Do You Want to Get Well?

What’s the longest you’ve sat in a hospital waiting room?

Healthcare in Canada is amazing. I’ve watched Emergency Room staff resuscitate a man so he survived a heart attack! They step up in an emergency.

But the triage system ensures urgent cases get seen first. When your problem is less serious, you wait to see a doctor. I’ve sat and sat and sat as a patient and as a parent. I’ve spent hours waiting! Even when you understand the priority system (and it’s always good when your problem is less serious), it is annoying to see people arrive after you get called in to see a doctor before you!

In John 5, we meet a man lying among the blind, lame, and paralyzed around the pool of Bethesda. We don’t know how long he’s been at Bethesda, but he’s been an invalid for 38 yrs! Think of being physically disabled since 1984. And each time he tried get healed in the pool, others were quicker.

The waters of Bethesda allegedly had healing properties. The 2 pools are north of the temple. These pools were once part of a temple to Asclepius, a Greek god of healing. Although the altars to Asclepius were removed, the hope of miracles of healing lingered.

A note in John’s gospel explains how. Vs. 4 isn’t in the oldest, most reliable manuscripts; not in the NIV. You’ll find it in other versions:

In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had.

John 5:3–4 (NKJV)

So here’s a man, lying by the pool among all the others, waiting to be healed, to be made whole. He’s annoyed he can’t get into the pool w/o help. Others are getting in before him! And Jesus asks,

“Do you want to get well?”

Is it an odd question? The man is physically disabled. He has tried and tried to get in the pool for healing!

What if the wellness Jesus has in mind is more than physical healing; more holistic? Is Jesus offering Shalom? – all relationships repaired and whole. Every part of his body restored to wholeness and working in harmony: restored family, renewed community, harmony with Creator and heavenly Father! Isn’t that Jesus’ goal for all people; for all creation?

But where do you find healing? Jesus’ question presents a Y in the road:

Pursue uncertain results from the mysterious stirring of the water in the pool of Bethesda?

OR put faith in Jesus as healer and giver of life.

The man’s initial response to Jesus was to point to the pool. “I need help getting into the pool when the water is stirred.” But that’s not the help Jesus gives him. Jesus speaks; the man is healed.

Think of what it takes to rise up and pick up your mat when you haven’t been able to rise and carry things for 38 yrs. He tried to move and he could! He rose, picked up the mat, and walked! He had enough faith to experiment with obeying Jesus.

This sounds like other miraculous signs John describes in his gospel. John calls Jesus’ miracles “miraculous signs”. If this is a miraculous sign, what does this healing point to? That’s why we need to read further. In John’s gospel: events -> discussion

Jesus talks to the Jewish leaders about the work he’s doing. Jesus describes his work as if he’s a Son apprenticed to his Father. He does the same work; continues the family business of giving life. Jesus’ heavenly Father is the Lord, the giver of life. Many Jews believed God could raise the dead. Jesus builds on that:

Just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.

John 5:21 (NIV)

In the course of the gospel, John unpacks evidence that Jesus is the source of life.

In this chap., Jesus calls someone who has been crippled for 38 years to rise, take mat, and walk

In ch. 11, Jesus calls Lazarus to rise from the tomb.

At the climax of this gospel (John 19), Jesus is raised on a cross to hang until he dies.

On third day, Jesus rises from tomb!

It’s the confirmation that Jesus has come to give life to all who put their faith in him. If you’ve been reading through John’s gospel recently, you’ll recognize the refrain we find throughout the gospel of John: faith in Jesus = life. It’s in this chapter too.

Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.

John 5:24 (NIV)

But something is missing in this miraculous sign at Bethesda. What’s missing?

We expect John to say the healed man put his faith in Jesus.

When a royal official from Capernaum tracked Jesus down in Cana, asking for his son to be healed from a deadly illness, we read that he believed Jesus and went home. B/c his son was healed he and his whole household believed!

This man’s story is different. There’s no indication he receives more than physical healing from Jesus. We get hints of the problem in the whole smozzle about Sabbath-keeping.

According to the traditional interpretation among the Jewish leaders, carrying a mat on the Sabbath broke the commandment about resting on the Sabbath. Do you think that’s the sin Jesus warns him about in vs. 14 when Jesus says, “Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you”? Is Jesus saying, “Gotcha! You should have waited until the Sabbath was over”?

I don’t think so. Jesus doesn’t do “gotcha.” He doesn’t tempt people to sin.

Keeping Sabbath isn’t just about not-working. Sabbath is about faith in God. It’s about believing God’s instructions are wise. Sabbath rest is about trusting God enough to obey him. It’s about counting on God to provide all you need even if you rest 1 day in 7.

I suspect Jesus’ warning against sin is about the direction of this man’s faith. All the man’s expectations and hopes are all off-kilter. At the start, instead of appealing to God for life and healing, he waits for healing at the pool of Bethesda.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying anything against alternative medicine. Ideally, whether you go to a medical doctor, an herbalist, a chiropractor, or a practitioner of traditional medicines, you recognize that healing comes from God who developed the principles of health that these specialists use.

But this man seems to have forgotten that he was created and then healed to be a steward w/in God’s creation. Instead of using his newfound strength and mobility to follow Jesus and to explore what life looks like with Jesus, he runs off to report Jesus’ name to the Jewish leaders; leaders who were growing antagonistic to Jesus. Does that seem right to you?

This miraculous sign of healing fails to reorient this man to Jesus’ mission. The healed man is so disoriented in faith that he uses his newfound mobility to curry favour w/ Jewish leaders. Isn’t that a symptom of the sin Jesus warns him about?

Looking for life, acceptance, and hope apart from God the Father and the Son of God who has come into the world to give life and hope and a future.

Living far from God is worse than 38 years as an invalid!

If you continue reading through John’s gospel, the next chapter describes the miraculous sign Jesus did in the wilderness, feeding 5000 people. There’s something basic about bread in Jewish culture. It’s a staple, like rice or potatoes.

When I was a kid, my parents taught us to pray after every meal. All 4 of us recited the prayer one after the other: “Lord, thank you for this food for Jesus’ sake, Amen.” It was a way to teach us that the food, plain or fancy, came from God. Complete dependence on God was the goal. It’s like the prayer Jesus taught his disciples, which includes the line, “Give us this day our daily bread.”

It seems that this man was missing that basic dependence on God. Instead he chased in other directions for stuff he ought to have found from God:

· healing from the mysterious pool of Bethesda

· approval & acceptance of Jewish leaders by reporting on Jesus

This man missed out on the basics of faith in God as the source of all good things, including physical health and a healthy sense of belonging. Ultimately, he missed out on God’s invitation to have no other gods; to depend completely on God. He doesn’t have the faith in Jesus that John’s gospel aims for.

Personal Q: Can you relate?

It’s tempting to look in the wrong direction for acceptance and pleasure, healing and purpose in life. Sometimes even our prayers of gratitude are said on autopilot – like when we raced through our “Lord thank-you” prayers at top speed.

God’s word invites you to examine your own attitude:

Who do you really depend on?

What direction are your hopes and goals pointed?

Jesus has come to rescue us from attitudes and hopes that lead away from God. He’s come to restore our faith and dependence on God. He’s come to restore us to obedience, following God’s instructions for holy living.

Jesus became human, subject to the same temptations that all the rest of us face. But Jesus did something nobody else has done: he trusted his Father and obeyed his Father’s instructions.

So Jesus is a source of life, just as his Father is. He took the punishment for our sin when he was raised up to suffer and die on the cross. Now Jesus invites you to believe in him: to rise up and walk w/ him. He invites you to walk in faith, completely trusting in him as the source of all good things.

The gift Jesus offers isn’t just physical restoration. The miracle of healing in John 5 is a sign pointing to deeper renewal. Physical healing is just the tip of the iceberg of blessing, renewal, and life from God.

In the fullness of time, all relationship will be healed; all creation will be renewed. It’s a gift we receive by faith in Jesus. At first that faith is small and simple – like this man daring to flex his muscles and rise to his feet. But the goal of a life of discipleship is to rise and walk in faith. To see and trust that good things are from God: to love and trust God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Then: with confidence in God to risk obeying God, to love your neighbour as yourself.