Do you want to get well?

Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath,

Suffering is part of human existence

Attribution, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1521642

It leads people to places of desperation some times.

Apparently a common belief was that an angel stirred the waters and people would be healed if they got into the water at the right time.

John 5:3 NIV

Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.

This man lived with it for 38 years.

John for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1–10 The Healing of the Cripple (John 5.1–9a)

The place spoke of the possibility of miraculous healing, of the remote chance of divine healing; but it was at best spasmodic, and at worst an idle dream.

We suffer and long for healing