Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. 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. John 5:1-9REFLECTION
‘Do you want to get well?’ Dear Jesus, why did you ask this awkward question? When you saw this disabled man and learned that he had been an invalid for thirty-eight years – what answer did you expect to hear from him? Of course the poor guy wanted to get well! I’m sure there must be something that I’m overlooking, some hidden secret that I’m missing here… I trust that you’ve asked this question in a loving, tender way – because that is how I know you!
I can only understand this strange conversation from a cripple’s point of view. When I try to imagine what it must be like to wait for a miracle for such a long time, I understand that it is hard to keep the faith alive. This lonely man had no other option in his life – he could only hope for a combination of at least two miracles. First he needed a friendly human being to help him into the pool when the water was stirred up, and second he needed God to miraculously cure him. This was too much to hope for – realistically speaking. But here he was, maybe because he was still hoping that such an incredible combined miracle would happen, maybe because he’d given up hope a long time ago and had become accustomed to the situation. And here you are: God-in-man reaching out for him…
PRAYER
Dear Jesus, we are nothing but hopeless cases without your saving grace. We don’t have to tell you how bad our condition is, because You know. Still you ask me this embarrassing question: ‘Do you want to get well?’ What do you expect me to say, Lord? I’m not too proud to confess my helplessness. I am crippled and completely lost without you! Yes, Lord! Yes, I do want to get well! Please don’t leave me alone like my clueless fellow human beings do, but reach out for me, ask for the obvious, stir up your strength and save me by your grace!
Lord, I don’t want to lose hope and I don’t want to give up dreaming. I still believe in a perfect world, I still believe that one day we will all be completely healed. What a day that will be! But in the meantime, please Healer, restore our strength, revive our hopes, rekindle our spirits and most of all: save our souls!
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8 comments:
Thanks for pointing out that Jesus’ question was more than a rhetorical flourish—I’d never looked that deep before.
The paralytic was struggling to be dipped into the water of the pool when it stirred. In fact, he could only see his cure as coming through the pool. It is possible that he had replaced wanting to be heal with wanting to be the first one in when the waters were stirred.
This might not have been so foolish on the paralytic’s part. The pool was a symbol of sanctification because it was used to wash the sheep prior to their sacrifice in the Temple. I see the stirring as a sign of the Spirit, and of course Jesus himself was the sacrifice.
And then of course there are all the other injured people lying around the pool. Why the paralytic and not them? Why does Jesus choose us?
The healed man is criticized by his fellows for carrying his mat on the Sabbath; at that point, he doesn’t comprehend who his healer is. Then Jesus finds him and tells him to sin no more. Once again, healing and sanctification are closely tied.
I love the image of the waters being stirred.
Very interesting Paul.
Today I posed this question to my daughter by IM (kids now IM through their school day here in New York):
"Did you ever think that your attitude toward how to live your life is contingent on what you think your life is? If you think of it as your schooling for eternity, you have a very different perspective than if you think it's either the whole thing OR some sort of purgatory preparatory to going to Heaven."
Her response: "Not to be drastically un-insightful, but I REALLY don't want to work tonight."
Ha, ha, I love your daughters down-to-earth reply!
About the location where this healing takes place: there are different places identified and its supposed site is still uncertain. My study Bible says, Today the pool is identified with practical certainty as the double pool at the Church of St Anne.
To be honest, I don't know what to think about the 'healing power' of the water - maybe this was just what people wanted to believe. Jesus doesn't need the water to heal the man - that's for sure.
I don't know yet, but maybe I will write about the Sabbath issue next week. It's exciting to follow John's story line and reflect on these great words.
I have a problem with John 5:14 - I find it hard to understand what Jesus says here. These words suggest that - at least in this case - there was a clear connection between this man's physical condition and 'sin'. What is your take on this?
Yes, why did Jesus select this man for this special sign? And what about the lame man in Acts 3 - this man was not healed by Jesus (although the Lord must have seen him), but by Peter (of course in the Name of Jesus Christ).
Again we are looking at the things that happen on the outside, while, as you rightly pointed out, the deeper issue is spiritual restoration / sanctification.
Fascinating stuff!
I just love God's Word, but sometimes you need much time to dig deeper and find the real hidden treasures.
Thanks for your comment Carol - thanks to Art also for encouraging me!
Oh, and Carol - if you really want to have something to think about... Why does one man go free and why is the other man not sanctified? Good question. Reminds me of something I discovered while reading Blaise Pascal's Pensées (in Dutch, of course because my French is miserable). This is REALLY mindboggling - check this out:
Compare the two criminals next to Jesus at the cross with the baker and the cup bearer in prison together with Joseph (Genesis 40). Also compare these words, "remember me when it is well with you" (Gen. 40:14) with Luke 23:42, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom".
Baker - bread (broken)
Cupbearer - wine (unbroken Spirit)
See, now I got you thinking... ;-)
Think about all the parallels between the story of Joseph (do you know what his brothers received when they sold him?) and the story of Jesus and you can see a glimpse of the Great Director's hidden script.
We infer a lot about this business of the waters being stirred. I understand the bit about an angel doing the stirring isn’t in every version of the Gospel. It’s unlike God to dole out his miracles so parsimoniously—instead he floods us with grace. Realistically, that water might have been filthy, from frightened sheep newly arrived from their fields. I kind of like that idea, since it would be just like our human nature to wallow in filth believing we’re being sanctified.
Nevertheless the image of the spirit moving the waters really calls to me.
I think we are meant to struggle with the question of what is real here, or John would have spelled it out for us. I also think we are meant to ponder why Jesus instructed the man to violate the Sabbath and in the next verse told him to sin no more. I do believe there’s a relationship between sin, repentance and healing which can be justified from a Scriptural standpoint.
The question about the man in Acts 3 is clever—if the man had been begging at the Beautiful Gate every day, Jesus must have seen him in his travels. And yet he wasn’t healed then, but later, after Jesus died, was raised, and went to Heaven. I don’t think God left him to suffer just to prove the point that Peter could heal. I would guess something changed in his heart that made his healing possible.
I don’t know why one man goes free and another man doesn’t. I do think our prayers for our loved ones are answered. It’s actually a question that frightens and saddens me. The possibility that my loved ones will be among the unredeemed is the hardest part of my Christian walk. My grief over that has been the only thing that’s ever tempted me to turn away from Jesus. It’s no wonder that people are so desperate to embrace Universalism.
Thanks for sharing Pascal’s thought with us. Brilliant, but that’s no surprise. I would love to read a book about prefiguration in the Old Testament. In English.
So sorry your French is execrable. I am a typical American and speak only one language, and badly at that. I did recently read the first volume and a half of Proust’s masterwork and had the fleeting notion that it might be bearable if I could read it in French. But I quickly got over that. We Americans believe that we are of such inestimable importance that the world will learn English on our behalf, and to date the world has not effectively argued otherwise. But you will be happy to know that my children are learning languages.
Hello, I'm Toby, Carol's friend. She suggested I weigh in. Here goes:
As someone who has been involved in a fledgling healing ministry for just over two years, I fully understand Jesus' question, "Do you want to get well?". It is not rhetorical nor disingenuous, it is what it appears to be - did the paralytic want to be healed?
So many people who come to our church altar with chronic conditions say they want to be healed, yet I have come to understand that they often merely want relief from their symptoms. Healing from the Lord involves physical healing as almost the final step, before that must come healing of hurts, jettisoning wrong thinking, forgiveness, and yes, deliverance. If we say, would you do anything the Lord requires of you to receive healing, they say "yes!", but when it comes time to forgive the parent who could not give them the love they required, or shift their perspectives, aligning them with the truth of God's word, no! They will not do it. They will not leave the pool....
How many people flock to healing meeting after healing meeting, enjoying the fuss made about them, feeling comfortable in the role of the handicapped. Why would they want to be healed? They have a role as a sick person.
When Jesus asked the paralytic, "Do you want to get well?", his subtext was, do you want to leave you accustomed place where everyone knows you, where you are comfortable, where little is required of you? Are you ready to live life as MY servant? Are you ready to live a whole new way which I will require of you, and reveal to you when you can walk? Will you give me your life? Or will you remain here by the pool, preferring to wait for the waters ?
Thank you so much for your great contributions, Carol and Toby! I really enjoy this fellowship and I trust your insightful thoughts and comments are a blessing to many other blog readers. Please keep them coming!
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