John 5:1-15
Healing at the Pool
1 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 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. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. [4] 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 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?”
7 “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.”
8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10 and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”
11 But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”
12 So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”
13 The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
14 Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.
Change can be difficult for different reasons...Change can well change our lives...The man above had been paralyzed for thirty eight years and that is a long time to live with a paralysis...It is a long time to live with any condition...After that much time, we can become more used to the our current condition and conditioning than we might have ever thought....
I have had anxiety for over forty years....And I have prayed to Jesus and to His Father many, many times to heal me...So these verses of His healing at the pool, and this very odd question of do you want to get well intrigues me...If Jesus would ask me “Do you want to get well?”, my first knee-jerk response is of course, who does not want to be well...But then when I read what the invalid said immediately after Jesus ask him about getting well and I pay close attention to the very the first thing he says, “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.”...
The paralyzed one does not give us a resounding yes, or of course, I want to get well...No he talks about his condition and why he cannot make it into the healing water...The condition, in my opinion, has become a part of him...I understand that the question for him is more than a yes answer after the man’s thirty eight years of suffering...I also personally would want to tell Jesus about my condition, and I would want to ask Him many questions about it...I seem almost stuck by my habits and old memories of a condition I have daily tried to get rid of…And these old habits and old memories add further to my condition rather than to listening to the One who can make anyone whole...But it is hard to quickly move on after thirty eight years and just say yes, and then what you have lived with all those years of your life is all of a sudden gone...
We often can get stuck in a condition and often it is our own memory and our own habits that keeps the malady going...We become a part of the condition...The condition is then a part of us and a part of our lives...After thirty eight years I can see how one would not just quickly say, “Yes.”...Chronic conditions can be a part of you and letting go and letting God (and all of a sudden life is now dramatically different) for the one He is prepared to heal...So the question is a valid and good question by Jesus and for us...So it is quite difficult for the man, because he probably cannot remember what is was to feel like you did thirty eight years ago...He does not remember what it feels like to walk...No one has helped the paralyzed one in the water over the years before and he has tried and tried to make it in the water first for many years, but he cannot make it without help...But today he has help...
Jesus offers us this help, His help...This help to get in the water...This help now to be healed after all those years...The help for something life changing...So sometimes it takes us awhile to get out of the thirty eight years of patterns, habits, and thirty eight years of old memories that have their firm grasp on us...The others around the water were also trying to get well, so they were not much help in healing the paralyzed one -they had their own issues...But here Jesus with His LOVE shows us the way out...He is the One who gives us hope out of our forsaken condition...The paralyzed one would and will be different after his healing...And I think different in more than one way...