Water is a source of life. The passages in Prophet Ezekiel and the Gospel of John mentioned water in the Temple. The priestly prophet Ezekiel envisioned a spring of living water filling up the whole Temple that would flow out in all directions and nourish every living thing along the banks as it passed through. St John speaks of the helpless man who, for thirty eight years, waited to touch the so-called miraculous rippling water in Bethzatha but was healed without immersing himself into the rippling water. He was approached by Jesus. His fixation was the water. Encountering Jesus was not on his agenda. It was Jesus who instructed him to get up, pick up his mat and walk. A simple instruction.

Water in itself is not miraculous without the work of the Lord. The sickly man who is deprived of aid and has no knowledge of who Jesus is, received a gratuitous healing from Jesus. Therefore, let us not be overwhelmed by the abundance of technological aid that eases our lives immoderately, lest we deprive ourselves of Jesus and His personal approach to us when all technical advances fail and our convenient systems are nonfunctional.