Do You Want To Be Healed?

Remember in school when the teacher would ask if there are any questions and then would give that caveat of “Remember, there are no bad questions”?- What a load of crock that was. There are lots of bad questions that people say all the time.

I have said to people, at a funeral or in the hospital, “How’s it going?”

How many of you have been asked, “Do you feel old yet?” on your birthday? Like every year multiple people. Or “did you get a haircut?” when it is pretty obvious when you just chopped off 12 inches of hair. Or “is that enough parmesan cheese on your pasta, sir?” “No it is not, Stephanie, you keep grinding until I can’t find my plate of food under the cheese, please and thank you very much.”

I recently bought a pair of sunglasses and had to fill out all this information, like my name, address and phone number. While holding the piece of paper with all the information on it, written clearly and legibly by me, the salesperson asked me how to spell my name and what my phone number was.

My daughter recently has started asking me weird questions like, what is my third favourite dinosaur and why. It would be funny and cute if my daughter is 5 years old. She is not. She is 16. It’s weird.

There are bad questions out there. But sometimes, you get a great question and a great question can build a friendship, heal a broken heart, or challenge a person’s worldview. A great question can change a person’s life.

For the next four weeks, we are going to look at some questions that Jesus asked people. These questions became turning points in people’s lives and my hope is that as we ask these questions ourselves, things will shift in our perspectives and in our lives that will draw us closer to God and help us live in greater freedom and joy than ever before.

So let’s get into it. The question that we want to look at today is found in the gospel of John - in chapter 5 - when Jesus asks a paralytic “Would you like to get well?”

Now, before we get to the passage, there is one piece of context that I want to share with you, in order to help us understand this passage better. Our passage references a pool named Bethesda. The name “Bethesda” in Hebrew means “house of mercy” which is appropriate because it was believed that this pool would have healing powers for people. It was commonly believed in Jesus’ time, that an angel would stir the waters up supernaturally and if you were able to get into the waters when they were stirred, you would experience physical healing. It was believed widely enough that many people who had physical ailments would wait around the pool for the waters to start moving and then get in. During an excavation in 1871, the pool of Bethesda, with parts of it’s five columns, was rediscovered in Jerusalem and you can tour the ruins of it today.

So with that information in the back of our minds, let’s read our passage in John 5 together.

John 5:1–15 NLT

Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches. One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?” “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.” Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!” Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking! But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, so the Jewish leaders objected. They said to the man who was cured, “You can’t work on the Sabbath! The law doesn’t allow you to carry that sleeping mat!” But he replied, “The man who healed me told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ” “Who said such a thing as that?” they demanded. The man didn’t know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.” Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him.

Pray.

This passage is significant in the life of Jesus for two reasons. First, it is the third of what are called Jesus’ “sign miracles” - these are seven miracles that Jesus performs in the book of John. Later in chapter 5, when Jesus is talking about the proof he has that he has come from God he says, “But I have a greater witness than John—my teachings and my miracles. The Father gave me these works to accomplish, and they prove that he sent me.” - John 5:36 Jesus sees this miracle as evidence that he comes from God the father.

The second reason it’s significant in Jesus’ life is that this marks the beginning of Jesus’ opposition by the Pharisees. The Pharisees were a group of religious leaders in Israel, who ensured that everyone obeyed the law of Moses. But in order to ensure that, they made a whole whack of other laws in order to keep people from even getting close to breaking Moses’ law. For example, because Moses’ law said you had to rest on the Sabbath, or the last day of the week, you could not walk farther than half a mile from your house because walking is work and you can’t work on the Sabbath. And you definitely can’t carry things around on the Sabbath. Which is why they got so bent out of shape when they saw this man walking around carrying his mat. And why they got so mad at Jesus. To them, Jesus was breaking God’s holy law by healing people on the Sabbath.

John 5:16 NLT

So the Jewish leaders began harassing Jesus for breaking the Sabbath rules.

But the key thing I want us to look at in this passage today is the question Jesus asks the paralytic. “Would you like to get well?” or as the NIV version of the bible says, “Do you want to be healed?” I think that this is a great question. At first, it seems like it’s a dumb question: “Do you want to be healed?” “Umm, obviously.” I mean the man has shown up at the pool every day for years, trying to be healed by its waters. But there is a depth to this question. Because for the paralytic, and for many of you, you say you want to experience God’s healing - whether it be physical, emotional, or spiritual - but deep down, you are afraid of life without your pain. Your pain has become so imbedded into how you see yourself and how you live that you cannot truthfully conceive of life without it. Your pain has become your friend and your identity. You don’t know how to live without it so you don’t want to let it go.

Let me give you an example. In an article for Psychology Today on depression, Dr. Susan Noonan, author of “Managing Your Depression: What You Can Do To Feel Better,” writes:

“The depressed brain sees feeling good as different and “not right” so the tendency is to go back—back to the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours of depression or anxiety. Feeling depressed may feel safer and more comfortable than risking the new territory of wellness, which has a new set of feelings, thoughts, behaviours, and expectations”

Our brains get wired by our feelings, our mental health and our experiences and we create thinking patterns that make us feel comfortable. And we are going to have to break those thinking patterns if we want to experience the healing that Jesus wants to give us. That is why his question to the paralytic is so poignant: He is cutting past the superficial and getting to the man’s heart.

So let me ask you two questions: First: What do you need healing from? Is it a trauma you experienced in the past? Is it an addiction you struggle with now? Is it a sense of emotional un-health because of the way you were raised? Is it as simple as feeling distant from God? I think all of us need to experience healing from Jesus in some area of our lives but too often, we become so used to our pain or our unhealthy habits that we keep those things from Jesus. What do you need healing from?

The second question is: “Would you like to get well?” I ask this but I mean, “Do you really want to get well?” Are you ready to let go of the things that are keeping you from experience wellness? If you are ready to experience healing in your life, then this passage has three things that we need to keep in mind as we pursue healing.

1. God’s timing isn’t your timing

Many of you may have seen on the news, or on youtube, or maybe you even went to a church where the preacher would get up and in the middle of the service would smack some disabled person and they would miraculously be healed. One TV preacher I saw offered to sell you a green handkerchief that, if you believe enough, will heal you. Gimmicks like these always make us think that healing is instantaneous and immediate. And those thoughts can be reinforced when we look at our story in John 5 and see this paralytic get healed 5 minutes after meeting Jesus and we start to believe that’s how it should be for us.

But there is a line in our passage that should give us some pause on that thought. It says that one of the men was sick for 38 years. 38 years. That’s longer than most of you in this room have been alive. Not all of you. Some of you are old. But for many, the idea of being sick for 38 years is hard to fathom. And I think it is beyond reasonable to assume that this man has been at the healing waters of Bethesda many times in his life, trying to be there to experience healing and not quite being able to get there. I also think it’s reasonable to assume, in first century Israel, that this Jewish man has prayed many times to God for healing and for years has heard nothing. He prayed and prayed and prayed, and no response.

And I am guessing, that for some of you, that sounds familiar. You’ve been praying for healing from that sickness, that addiction, those sins and you’ve heard nothing for years. That’s why it’s important for us to remember that God’s timing isn’t our timing.

Ecclesiastes 8:6 NLT

for there is a time and a way for everything, even when a person is in trouble.

We need to remember that God is moving all history towards its appointed end and that he will do the right thing at the right time. It may be that his delay at your healing is because it’s not the right time for it. There is still something God wants to do in you and/or through you that relates to your struggle. And just because we don’t understand it, or even like it, doesn’t make it any less God’s will.

Isaiah 55:8–9 NLT

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

There will come a day when you will experience healing. It might be today, it might be tomorrow, it might be after Jesus comes back or it might be after you die. But that’s the hope for the Christian: that because of the love and the sacrifice of Jesus, we have a better day coming when we will experience the fullness of God’s healing. We just need to be patient and remember that God’s timing isn’t our timing.

2. Your excuses reveal your idols

When I was a teenager, one of the chores my dad would ask me to do is mow the lawn. We had a pretty large lot with lots of grass, but my dad was kind of old school - why ride a lawn mower when you could push one? So every week, I was supposed fire up the push mower and spend 5 hours on a Saturday mowing the lawn in 35 degree heat. It wasn’t fun. And because it wasn’t fun, I found so many excuses not to do it. I would have to eat breakfast first, which somehow took over an hour. Half an hour after I started I would take a water break that was at least another half hour. Another half hour later, it was lunch time. If there was even a cloud in the sky, I assumed it was going to rain and you can’t mow if it’s raining, so I didn’t do it. I was horrible. I always had an excuse to get me out of it, which then left my dad to take over.

Most of us with kids in school know that if your child is going to skip school, the school wants to know about. One day, after having a staff discussion at a school about the importance of ensuring the students were competent in reading and writing, an administrator provided a list of excuses that some parents gave for their children’s absence.

1. Please excuse John for being absent on Jan. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and 33.

2. My son is under a doctor’s care and should not take P.E. Please execute him.

3. Please excuse Blanche from jim today. She is administrating.

4. Please excuses Joyce from P.E. for a few days. Yesterday, she fell out of a tree and misplaced her hip.

5. Please excuse Jimmy for being. It was his father’s fault.

It’s easy for us a people to come up with excuses for our behaviour. In our passage, when Jesus asked the paralytic man, “Would you like to get well,” the man replied with an excuse. He implies that the reason he isn’t well is because he can’t get to the water on time and others get in before him. And this excuse shows us a couple of things:

This man put his faith in the wrong thing for years. He believed that healing came from the water when the real source of healing was Jesus. Our excuses reveal our idols. When I was a teenager, I worshipped, me. I was self-centered, living for the moment, and desired to be constantly entertained. Thank goodness, I grew out of that!! Well, to be honest, it’s something that I still fight against everyday. I have to constantly die to my selfishness and purposefully seek to worship God and love others. And some days, I fail in the fight and then, I come up with excuses. “I’m tired.” “I’m super busy.” “I worked hard all week.” “blah, blah, blah.” Our excuses reveal our idols.

The second thing this excuse shows us is the grace of God. When Jesus asked the man “Would you like to get well” he doesn’t reply with “Yes please” or even “Please help me.” No, he makes his excuse why he isn’t experiencing healing. But then Jesus goes and heals him anyway. Jesus cuts through the excuses and does a transformative work in the guys life. And the man’s response is expose Jesus to the religious leaders, thus beginning to Jesus’ persecution by them. This man’s healing is an act of grace - he did not deserve it, he didn’t even ask for it, he didn’t even express thanks or worship to Jesus for it and yet Jesus healed him anyways. Any healing you experience is an act of grace. God does not owe you healing - he does not owe you anything. He is the Lord above and we are his creation. So for every bit of healing you experience, be grateful that the God of Grace has looked down upon you, has seen you in your pain, and loves you.

The paralytic gave Jesus an excuse why he wasn’t healed. What about you? What excuses do you tell yourself, tell God or tell others that are keeping you from experiencing the fullness of life that Jesus offers you? What pain is too big for God to bring healing to? What sin is too great for God to not forgive you? What addiction is stronger than the Lord Almighty?

I’m not saying our healing will be instantaneous, or easy. It may take time, it most likely will take work and you will have to have some people help you along the way. But the question that I put to you today is: Are you prepared to let go of the excuses that are keeping you back from pursuing wholeness in Jesus?

3. Your healing should lead to deeper devotion

After Jesus heals the guy, he slips away into the crowd, John Wick style while the man was interrogated by the Pharisees. Later, Jesus found the guy at the Temple and said to him, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.” Something in the conversation between Jesus and the man while he was laying at the pool of Bethesda must be connected to this but it isn’t included in the Biblical record. We have no idea of what sin this man was committing that led to his infirmity. But there was something and it was important enough for Jesus to go out of his way to find and talk to the man about it.

What we need to take out of this exchange is that as God heals us - whether it is a physical healing, or a spiritual breakthrough, or emotional healing - it is for a purpose - our healing should lead to deeper devotion.

In a similar but contrasting story in Luke 5, Jesus heals a paralytic man who had been lowered down through the roof by a group of friends. When he was healed, it says in Luke 5:25 “And immediately, as everyone watched, the man jumped up, picked up his mat, and went home praising God.” His healing led to praise and that’s how it should be for us as well. When we experience some form of healing, it should cause us to celebrate God and worship him for his love and grace.

Pastor and Author Craig Groeshel tweeted, “Every blessing we don’t turn into praise has potential to turn into pride.” When God does something, give glory to God. But beyond just praising him with your words, praise him with your life. Jesus told the man to “stop sinning.” God does not give us healing so that we can continue to live outside his will. God loves us as we are, accepts us as we are, but also transforms us into becoming more like Jesus in our character and in our cause. God desires that you walk away from sin and into deeper intimacy with Him.

Romans 12:1 NLT

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.

When we experience the work of God in our lives, our response is to worship by living in a way that brings glory to God.

So, for those of you who seek to see God heal you in some area of your life, I ask you, “Why?” What is your motivation for your healing? Is it for your glory - so that you can do what you want or is it for the glory to God - to be the catalyst to a live of deeper devotion to God?

Conclusion

In our passage today, Jesus asks the man “Would you like to get well?” I think it’s a great question because this story forces us to remember that God’s timing is not our timing, that our excuses reveal our idols and that our healing should lead to a deeper devotion to God - to a life marked by holiness.

So, I ask you, “Would you like to get well?” Do you want to see God bring some healing in your life? We are all broken in some way and need Jesus to make us well. So, take all your sin, all your addictions, all your trauma and give them to the Lord of Love, who loves you with an everlasting love and desires that you walk in wholeness. It’s not easy, it may not be quick but start by praying to God, confessing your brokenness and inviting him to begin to heal you.