Healy continues: The biblical account of Christ healing the invalid at the pool of Bethesda has always given me some splinter pain. That man waited thirty-eight years for his miracle. A lifetime in his day. He was camping out at the pool before Christ was born! Christ’s question, “Do you want to get well?” suggests the tragic possibility that after so long, a person might no longer care about the outcome. Did the man’s friends and family abandon him there, not believing he was worth the chance of a miracle? Most of all, though, I’ve been vexed over Bethesda’s “system” of healing: the first one in gets the prize.