Would you like to get well?
Oct 16, 2011 Jn 5:1-15
Intro:
38 years is a long time, don’t you think? About half a lifetime. 38 years ago, 1973, Nixon was in the middle of the Watergate scandal, Montreal won the Stanley Cup and there was barely a hint of an Edmonton Oilers, the Academy Award for Best Picture went to The Godfather, and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) technology was developed (this is the technology behind the MRI scan). There were no Personal Computers.
38 years is a long time. Can you imagine being sick for that long? That would certainly be described as a chronic condition. Some of you know what it means to be sick or in pain for a prolonged period of time, and you can understand better than I can. 38 years; you would have to learn how to cope. How to manage. How to just get by. I expect the struggle would wear you down.
John 5:1-15
This morning we return to the Gospel of John, after a few weeks of focusing in other areas, and we pick up in John 5.
1 Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. 2 Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. 3 Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches. 5 One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, Would you like to get well?
7 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.
8 Jesus told him, Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!
9 Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking! But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, 10 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!
11 But he replied, The man who healed me told me, Pick up your mat and walk.
12 Who said such a thing as that? they demanded.
13 The man didn’t know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. 14 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. 15 Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him.
A Simple Story:
The story itself is fairly simple – a man, who had been sick for 38 years, lying at a pool reputed to have miraculous healing powers; Jesus, in town for a festival; a question and response; a healing; and a command that breaks the Sabbath and overshadows the miracle. That’s the bare bones; that’s how the Bible tells it.
The Question:
The story doesn’t tell us how Jesus knew he’d been sick for 38 years – maybe Jesus was just walking around and talking to people and this guy told him – but the story does tell us that Jesus asks him a question: Would you like to get well?
It might seem like a dumb question. On the one hand, it seems obvious – of course he wants to get well! – he’s been sick for 38 years and you ask if he wants to get well? But in fact, it is not a dumb question at all.
See, we all get stuck. We get into places where we cope with our ailments – be they physical or emotional or relational. We get used to them. They become familiar, and we learn how to manage life with those impairments. We learn to hold documents further away to read them, instead of admitting we need to go to the eye doctor and get glasses. We only talk about surface stuff like the weather and the sports teams because we remember trying once or twice to share deeper and more personal things and felt rejected, so we go inside our homes and close the curtains and feel lonely, but the loneliness is familiar and somehow we continue to choose that familiar pain over risking and sharing in a new relationship. We turn to alcohol as an escape from very real, very challenging problems, but then discover when we sober up that the problems are right there waiting for us, any maybe even a little worse now.
So, Jesus’ question is not a dumb one at all. Would you like to get well? It means you’ll have to change some things. This guy in the story wouldn’t be able to lay on his mat at the pool anymore – he was going to have to pick up his mat and walk. Probably find a job instead of begging. Probably have to make his own food now instead of relying on others. Whatever the specifics, the bottom line is that this guy is going to have to make some changes.
The Answer:
Read his response to Jesus’ question: I can’t. Now this might be an excuse – part of a pattern of blaming his circumstances instead of taking responsibility. Or it might be an honest admission of his own powerlessness to make the changes without some help. It looks more like an excuse, but I’m not positive there isn’t a bit of a plea for help embedded there. But it is a really stark response to Jesus’ question: would you like to get well? – I can’t.
There are two important perspectives here, first from the perspective of the person wanting to provide some help. As long as the answer is, I can’t; as long as the condition and familiarity of life with that ailment holds more power than the idea of a life that is whole, there is not a lot we can do to help. A person has to be willing to be helped, and willing to give up the familiar for the dangerous unknown, even if that unknown promises to be much better. I had a conversation with a ministry colleague a while ago about this very topic, and this colleague made an insightful observation: sometimes I feel like I’m working harder to try and solve someone else’s problem than they are… that’s when I know I need to step back. So here is what I recommend – help people who are willing, and trying. Wait, and pray, for the others, but put effort into people who are willing, and trying, to change. We’ll note in a moment that Jesus doesn’t follow my recommendation.
The second perspective on this question and answer is when it is you and me that need to get well. Note carefully that I said when you and me need help, not if. Because we are all broken. All scarred. All of us are crippled in some way. Some of us are pretty good at hiding it, and pretending all is well, but Jesus still asks that same question: would you like to get well? A lot of times, if I’m honest, my answer when I am the one that needs to get well is I can’t… I can put the problem on someone else, blame my circumstances or the choices of others or the simple reality of life in a broken world. It is easier that way, then I don’t have to change and I can blame others for my ailment. But that is not true – it is just a big fat lie. The truth is I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength. (Phil 4:13).
Making it Personal:
So let me pause here for a moment of personal reflection. Is there something you have been struggling with for a long time? Something in the way of your living a truly full life? Let’s pause there and give you a few moments to listen to your life, under the power of the Holy Spirit, and see if God brings something to mind.
Now hear Jesus’ question directed right at you: would you like to get well?
The Power and Obedience:
Then Jesus speaks. It is a word of power, of command. In our story, the word of power is stand up!
And when Jesus speaks, change comes. Good change! The man hears the words of Jesus, stands up, picks up his mat, and walks!! An amazing miracle – 38 years, reversed in a word. This lifetime of suffering, ended by the words of Jesus. Change is coming, and it is going to be good! And this man obeys, vs. 9: Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking! Incredible! Break-out-the-champagne good news! He is healed, the ailment gone, he can walk once again.
I believe what happened then can happen today. Jesus can still speak, we can still be healed. The gift is still offered. Change is still possible. In big ways, and in small ways. Jesus still heals, Jesus still forgives, Jesus still offers life abundant instead of coping and managing. Jesus still speaks words of power which call for obedience. Do you still believe that?
Would you like to get well?
There is no guarantee. No magic formula. We can’t force God onto our agenda. Verse 3 tells us there were crowds of sick people there; Jesus chose this one guy to speak to and heal – I don’t know why him and not the others. But Jesus is God, He decides when and to whom He will speak words of power. And anyone telling you anything different is a liar. But the fact remains, Jesus still can and Jesus still will.
But like in the story, we must obey. This guy could have continued to lay on his mat for another 38 years, but he doesn’t. He hears the word of power and he chooses to obey. Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk.
Jesus will still speak, and we must still obey. Maybe He doesn’t say stand up, pick up your mat, and walk, but if we listen Jesus is still speaking. Maybe it is to admit that you are broken and need some help. Maybe it is forgive that person, and let it go. Maybe it is confess your sin and then go and sin no more. Maybe it is get off your couch and go start a relationship with a neighbor. Maybe it is get back in the habit of going to church every week, as imperfect as the church may be. Maybe it is go to the doctor and do what she tells you.
And when we obey, the power fills us, life changes, and it is good. Even if it is hard. And even if the reaction we get is less than positive.
The Consequences
The last part of the story for today is the reaction. Now, what do you think should happen when someone who has been sick for 38 years is miraculously healed? Ideas?
Instead, the religious leaders of the day get mad because this healing happened on the Sabbath, and this man obeyed Jesus and was carrying his mat. Carrying a mat was considered work, and work was banned on the Sabbath. It was a sin to carry a mat on the Sabbath, and so this guy, and Jesus, get in trouble. The healing miracle? Completely lost on them. 38 years of pain and suffering over, but since it happened on the Sabbath, well this simply will not do! Not acceptable at all!! Who dared issue a command that this man pick up his mat and walk on the Sabbath?!? Who cares that this man has not walked for 38 years, he still can’t carry his mat on the Sabbath.
Before we get too hard on them, let’s recognize how quickly we do exactly the same type of thing. I hear about some other pastor at some other church, growing large and having to add extra services, and I think yah but they are probably just stealing a bunch of Christians from other small churches. Maybe it is true, but that is irrelevant because it reveals my heart of jealousy and pettiness. Or somebody genuinely tries to change and do the right thing, and we think they aren’t really going to change, just wait and see and we stand by waiting for them to fail instead of celebrating every step towards Jesus. I’m sure you have other examples, maybe even that have happened to you personally. They are rampant in our system.
And I guess we should expect it. Whenever God works miracles, there will be some who object, who oppose, who fight the change, and who want to go back to the way things were even though the way things were was lousy.
Here is what I say to you about that: don’t let them win. Don’t let them rob you of the joy of the miracle. Never give in to the pettiness, the stupidity, the opposition that looks at the miracle of God and picks away at some detail and tries to rob the whole experience of the power of God to make amazing changes.
Conclusion:
It is a simple story: Jesus heals a man who had been sick for 38 years and faces opposition. I think the three sentences Jesus speaks are the focus of the passage, and are for us this morning. The first two I’ve discussed at length: the question would you like to get well?; and the word of power and command: stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!
But there is a third sentence of Jesus in the passage, and I’d like to leave it ringing in your mind and heart, from vs. 14: Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.
There is the ongoing change, the life transformation. The healing gets him started, the walking in obedience is the ongoing command.
Where are you at, and which of those words of Jesus is most directed at your life?
Would you like to get well?
Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!
Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.
Whichever it is, and I know it is one of those, follow through. Open up. Allow Jesus’ words to get past your thick outer skin, through your heart, and into your soul.
Then we’ll see God’s Kingdom come, and His will being done. And we’ll celebrate.
