Do you want to be healed??

Introduction

In the passage today, we see this man who has been sick for a long time. Perhaps he had been paralyzed and unable to walk, and Jesus performs a miracle of healing his paralysis. But before we dive into the passage, I want us to first set the scene, because we have archaeological evidence of this exact site that the Bible is talking about.

Show picture of Pool of Bethesda.

So as you can see in this picture here, archaeologists believe that this is the very site of the Bethesda pool where Jesus healed this man of his paralysis. They discovered this site and excavated it in the 19th century. Now over time what happened was that as Christians over the subsequent centuries took control over these sites, they liked to mark these areas of important events in Jesus’ life and his miracles, so they built chapels and churches over these sites. And you can see how there is this chapel that has now been excavated, covering the site where the pool used to be.

Now what’s really interesting is when archaeologists first read this passage in the Bible before actually having found this site, they thought that this record of John was historically inaccurate and John just made it up, because if we see in verse 2, John has this very peculiar description of the pool having five roofed colonnades.

Show picture of colonnade.

Colonnades are these long rows of columns with a roof over the top, and these would have surrounded the pool. And assuming that the pool was rectangular in shape as most pools are, then you would expect 4 colonnades. But John says there is 5, so unless the pool is a pentagon in shape, this made no sense. But when they actually found the Pool of Bethesda and excavated the site, they found that there was actually two pools with another colonnade separating the two, therefore confirming John’s description of five colonnades.

So before we even dive into this passage, I just want to remind all of us that the Bible is not just a story, it’s not a fairy tale. It’s actual history, and it’s God acting in history in a supernatural history. Jesus was there at this site of the Pool of Bethesda in flesh and blood, you could touch him, you could hear him, you could see Him, and this man claimed to be God. So no one can get away from the fact that Jesus was real, these things really happened, and now it’s up to us how we respond to that.

But now let’s get back to the passage, and the first point I want to make is that this passage shows us that we, humanity, are utterly helpless.

The Helpless State of Humanity

So what was going on at this site at the pool? Let’s read John 5:3 together “In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed.” Lying under these long rows of columns with a roof overhead, there were a ‘multitude’ of people, perhaps even hundreds, desperate to get healed. There were people with disease and sickness, those who were blind, those who were paralyzed and couldn’t walk just like this man. Imagine walking into this scene - it’s not like going to Aqualink going for a leisurely swim. Rather, it would have been a scene of complete despair and helplessness. Whether young or old, whether male or female, you would have been surrounded by people with bodies wasting away, their minds in complete anguish. It would have been a scene where you see the pitiful state of broken humanity.

And in a sense isn’t this describing us? Without Christ, when you peel back the layers of our lives that we try and use to find some meaning, hope, or joy in our existence, what are we left with? Nothing, because nothing lasts in this world. No matter how hard you try, no one can avoid the unavoidable truth and certainty in this life, which is death. You can try your best to try and secure a comfortable, successful life that this world tells us we should strive for - we all probably have this idea in our head that if we have a lot of money, a nice house, a nice car, a nice job, a nice spouse and kids, and maybe a dog on the side, our life would be perfect. But even if you achieved this, doesn’t death still exist? Won’t this all eventually crumble away anyway? Remember, from dust we came, and to dust we shall return.

So, human beings have this silent struggle in life, this unspoken desperation to combat death and the hopelessness that death brings with it. But without Christ, whatever we do, death will always win.

So in a sense, we are not different to this man in the passage at all. Although we may not be paralysed like this man, we are just as helpless as him. When Jesus walked into this scene full of disease, sickness, despair, sadness, and no hope, that is the same scene that we are in. This is the reality of our humanity, our existence.

But do you want to be healed?

But you know what’s really sad? A lot of us don’t even want the help or cure that Jesus offers us. Jesus asks a reallly interesting question in verses 5-6. When Jesus encounters this man who had been paralyzed for 38 years, and He asks him ‘Do you want to be healed?’ That’s almost an insulting question. Imagine you were paralyzed for 38 years, and someone just walks up to you casually and asks you, ‘do you want to be healed?’ I think I would be pretty annoyed because of course I want to be healed, why do you think I’m lying beside this pool trying to get healed for the past 38 years?

But when you think about healing, when you think about being cured, it’s not just healing or cure itself you are receiving, but you also receive the implications of that healing, what follows after the healing - it all comes as a package. And sometimes, we may not want that. We may want the healing, but we may not want what comes with the healing. For example, beggars and the sick in Jesus’ day often earned a pretty good living, so by being healed they may be losing their source of income.

And for much of this world, we are the same. Jesus has clearly offered us healing, a cure, salvation. And this good news has been spread all over the world. And yet, so many of us still reject that message. We don’t want to accept it. And we especially don’t want to accept what comes as a package deal with the healing that Jesus offers: Jesus doesn’t just heal us, he restores our relationship with God so that we can worship and love God. But we don’t that, we don’t want a relationship with God, we don’t want to worship him. So we reject Jesus’ help, and we try to find our own way to help ourselves - and that is a battle we will never win, because just like the sick people in the passage today, we are so helpless and powerless.

Jesus’ Gracious Healing

But what does Jesus do with this helpless man? Let’s read John 5:8 “Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.””

Jesus perfectly and completely heals him. His legs which he couldn’t move, which had shriveled with all the muscles wasted away, suddenly had strength and he had the strength stand up and he could now miraculously walk. So we can see that God works and brings healing into our lives despite our complete helplessness. God works in our lives even though, as we said before, we may not even want it. Jesus commands the man saying ‘Get up, take up your bed, and walk’, and immediately this man was healed, took up his bed and walked!

Now it’s important to see how John paints this man. To give a bit of a preview, it’s not very good. John shows us how completely undeserving this man was of Jesus’ healing. When he was healed, the Jews were really unhappy about it because Jesus had performed this miracle on the Sabbath which they did not allow. And this man must have clearly known about these Jewish regulations, but when the Jews ask him about who healed him, rather than defending Jesus, he dobs him in. Read John 5:11 “But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’ ””

Not only that, if we read the next verse (John 5:12) he couldn’t even remember the name of the man who healed him - he was really ungrateful.

But what is really revealing is what Jesus says in John 5:14 “Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”” John tells us here that the reason this man was sick and paralyzed was because of his sin. Now I’m not saying that this man was worse sinner than everyone else to deserve this - remember that we are all sinners. I am also not saying that all disease and sickness in this world is due to sin or wrong actions - I think the vast majority of patients in hospitals are sick not because of a particular sin they have committed. But at the same time, it is also true that if you do a bad thing, often there are bad consequences. So sin can also have consequences in our lives, and just one example, in some cases, may be that sin can lead to disease such as this. So overall, John is showing how sly, ungrateful, unloyal this man is to Christ, the very one who healed him, and on top of that he is a sinful man. He is completely undeserving of God’s mercy and help. And if you think you are any better than this man, think again, because we are just like him. Completely undeserving of God’s works in our lives and His healing. And this is affirmed by Paul Romans, lets look at Romans 3:9 “For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin.”

And yet, God heals this man. And yet God saves us, heals us, and he works in our lives, he cares about our hurts and pains and our suffering, even though we are undeserving. This is grace. God saving us and giving us his gifts, despite our unworthiness. This man did nothing to earn his cure, and yet Jesus cured him. And it’s the same with us - we did nothing to earn our cure, or even our salvation, and yet God saves us and heals us, and even gives us the ultimate gift of eternal life. What did we do to deserve this? Nothing. God’s grace means that he does not require anything from us, and He gives to us purely by His own will, desire, power, and love.

Conclusion

So to wrap up, John teaches us how completely helpless we all are, and he shows us how we don’t even want God’s help at the best of times. We are so undeserving. But despite all that, despite us deserving judgement, God gives us the opposite. Rather than punishing us, he blesses us. Rather than punishing us, He punishes His own Son instead of us with the punishment that we deserved. And he gives this all freely to us at no cost to us - he doesn’t require or demand anything of us. This is grace - God’s free gift of love to us, where God pays the price instead of us, at the cost of His Son on the cross.

Resources

· PNTC – Carson

· Bible Speaks Today – Milne

· Preaching the Word (x2) – Hughes

· https://www.viator.com/en-AU/Jerusalem-attractions/Pool-of-Bethesda/overview/d921-a23617

· https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-sites-places/jerusalem/the-bethesda-pool-site-of-one-of-jesus-miracles/

· https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonnade#/media/File:Wikimedia_Conference_2015_photo_by_Pine_-_28.jpg