A Heal and Run

Have you ever been reading a Bible passage and ran across something you couldn’t explain, something that just didn’t seem to make sense, I have. For years I wondered about a particular miracle that Jesus performed. Of course we usually cannot explain a miracle, if we knew how it was done and could duplicate it ourselves we probably would not consider it a miracle. However, I am not talking about figuring out how the miracle was done but why Jesus acted the way that he did.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not questioning whether Jesus was right or wrong, Jesus was 100% right. I just didn’t understand why he did what he did and I know that Jesus didn’t do anything without a reason so I wanted to figure it out. I thought I must be missing something. I don’t particularly like to be puzzled or confused and I really don’t like to be puzzled or confused alone so I thought I would share this conundrum with you.

John 5:1–17 NASB95

After these things there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes. In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, waiting for the moving of the waters; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted. A man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, He said to him, “Do you wish to get well?” The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, pick up your pallet and walk.” Immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk. Now it was the Sabbath on that day. So the Jews were saying to the man who was cured, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not permissible for you to carry your pallet.” But he answered them, “He who made me well was the one who said to me, ‘Pick up your pallet and walk.’ ” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Pick up your pallet and walk’?” But the man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away while there was a crowd in that place. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.” The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. For this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath. But He answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.”

So there are all of these people, I don’t know how many there were but the bible says there were a multitude and that sounds like a lot. They were all waiting around this pool because they believed that an angel would stir the waters and the first one in the pool after the waters were stirred would be healed. There must have been something wrong with all or at least most of them, after all they were waiting to be healed. The stage is set and everyone has come expecting a miracle. Enter Jesus stage left.

Now if Jesus wanted to get a lot of attention this would be a perfect time to have a healing service and heal everyone there but that is not what he did. As far as we know he only healed one person. There were times when Jesus seemed to heal almost everyone who came to him but not this time. On more than one occasion the bible states that he healed all of those who were sick but here is a multitude of sick people and the scripture records that he healed one of them and then left. I wonder why.

Sometimes in the bible it says that Jesus had compassion on the people and healed them but this time it does not address how Jesus is feeling or why Jesus did what he did. There are passages where Jesus asks someone if they have faith or if they believe and then, after they say yes, he heals them and says something like your faith has made you whole, but this time there is no mention of faith. Jesus does ask the man if he wants to be healed and the man implies that he does but states that he has no one to help him into the water.

Later on someone ask the man who healed him and he doesn’t know. It cannot be about faith in Jesus because the man doesn’t even know who Jesus is. After Jesus heals him he doesn’t say anything about faith or about God he just tells the man to pick up his pallet and walk.

The first verse tells us that this was during a feast of the Jews and we learn that it is on a sabbath day. The Jews had taken the commandment to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy and made some rules about how to do that. Because God said that they should not work on the sabbath the Jews had defined in detail what work was and what it wasn’t. It probably started out as a good idea, a way to better understand what God expected and how to do what God said to do. But, as it often does, it became a set of rules that could be used to accuse and condemn each other. It became legalistic.

So when they saw the healed man walking and carrying his pallet they immediately accused him, what are you doing carrying a pallet on the sabbath, don’t you know that is considered work and you are breaking the commandment. The man said “hey, I don’t know, all I know is that the guy who healed me told me to pick up my pallet and walk and so I did”. That made the Jewish leaders mad. I don’t think they got mad because they thought this guy was disobeying or dishonoring God. If that was what they were upset about I think the rest of the story would be about how they took him to task and urged him to repent and how the man either repented or refused to repent and what they did about that, but that is not the case. In fact it seems that once they figured out that Jesus was the one who healed the man they left the man alone and went after Jesus.

You know, I think that was exactly Jesus’ point. I think he chose to heal that man and tell him to pick up his pallet and walk knowing that the Jewish leaders would see him and question him and find out that Jesus had healed him on the Sabbath. I think Jesus was trying to cause a stir, he was trying to bring attention to that act. Now if Jesus had really wanted to start a fight he could have stayed and healed everyone and he would have still been there healing when the Jewish leaders found out about it and came to confront him but that is not what he did. Jesus healed one man and then left so he wasn’t wanting to pick a fight or start a riot. But he did want to make a point.

Later on they confront Jesus and he tells them that the sabbath was made for man not man for the sabbath. He defends his right to heal on the sabbath and he explains why it is good to do so. I think Jesus had an agenda and he wanted to provoke that discussion and try to teach the leaders what they really should be focusing on and what God really meant by remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy. I think Jesus had a plan and the plan required one healing but not a massive display of his power and authority. One healing was needed to spark the conversation and prove the point but he did not intend to start a riot and cause further division between the people and the leaders.

The leaders were trying to exert their power and authority and keep from being challenged but Jesus was trying to prove God’s point and help the people follow God the way God wanted them to follow him. I often wondered why did Jesus heal only one man, why that man, why did he pick that particular day and that particular place to perform one miraculous healing when so many others were passed by and left out. Surely this man who didn’t even know who Jesus was did not receive healing because of his great faith or because he was so much worthier than everyone else, surely this man was not chosen because he was the best or the worthiest. In fact the story doesn’t really appear to be about the man at all, because it isn’t.

Like so much of the bible it is not about him, or even about us, it is about God. It is easy to miss what God is doing and what he is saying or teaching because we focus on the wrong things. For years I tried to figure out what it was about this particular man that made him worthy of healing and no one else but I was looking in the wrong place. It wasn’t about him, it was about Jesus. Jesus could have picked any one of the people there that day to make his point. This man may have been chosen because he lived where he would have to pass the leaders Jesus wanted to spark the conversation with to get to his house or for almost any other reason. The point is Jesus did this for his purposes, it still helped the man, he was still cured but in reality it was never about him, it was about God and God’s plan.

When Jesus asked the man if he wanted to be made well the man didn’t even answer Jesus’ question because he was focusing on the wrong things. He started complaining that no one would help him into the water and so he never got healed. Jesus didn’t ask him if he wanted to get into the water he asked him if he wanted to be made well. Jesus did make him well but he didn’t put him into the water. The man could not understand what Jesus was saying or even properly respond to Jesus’ question because he could not get past his own worries and complaints to really listen to Jesus and what Jesus was saying. The answer to all of his problems was right in front of him but he couldn’t see it because he was focused on the one problem that concerned him most. Jesus offered to solve the very problem the man wanted so desperately to be fixed but the man could not really hear or understand Jesus because the man had already decided how his problem should be fixed and he was so focused on the solution he had decided on and the method he had chosen that he couldn’t even see it when Jesus stood right in front of him and offered to fix his problem, he completely missed it.

The Jewish leaders were so focused on maintaining their power and authority and making sure that all of their rules were followed that they forgot why they made the rules in the first place. The rules were made to honor God and to provide a rest for man, yet they had turned it into a full time job trying to keep all the rules and keep up with everything they did and even what everyone else did, how restful is that? In both cases they couldn’t see the forest for the trees, they couldn’t see God performing a miracle because they were so focused on themselves and what they thought and what they wanted.

You know I had the same problem. I could not understand this passage for years because I was looking for what the rules were about healing and why Jesus chose one person instead of another when the whole thing was not about the healing but about following God in the way God wanted to be followed. It was about legalism, about making up a bunch of rules that God never made or wanted in order to compare yourself to others, so that you could prove you were better than them or so that you could condemn them for not doing everything you think should be done.

The real issue here was that we all forgot that the story of the bible is a story about God, we are in the story, we are part of the story but we are not the heroes, we are not the reason the story was written, that honor is reserved for God, it is his story and sometimes we get so wrapped up in our part of the story and so wrapped up in ourselves that we forget that the story is about God. When we forget what the story is about is is easy to get twisted up and turned around and confused about what the story means. We try to figure out how the story is about us and what we should have or could have done different or what we would do in that situation but if we forget that we are not the focus of the story, we are not the center of attention we can easily miss the one who is the focus of the story, the one who should be the center of attention. Never forget that the story is about God, you are important, you are God’s creation, you are part of God’s story, but the story is about Him, the focus is on him, we are always a supporting cast to the great story of God. We are honored and glorified because we play a part in the greatest story ever told, the greatest book ever written. We are part of the cast and crew and we are important characters, but Jesus is the star. It is about him.