"Christ Healing by the Well of Bethesda" by Carl Heinrich Bloch
Ezekiel, caught up in the Spirit of God, has a vision of the Temple. Water pours from beneath the Temple threshold. This water is clean and live-giving, restoring everything it touches. It flows east, east toward Eden, so that the garden may be purified and man redeemed.
Ezekiel does not realize that this Temple is Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Incarnate Word. Christ is the new Temple, erected on the wooden scaffolding of the Cross. From His side flows the water of life.
The sick Jew believes the water of Bethesda will heal him. He does not realize that Christ is the true water of Bethesda, the water of the house of grace (beth hesda). The very body of the Man Jesus is the House of Grace: the Eternal Word dwells within Him.
Christ is the “stream whose runlets gladden the City of God.” His living water feeds the wheat of the saints.
This meditation based upon today’s readings.
