s leprosy, but I sensed (even if I didn’t consciously reflect on this) that in the time of the prophets the miracles were more important and interesting than the men, but in the time of the Messiah, the Son of Man overshadows even his signs.

Therefore, I desperately wished that the Pharisees had not asked the ex-paralytic about his new Master’s interpretation of Sabbath-keeping but rather, why he spent all those years by that particular pool named Bethesda. I was tantalized by the manuscript discrepancies surrounding verse four (which appears as a footnote in most translations including the NIV, ESV, and RSV) revealing, like a book of ancient lore, that some texts contain versions of the following addition:

“[F]or an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and troubled the water: whoever stepped in first after the troubling of the water was healed of whatever disease he had.”

This seemed more promising. It explained the preliminary question of why a conglomerate of invalids would set up camp at Bethsaida. The real prize, however, was that the explanation managed to provide a cause which contained another question. Why would an angel hang out by the Sheep Gate with no clearly delineated purpose but to stir up a pool from time to time? It differed from other accounts of angels appearing to Manoah’s wife or to Zechariah, where a specific message is communicated. It was even distinct from angelic events like the plague on the first-born or the preservation of Daniel from the lions where a discrete action is performed and the angel subsequently disappears. But here, at Bethsaida, it was almost as if I were being told that an angel had been appointed over an earthly place and visited there with some kind of regularity. On top of that, these roiling waters provided healing on the seemingly arbitrary basis of “first come, first served.” 

And yet, as much pleasure as I take from this strange account, it seems to remain an insignificant curiosity. Perhaps this is the reason for its continued relegation to the (sacred) marginalia. Something so tangentially bizarre might be deemed too undignified for the grave purposes of Sacred Scripture. There are also textual concerns that prod NT scholars like Dr. Gordan Fee to argue for the inauthenticity of John 5:3b-4. This is also, I suppose, by implication an argument against its inspired quality. Yet, enough uncertainty remains for its continued inclusion in most major translations, even if that inclusion is functionally equivalent to a textual house-arrest. From a purely literary standpoint, the absence of v.3 would prove problematic when in v.7 the invalid replies to Christ’s question: ‘Do you want to be healed?’ by saying  ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.’ At which point, one would expect St. John to add the explanatory gloss ‘The invalid was, of course, absolutely bonkers’ and the section to be titled ‘The Healing of a Lunatic Paralytic’.

I may not like the way Dr. Fee manages to wink angels out of scriptural existence through the powers of critical scholarship, but I hardly have any evidence to say that that St. John’s account will suffer in any seriously theological way without its wonderful Whirlpool Angel. While maintaining the internal coherence of the story, granting full inspired dignity to vv.3-4  still leaves one with a marvel that is, at best, a set-up for Christ’s healing and, at worst, a distraction from it.   Is there any way to include this behind-the-scenes angel as a principal character in the drama while continuing to keep it Christ’s story? Tertullian’s De Baptismo, the earliest Christian writing exclusively dedicated to the sacrament of baptism, may fulfill just such a hope.

Now, on the surface, the institution of baptism seems to have little or nothing to do with John 5 v.4 or even the events of John 5 as a whole. One might even argue that Christian baptism does not exist until the Great Commission and Pentecost. And there is certainly no explicit mention of the practice in the chapter. What then, does Tertullian see in the angel of Bethesda which relates to baptism?   A swift aside on Tertullian’s purposes and methods are in order. 

The inciting incident for De Baptismo is a theological crisis. Tertullian reports that a sect has formed which has made ‘a particular point of demolishing baptism’. Despite this grave situation, his style sometimes strikes our ears as almost playful. For instance, we read in the first paragraph: 

‘But we, being little fishes, as Jesus Christ is our great Fish, begin our life in the water, and only while we abide in the water are we safe and sound.’ 

 It’s tempting to hear these words as being spoken with the tone and inflection of a Kindergarten Sunday School. This, I think, is a failing on our part, and not whimsical indulgence on Tertullian’s. Instead of a school-teacher, imagine that sentence being spoken with the high gravity of a small child. I’m reminded of a story Garrett told me of a boy in an abandoned class-room conducting what seemed to be imaginary battles. When asked what he was doing, the child replied that he was “Fighting Chaos.” After a pause, he added “Some people don’t believe in Chaos. We protect them.” Tertullian’s prose displays a similar holy sincerity. 

Another potential pitfall is that his methods of argumentation may strike us as unpredictable or even arbitrary. There isn’t time to explicate the inner logic of his reading, but for now let it be enough to say that Mr. T’s style is pre-eminently poetic rather than philosophical. (I consider both of these modes to contain a rigorous logic and discipline capable of discovering theological truths.)   He defends the ‘sacred significance’ of the waters of baptism by highlighting the primeval waters of Creation. God created this element before any other and it was already the resting place of the Holy Spirit. And if Creation was accomplished by separating the waters, is it not fitting that it should be the element of our Re-Creation? Tertullian compiles an impressive case for the dignity of water from its material nature and Sacred Scripture. From there, his argument hinges on whether or not God would sanctify this already honorable element into a vehicle of salvation. 

Here Mr. T turns to John 5 v.4 as an outstanding instance that illustrates the larger structure of God’s salvific economy. 

‘An angel used to do things when he moved the Pool of Bethsaida.¹Those who complained of ill-health used to watch out for him, for anyone who got down there before the others, after washing had no further reason to complain. This example of bodily healing was prophetic of spiritual healing, by the general rule that carnal things always come first as examples of things spiritual. Therefore, as the grace of God makes general progress, both the waters and the angel have obtained more power.’

Suddenly, by fitting v.4 into a larger schema, the angel becomes related to any instance where the natural is meant to point to the supernatural, a theme prevalent in John’s Gospel. Think of the woman at the well who politely refuses living water because she doesn’t have a bucket, or the almost comedic shock of Nicodemus’ ‘Can he enter a second time…?’ The tragic frustration of the paralytic’s decades-long vigil by Bethsaida is dissolved by the authority of Christ. Through baptism then, a higher healing takes place and it is available for far more than the multitude around the Sheep Gate.  The angel of Bethesda becomes the angel of the baptismal font, bearing the sacred power of the Spirit of God. In this way, by being caught up in the work of Christ for men’s salvation, our beloved angel neither disappears nor obscures, but serves as a living image of invisible realities. 

The moral of this story? Neither the child nor the adult, enjoys stories which are simply stand-ins for abstract moral or theological lessons. When Sacred Scripture is taken to be just such a collection of tales (albeit for the highest moral and theological purposes), something of their savor is lost. Part of the mystery of divine authorship lies in the fact that the smallest or strangest Biblical passage is as unbreakable and un-interchangeable as the iota of the Law which will never pass away.  There my childish tastes were right in avoiding moral-injected readings. Where I remained a foolish child was in failing to understand that sacred stories always bear the ethical with them. No one gathers flowers for long in the garden of Sacred Scripture without catching the eye of its hidden Gardener.