Central Park is one of the great landmarks of Manhattan. In a recent article published in the journal First Things, John Byron Kuhner gives a virtual tour of the park that culminates with a description of a terrace, at the center of which “is a large circular pool, whence rises an elaborate fountain, of the most delicate workmanship, crowned with an angel, stepping lightly, a figure of the purest grace: the Bethesda Fountain.” The name of the fountain refers to a passage from the fifth chapter of the Gospel of John, which describes Bethesda as a public pool in Jerusalem distinguished by its five porticoes. “In these [porticoes] lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, and paralyzed., waiting for the motion of the water. For an angel of the Lord used to descend from time to time to the pool; and the water would be moved. And the one who first went down into the pool after the motion of the water would be healed.” Jesus went there on a Sabbath and encountered a man who had lain ill for 38 years. When Jesus asked him if he wanted to be healed, the man replied: “Lord, I have no one, that, when the water is disturbed, can put me in the water; while I make my way there, someone else gets in before me.” Jesus then commanded the man to rise, pick up his mat, and walk. And the man was healed.
Kuhner says that he became aware of this story in high school, not long after one of his teachers introduced him to the story of the Ring of Gyges, which appears in Plato’s Republic, one of the great texts of the ancient world. This ring gave its wearer the power of invisibility. According to Kuhner, “Plato writes that any human being in possession of such a ring would begin to steal and rape and kill at will… [and] other things too, like a god among humans.” Kuhner’s teacher asked the class what Plato’s statement suggests about his culture’s idea of God, that it would describe as divine the power to dominate and exploit and kill those who are weak and vulnerable. Reflecting on this, Kuhner contrasts the pagan myth with the story of Christ at the pool of Bethesda and the nature of the divine that it reveals. “Here we find a god who comes to visit the sick, the friendless, the people who say to him: ‘Lord, I have no one.” Amazingly, this is the image that visitors find at the heart of Central Park, one that invites us “to contemplate a god who came down to earth to bring healing to the most despised and friendless of people.” But assuming we recognize it, how do we respond?
Kuhner notes that the park’s famous architect, Frederick Law Olmsted, began overseeing work on the site in 1861, when the first wounded soldiers from the Civil War were beginning to return from the battlefront. Olmstead resigned from both his successful personal business and his prestigious government post as superintendent of Central Park to take responsibility for the administration of the under-staffed and under-funded US Sanitary Commission. Olmstead established his headquarters close to the front lines and personally greeted the trains carrying the wounded. Olmstead himself wrote about what he saw: “Poor, pale, emaciated, shivering wretches were lying anywhere, on cabin floors, crying with sobbing, trembling voices, ‘God bless you… God bless you!’” Kuhner likens this description to the gospel scene of Bethesda, and notes that Olmstead not only excelled at his official duties, but also spent his own time and exhausted his personal fortune providing for the needs of the sick and the dying. And so, Kuhner asks, “when a man becomes powerful, like a god among men, should he use his power to take whatever he wishes, to have sex with whomever he wants, to kill and set loose as he desires, as Plato wrote? Or should he go to the people who have no one, the people who are left behind when all those around them think only of themselves?” It depends on the gods one worships. Christ Jesus reveals to us at the pool of Bethesda, and most dramatically on the cross, how God lives among men. Through His wounds He heals our wounds and refreshes the souls of the sorrowful. And He invites us to do likewise, with the help of His grace, and thus become truly God-like.
posted 10/7/23
The Parish of St. Cecilia-St. Gabriel 