Brolley

1. I have never owned a car in Singapore. Mainly because the cost is too high. Plus, the train in Singapore is very convenient. Whether it's to school or church, the train can get you there.

But one situation that makes it hard to travel is when it is raining heavily and I don’t have an umbrella. I'm also the kind of person who finds it a hassle to go out with an umbrella, so I had to suffer the consequences of being stuck in one place in the rain.

I remember once when I came out of the metro station with my school just across the road, it was raining heavily, I didn't have an umbrella with me and it was almost time for class. It make me feel very helpless. Luckily, I met an acquaintance from school who invited me to share an umbrella with him and helped me through two traffic lights to reach the school across the road.

In today's passage we read of a paralysed man who had been waiting for 38 years to be healed. The coming of Jesus brought about a change in his situation, like providing a covering for a man trapped in the rain.

Mercy of God

2. The grace and mercy of God made known in Jesus Christ

This is the third of the seven miracles recorded in John's Gospel. While the first two were both people asking Jesus for mercy, the second miracle in last week's text emphasizes the asking in faith. The centurion sought Jesus desperately, running to him from afar to ask him to heal his son.

And today's third miracle places particular emphasis on the compassion of Jesus. Jesus comes to a place called Bethesda （house of mercy), where there are many people with various physical defects. It is as if the Gospel of John begins by introducing Jesus as God in the flesh coming to a world full of problems, a gracious coming that shows God's merciful initiative.

3. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. Jn 1:14

The paralysed man has been living with the hope of being healed for 38 years, and every day his hope has been shattered by the reality of his situation. If hope could be counted, after 38 years of disappointment, I wonder how much hope index he would have left.

When Jesus came to the paralytic, he asked him, "Do you want to be healed?

Imagine if we were in a similar situation as the paralysed man, repeatedly met with disappointed for 38 years. Today, a passer-by you don't know stops and asks you. Do you want to be healed?

Maybe our answer is: who wouldn't want to be the lucky one chosen to be the subject of a condition study by the world's medical teams. But alas, it will only happen to other people.

The paralytic answered Jesus and said.：Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.”

That's why if we don't know who this passer-by is. You won’t even begin to imagine that this passer-by might be the a doctor who can cure you of your illness. If you knew who this person was, your attitude would be different and your reaction would be different.

the paralytic answer suggests that the he did not recognise Jesus, maybe he had not heard of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee.

Compare this with the blind man. Although his eyes were blind, he had heard of Jesus Christ. When he heard Jesus was nearby, he took the opportunity to shout for Jesus to have mercy on him. Or take again the four good friends who, when they heard Jesus preaching right inside the house, took the roof off the house, and they let down the paralytic on a pallet from the roof to Jesus to Jesus.

This paralysed man lay in Bethesda for 38 years because no one told him about Jesus and he didn't have 4 good friends to carry him to Jesus.

God's grace came to this paralysed man who knew nothing of Jesus, reflecting human impotence and God's mercy.

The story of Jesus' healing of the paralytic tells us that we sinners are powerless in the knowledge of God's salvation. If it were not for God's grace and mercy, we would only remain paralysed in our ignorance.

The Power of His Word

4. Next in verse 8, Jesus says to the paralytic：Get up, take up your bed, and walk

imagine this: Once upon a time two good friends were walking by a lake and one of them lost his footing and fell into the lake shouting, "Help me, I can't swim", to which his friend on the shore replied loudly, "Don't you worry, just swim to the shore and you will be saved!

When Jesus commanded the lame man to get up, it sound completely absurd to those who did not know who Jesus was.

It was as if the man who was struggling in the water heard his best friend tell him to swim to shore, and he suddenly becomes a professional swimmer, swimming towards the shore in a butterfly stroke.

This is what Jesus said when he said, "Get up", and immediately the man was healed, took up his mattress, and went away.

Jesus healed the paralytic and used this miracle as the basis for his message to the people. illustrates what he said in John 5:24 - the power of his word and the gift of life.

English Standard Version Chapter 5

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life

5. When the paralysed man was cured, he didn't lie there thinking: "Great, the next time the water stirs up, I'll be the first to go down into the pool. Because I am the most complete person here, I can move faster than anyone else.

The scriptures tell us that he immediately took up his bed and walked

Where did he go? Not to the pool, but to leave the place and go to the temple.

Or one would think that the after healed paralytic would not be foolish enough to stay there and wait for the water in the pool to stir. .

Perhaps we all have this problem to a greater or lesser extent. We have many things that paralyse our lives. The outer body is intact, but the inner mind is paralysed.

Wholeness

Jesus is the agent of wholeness, of eternal life, of secure pasture, and of release from the realm of darkness.

Gerald L. Borchert

6. In a way, I seem to be paralysed sometime. Knowing that I had a lot to do. Instead, physically lying on the sofa watching television, and continuing to watch despite the sometimes boring nature of the TV programmes, as if bound by the spell of the sofa.

Once when I was discussing this passage with my eldest daughter, I told her about my condition. She replied that my condition could be a form of ADHD paralysis. Later, when I read what she forwarded to me about it, I discovered that there really are so many different kinds of paralysis.

A condition similar to mine is known as task paralysis: the inability to start or finish a task. Of course, I know that the real cause of mine is laziness.

I have found that among the many categories presented in this article, in addition to task paralysis, there is what is known as mental paralysis and choice paralysis.

But there is another kind of paralysis that is not mentioned here, and that is Spiritual paralysis. This kind of paralysis is not a kind of disease, but it is a human condition. Because of sin, mankind has fallen into spiritual paralysis.

The intervention of sin, we lose this wholeness, which breaks us down in our relationship with our Creator and leads to our spiritual paralysis.

Our handicap is not really our physical or mental handicap; our real handicap is our spiritual paralysis. In other words, our souls have lost a true place to belong.

We try to save ourselves in our own way, trying to fill the emptiness in our hearts, spending our lives busily chasing after achievements, status and material things. The result is that we become mentally paralysed and even physically ill.

Jesus Christ said to the paralytic, "Do you want to be healed? Another word for heal is made whole,

in other words, the healing that Jesus brings to us is that we may be made whole. Just as God completed creation in six days and then entered into rest on the seventh day, so the whole creation, including mankind, are in a state of wholeness.

Today, although we are temporarily in this fragmented world, our health is being harmed by viruses and the war between nations affects our daily lives. Yet we wait with true hope of Jesus has promised, the second coming of Jesus Christ. At that time we will enjoy wholeness, environmental and relational wholeness, where there is true contentment and eternal rest.

But now we are waiting in a way that is not the kind of waiting that lies on the sofa or lies helplessly by the Bethesda pool.

Our waiting is dynamic waiting. Our God is a working God, and Jesus is the one who comes with a big umbrella to cover us when we are immobilized in a downpour, that we may not be paralyzed in the generation of heavy downpours, but under his big umbrella, we keep pace with him until we reach the destination.

7. I would like to conclude today's sharing with a verse of scripture.

Jesus said:

English Standard Version (Chapter 11)

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.