Do you want to be well?

What if it IS True? Blog

Discovering, wrestling with, and trying like crazy to live Gospel virtue.

04/01/14

John 5:1-16

There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate
a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes.
In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled.
One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
When Jesus saw him lying there
and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him,
“Do you want to be well?”
The sick man answered him,
“Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool
when the water is stirred up;
while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.”
Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.”
Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.

Now that day was a sabbath.
So the Jews said to the man who was cured,
“It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.”
He answered them, “The man who made me well told me,
‘Take up your mat and walk.’“
They asked him,
“Who is the man who told you, ‘Take it up and walk’?”
The man who was healed did not know who it was,
for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there.
After this Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him,
“Look, you are well; do not sin any more,
so that nothing worse may happen to you.”
The man went and told the Jews
that Jesus was the one who had made him well.
Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus
because he did this on a sabbath.

Rules, rules and more rules. This is what it seems the Pharisees have in abundance. Ar one point in scripture Jesus accuses these giys of straining gnats while swallowing camels. This is to say that they pay attention to the small letters of the law but ignore the important stuff. Camels were both unclean, they wouldn't have eaten either, but it was Jesus's way of making the point.

Here is exactly the point. There's a person in need that get's completely overlooked. And the main reason he's overlooked on this day is because it's the Sabbath and the law forbids any work, even if that work is helping someone. Christ obviously brings clarity to the gnat and camel issue here by reaching out and making people the priority. We love God by loving others and this is illustrated here completely.

The big question here is the simple inquiry of Christ to the sick man, “do you want to be well?” This is the same question we get to answer everyday. Do we want to be well enough to get up from our comfort? Do we want to be well enough that we're willing to risk falling? Do we want to be well enough that we're willing to but our trust completely in the healing hands of Jesus? This is our question. And our answer determines not just the course of our lives, but the course of our eternities. If we don't see ourselves in need of healing, then we must first search out hearts for the places we need to let Christ into. All of us are short of God's glory, but all of us can rise, pick up our mat and walk with the grace of God.

Good luck and God Bless,

Leo Brown