The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to John
After Jesus healed the son of the official in Capernaum, there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids– blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a Sabbath. (John 5:1-9)
——————————————————————
My brother in law, Tony, was a joker, although sometimes you couldn’t follow what he was saying as he tended to mumble. But he could tell a good story.
His mother had bad arthritis in her knees. She had had some drastic surgery to help ease the pain which involved stiffening one leg, which kind of stuck out from the old wheelchair, they had gotten for her, so basically she was immobilized.
He was very good with her, actually taking her on holiday with them, and he even brought her to Canada for a holiday here, which she seemed to enjoy.
Tony and his family, being Irish were good Catholics and so when they took his mother to France for a holiday, he made sure they went to Lourdes.
They wanted to try and have her healed in that holy water, in that holy place.
He told me that they managed to get his mother, still in her old wheelchair, into the water, and sure enough something happened.
The water surged and bubbled around his mum in her chair, and she made noises of surprise, ” Whoo, whoo, whoo, ” she went.
Then they brought her out of the water.
I had been listening to Tony tell this story with great expectation.
“Was she healed?” I asked.
“No,” Tony said, ” But that wheelchair had on it a brand new pair of tires on it. “
In a portico, with five porches, a place called Bethzatha, there was a pool of water, located above an underground stream that occasionally caused the surface of the pool to be disturbed.
When that happened, people thought that disturbance was caused by angel, and that if a sick person were able to get into the water at such a time they would be healed.
Maybe at some time in the past someone had managed to get into the water and afterward reported being healed and the story got around and people who were desperate for healing wanted to be taken there.
But basically it was mere superstition.
Jesus saw this man who had lain there, obviously for a long time, unable to walk, and consequently unable to get into the water at the magical time.
Seeing him, Jesus’ heart was moved.
Ignoring the superstitious beliefs around the water, he asked him, ” Do you want to be made well?”
That isn’t as daft a question as it may seem.
For some people, being an invalid can be not too bad a life.
You get looked after by well-meaning people, fed, perhaps offered clothing, and you don’t have to do anything. No stress. No worries. When you got used to it, it might not be too bad a life.
When I did my turn as a pastor in the Emergency Department at Hamilton General Hospital, I spoke to a lady who had been brought in for some reason. I don’t remember what, but lying in her bed, she looked very thin, emaciated, even.
She told me that she had been told she would be going home the next day but she whispered to me that she wanted to stay a bit longer as she was enjoying getting regular meals.
My heart went out to her.
She wasn’t a malingerer, just a lonely lady trying to get by on a small pittance weekly, and needed some loving care. And a square meal or two.
She didn’t want to be fit to leave the hospital just yet.
So when Jesus asked this man, ” Do you want to be made well? He wanted to know, did the man really want to be made well.
And he did. And he was.
“Get up. Lift up your bed. “
He had to do something. He had to try. He had to take Jesus at his word, and as he struggled to his feet, he was healed.
It seems to me that Jesus answers our entreaties, but that we have to be an active partner.
We can’t lay back and expect a miracle unless we are ready to our part too.
I have heard so many stories of people with serious illness, such that you might think they would never work again, but somehow, with good medical care, a positive attitude and the power of prayer you see them getting around, even going back to work, and living a full life.
Helping themselves, with the help of Jesus.
Jesus worked with that man to get him on his feet again,
Later on you will read that this man was seen walking in the city carrying his pallet, and accosted by the religious leaders who asked him why he was working on the Sabbath.
The original intent of the law against working on the Sabbath referred to actual work.
A tailor carrying a bolt of cloth, a carpenter carrying a piece of wood, would be in contravention of the law, as obviously they were intending to work at their trade.
But the interpretation of the law had become so narrow that some rabbis held that if a man had a needle in his cloak he could be considered to be working and have to face a penalty.
When the man who had been healed was asked why he was working – carrying a burden – his pallet – on the Sabbath, he told them it was because he had been told to get up and carry his bed by a man called Jesus.
This gave those in authority another reason to hate Jesus.
Here was concrete evidence that he was encouraging someone to break the law.
It was true that God rested on the seventh day – the basis of the Sabbath – as his work of creation was done, but He didn’t stop loving His people. Or caring for them, on that seventh day, did He?
Similarly, Jesus wouldn’t turn his back on someone who was suffering, even if doing so was against the strict interpretation of the law. Would he?
Moving on, though, as usual, there is always another dimension, a spiritual dimension, to the stories we read in the Gospels.
And there is more to this than a simple account of the healing of a paralyzed man.
Because these stories, these accounts are placed in the Gospels to bring out that other, spiritual dimension.
I am referring to the healing of a life, the transformation of a life, that can take place with Jesus’ help. Many a life has been transformed – in fact millions of lives have been transformed – in response to the healing power of Jesus.
Many a life which has seemed lost, wasted , useless, has been miraculously transformed by the power of Jesus Christ.
But once again, the recipient of such power to change really has to want to change.
It takes two. Maybe three – one person helping another want to change, and Jesus to do the heavy lifting.
Sometimes it happens through the efforts of someone pointing the way.
Sometimes it happens despite the efforts of some who would dissuade.
In 1855 a young man, eighteen years old moved to Boston to seek his fortune. He looked for a church to join and found himself in a Bible preaching church.
He had been brought up Unitarian so knew nothing of the Gospels.
He seemed to know nothing of theology, but was eager to learn.
He didn’t get off to a good start. In fact, some years later his Sunday School teacher said of him, ” I can truly say that I have seen few persons whose minds were spiritually darker than his.”
He was put on probation for a year in the hope that he might learn some spiritual truths. He wasn’t seen as a good prospect. He was barely literate and had an atrocious accent.
At the end of that year there didn’t seem much in the way of improvement but reluctantly they allowed him to become a member of the church.
Over the next years there were many who looked at that young man and wondered if God could ever use a person like Dwight L. Moody.
But God didn’t wonder.
He did use Dwight.
By God’s grace and love, and through his own determination, and the help of Jesus the Christ, that new- to- the- Gospel -young man, became one of the most effective preachers, and evangelists the church had known.
The Billy Graham of his era some might say.
He is still quoted today.
God wanted that young man’s help to change the world, and Dwight Moody needed God to transform him so he could do that.
For Jesus to work in us, we do have to want that transformation.
We may be moved by something that rings a bell in our mind, if you like, and think that knowing this Jesus guy sounds pretty good, and we want to know him.
But something happens on the way to the church as it were, something that distracts us, something that makes being a Christian seem not such a good gig.
And we back off.
It is hard being Christian. No doubt about it.
We have to love people who seem unlovable.
We have to forgive hurts against us when we really would rather hit back.
We have to be a good witness to the community – an example of a Christian that makes others want to be like us.
We have to hold back that hurtful response when we would really like to deliver it.
We might have to give up stuff we like doing.
We might have to leave comfort and security behind sometimes.
That man, lying there in that portico, must have become quite used to being there.
He could wake up when he wanted. He could sleep when he wanted. He didn’t have to attend temple worship. He wasn’t breaking any laws by being there.
People were sorry for him and treated him with pity.
And he couldn’t be blamed if he seemed satisfied with his life.
He had put up with it for thirty eight years after all
But when Jesus came along, and said, “Let’s do this together,”
he struggled to his feet and walked out of that place a new man – ready to be different.
Ready to face the world.
Ready to take on whatever challenges came his way.
He was a new man.
With a new life
Healed and healthy and soon to feel fulfilled, for once, in his life.
And two thousand years later his witness to the transforming power of Christ still inspires us.
Praise God and worship His holy Name. A