The Eye Witness

Walking through the streets of Jerusalem

The city is packed with foreigners,

They’ve traveled from far distant places

Tired, dusty and weary, I see it in their faces…

I’ve lived here since my birth;

Smells of burnt animals, of sacrifice, linger in the air

The Priest, place upon the altar, just there…

Bleating sheep with goat and dove

People push, complain and shove…

Traditions don’t come from above…

But we keep them anyway…

Standing in the city gate…I watch these men as they contemplate

Who is this man, Jesus, of Nazareth, it is said, that he heals and teaches in the synagogue.

Blasphemy, the Pharisees shout, he’s Beelzebub. I’ve heard that he cast demons out…

Their sweat and dirt a stench in the wind…

Stubborn, rebellious, religious men.

Messiah has come, they’ll see in the end…

I listen to them whisper in low tones,

While they stand and glare, at Jesus as he touches a blind man’s eyes…they stare

Mud and spit applied…

Jesus heals the blind man’s eyes…

With just one touch of the Savior’s hand

I bow my head and in reverence I stand,

In awe of this holy, man…

Jesus, Messiah has come!

Will you accept God’s only son…

Before He returns to Jerusalem?

~Marla Shaw O’Neill November 7, 2018

Matthew 12:24 New International Version (NIV) But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons.”

John 5:1-6 J.B. Phillips New Testament (PHILLIPS) Jesus heals in Jerusalem

Sometime later came one of the Jewish feast-days and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. There is in Jerusalem near the sheep-gate a pool surrounded by five arches, which has the Hebrew name of Bethzatha (the Pool of Bethesda).

Under these arches a great many sick people were in the habit of lying; some of them were blind, some lame, and some had withered limbs. (They used to wait there for the “moving of the water”, for at certain times an angel used to come down into the pool and disturb the water, and then the first person who stepped into the water after the disturbance would be healed of whatever he was suffering from.)

One particular man had been there ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there on his back—knowing that he had been like that for a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to get well again?”