Are We Waiting for the Waters to Be Troubled?

AURELIO J. COLTRI

Today, as in past centuries, world opinion clings desperately to finite matter. It is believed that there is intelligence in matter and that the individual depends upon it for his longevity and wellbeing. Many mistakenly believe that climate, sun, water, and food possess power and intelligence to heal man or make him ill, and that God made matter and accorded these powers to it. In Science and Health, however, Mrs. Eddy writes: "When we endow matter with vague spiritual power,—that is, when we do so in our theories, for of course we cannot really endow matter with what it does not and cannot possess,—we disown the Almighty, for such theories lead to one of two things. They either presuppose the self-evolution and self-government of matter, or else they assume that matter is the product of Spirit."^{Science and Health, p. 119;}

In Jesus' day in Jerusalem many believed that the waters of the pool of Bethesda possessed healing properties. A man with an infirmity of thirty-eight years sat daily beside this pool, waiting for a chance to be healed. When Christ Jesus saw the sufferer, he asked, "Wilt thou be made whole?" The man answered, "Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me."^{John 5:6, 7;}

The helpless one, weary from his long wait on matter, at first tried to explain to Jesus why he had not been healed. But the law of divine Mind was already operative, and its presence was felt instantly. Mortal thought could not resist divine power. Jesus, declaring the truth based on divine Principle, specifically applied God's law to the situation, thereby nullifying any other supposed, contradictory law as illegitimate. Jesus' command was pure and simple; it involved no chance, time, human cause, or material force but contained within itself a recognition of the sovereign power of God, good. He said to the man, "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk."^{v. 8 ;} The man, responding to the divine command, was healed instantaneously.

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