(I had the audience sing this hymn with me)
“There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins
And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains
They lose all their guilty stains,
Lose all their guilty stains
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.”
(pause, speak as tho’ carefully considering the words)
There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins.
And there was a pool…
filled with water…
located just outside of Jerusalem near an eastern gate called the “Sheep’s Gate”.
It was called “the pool of Bethesda” and it had a reputation for being a place of healing. That is… if you were fortunately enough to be the first into the water.
ILLUS: For years skeptics claimed that this pool never existed. The very idea of people supposedly going to this pool in the hopes of being “healed” strained the imagination of these critics, and the mocked the belief that this had ever occurred. They concluded that this was just a story made up by John as window dressing.
But then somebody found the pool.
In 1888, there was excavation that took place near a church near Jerusalem, and the found the pool exactly where the Apostle John said it was.
So, we know the pool existed.
(pause) But how did it get the reputation of being a place of healing?
Well, this is what I think happened:
I believe the fact that the waters “were troubled” (they vibrated, or boiled or something) caught the imagination of the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Then, one day, someone said that they’d heard someone say that when the waters were troubled, they’d stepped into the waters and they’d been healed of a disease. Then someone else said that they’d heard that their 2nd cousin on their mother’s side had also stepped into waters and they were healed. And then another rumor became added to that… and another rumor… and another rumor. And before you knew it – that pool was the place to go when you needed healed.
People began to crowd around the pool, waiting for the waters to move. The blind, the lame, the paralyzed showed up by the hundreds. But it became obvious that not many of them were healed (if anyone actually was) and the crowds began to experience discouragement… until someone suggested – maybe only the first person into the pool is actually healed.
And since, no one really knew WHO had gotten into the pool first, those who were desperate for healing clung to this little bit of hope. And before you knew it, theory became fact.
So the crowds continued to come.
Everyone pushed and jostled their way to the front, hoping to be the first into the pool… leaving guys like the paralytic in our story this morning lying on the pavement, hoping against hope that they might just see the water boil before anyone else and crawl to the water’s edge for healing.
Then along came Jesus, and life for the paralytic changed forever.
Jesus heals him.
The man picks up his mat and walks for the first time in 38 years.
(Pause)
Now, that’s a great story.
But - I have to admit – there was something this passage bothered me for a couple of days.
Why?
Well, here is Jesus at the pool.
And there are 100s of sick and disabled people waiting at the pool.
But Jesus doesn’t heal any of them!
He just heals this paralytic.
That’s not right
That’s not fair!!!
Why does He just heal THIS man?
Why not everybody else?
I mean, Jesus had healed lots of people during His ministry:
In Luke 5:15 we read: “…crowds of people came to hear him and TO BE HEALED of their sicknesses.”
And Matthew 15:30 says: “Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; AND HE HEALED THEM.”
And John 6:2 tells us “and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the MIRACULOUS SIGNS HE HAD PERFORMED ON THE SICK.”
It seemed that everywhere Jesus went He healed everybody.
But not here.
At the pool of Bethesda, there were maybe 200 people wanting to be healed… and He didn’t!!! He just healed the paralytic.
Why?
I prayed and thought about this for the better part of two days.
And then a couple of things occurred to me.
First: Everywhere else that Jesus healed people… people came to HIM.
But here at this pool, nobody even knows who He is.
Even the paralytic He healed didn’t even know who He was.
For all intents and purposes, Jesus was just another face in the crowd.
2ndly, I realized that everyone at this pool would get their chance to be healed later. This is still the first year of Jesus’ ministry. Over the next 2 years He is going to preaching healing people up and down the countryside.
And after healing this paralytic, the crowds will leave this unreliable poolside experience and flock to find this man who so obviously healed a man they knew.
So, what’s Jesus doing here at the pool?
And why would He heal this specific man?
Well, in John 5:1, we’re told that Jesus has come to Jerusalem “…for a feast of the Jews”. And the first place He stops is at this pool. He hasn’t come for the paralytic. He only decides to heal this man AFTER He sees him.
Verse 6 says “When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, ‘Do you want to get well?’”
After the man is healed, and a crowd has gathered, Jesus launches into a powerful sermon about who He is and why He is there. Apparently, Jesus used this man to draw the crowd. Essentially the paralytic was a sermon illustration.
Notice – when Jesus heals the man He says to him: “Pick up your mat and walk.” (John 5:8).
He could simply have told him – “Get up and walk.”
But no… He says “PICK UP YOUR MAT… and walk”
Why is that important?
Well, this is the Sabbath, and no one was to work on the Sabbath. The Pharisees (the legalists of the day) had a whole list of things they believed you couldn’t do on the Sabbath… and apparently, on that list, was carrying your mat around.
Jesus was baiting the Pharisees.
He was getting their attention.
When they see this man walking around with his mat they get upset.
“Why are you carrying your mat?” they ask.
And he replies – “the man who healed me told me to!”
When the Jewish leaders find out it was Jesus who healed the man… they come after Him. And with them comes a large crowd of Jewish worshippers.
Now, that Jesus has their attention, He starts into preaching. He introduces Himself to the crowds and He clearly implies that He is divine. John 5:18 tells us that the crowd who listened to Him became angry because “he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.”
Then Jesus made it clear, that the only way anyone would have eternal life was by believing in Him.
"I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.” John 5:24-25
Now, that doesn’t go down real well with His audience. Who is this young upstart to speak like this?
And so Jesus gives them His credentials.
He tells them why He has the authority to speak as He has.
In the Law of Moses, the testimony of two or three witnesses was required for a matter to be decided. Now Jesus was telling the crowds that He had four witnesses to establish His claims.
His first witness, He said, was John the Baptist.
He said "You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth.” John 5:33
By this time it had become common knowledge that John the Baptist had put his stamp of approval on Jesus, saying He was the coming Messiah – the Lamb of God. This was the man that John had come to prepare the way for.
Next Jesus said "I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me.” (John 5:36)
What work had the Father sent Jesus to finish? Well, exhibit #1 stood right there before them. The paralytic had been unable to walk for 38 years. They all knew who he was. The fact, that Jesus had healed him was one of the proofs that God has sent Him.
But wait – there’s more says Jesus.
“… the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me…” John 5:37
When Jesus was baptized, the heavens opened, the Spirit came down in the form of a dove, and the Father declared, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Matthew 3:17 (KJV)
And then Jesus finished with a coup de grâce when He said:
“You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me” John 5:39
Over the course of His life, Jesus would fulfill over 300 prophecies from the Old Testament. No other man before or after Him has even come close to fulfilling even a fraction of those prophecies. These prophecies were like Jesus’ personal calling cards. They declared that He was who He claimed to be.
And so Jesus used this paralyzed man as the opening illustration of this sermon.
Whoa... wait a minute.
You mean Jesus USED this man?
You mean Jesus wasn’t there to heal him just for the pure joy of it?
You mean that He was just using this paralyzed man as a prop?
Doesn’t that seem a little cold and calculating?
There are people who have a hard time with the idea that God would USE someone for His purposes. They don’t like the idea of God interfering with people’s lives.
Now, I don’t personally have a problem with this.
ILLUS: Has anybody here ever heard of “Dick de Bruiser”?
Years ago, “the Bruiser” was a famous professional wrestler, and one day he had a match scheduled at “Buck Lake Ranch” near Angola, Indiana. A friend of mine had gone to see him and was surprised when Dick the Bruiser approached him and asked if he’d take part in his act. The Bruiser asked my friend if he’d heckle him during the match. At one point the Bruiser would pretend to get angry with him, come down out of the ring, and toss him across a couple rows of chairs. And he offered to pay him for his cooperation.
So, do you think my friend accepted?
YOU BET HE DID!!!
Not only did he get to brag that he had been personally thrown across some chairs by “Dick de Bruiser”. He got paid for the privilege!
Now, here in our story, we have a man who gets to be used by Jesus as a sermon illustration. All he has to do is agree to be healed of his paralysis that has imprisoned him in his body for the past 38 years.
Sounds like a good deal to me!
But why did Jesus pick THIS specific man to be healed?
He could have healed anybody. But He chose this man.
Well one reason Jesus chose him is fairly obvious.
When this man got up and walked… there was no question he’d been healed.
He’d been a paralytic for 38 YEARS
Everybody down at the pool knew who he was.
Everybody knew that he couldn’t get around without the help of friends.
He always had to be carried from one place to another.
Everybody KNEW he was would NEVER walk again.
(pause) But he did!
When Jesus healed this man there was no way anybody could accuse Jesus of having faked this healing. This man wasn’t a plant, he wasn’t “part of the act”. He was a real man who’d suffered from a real disability. This man’s healing was the proof that Jesus had the wonderful power to heal.
But there was something more.
This man had no chance to get into that pool.
When Jesus asked him “Do you want to be healed?” the man responded: “"I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred…”
Now think about this.
Everybody believes that the first person in the pool will be healed.
So, what do you think everybody does?
They all crowd to the edge of the pool.
They push, they shove, they jostle one another to get that prime real estate down close to the water.
This guy doesn’t stand a chance.
He can’t push, he can’t shove and he can’t jostle.
He has to settle for whatever place he can get.
It’s always the stronger more agile people who get in ahead of him.
And this points to the irony behind the pool at Bethesda.
The name Bethesda means “House of Mercy”.
It might have been named that because of its reputation for being a place of healing, but in reality, Bethesda was not a “House of Mercy”… it was a “House of Merit.”
If you weren’t quick enough, strong enough, fast enough – you weren’t going to get healed. It was a place that was literally designed for the survival of the fittest. The ones who made it into the water were the ones who could MERIT their own healing.
The weak were left with little hope.
There was no mercy shown there down at this pool.
Because, if you weren’t strong enough to get the pool first… you were out of luck.
But then Jesus came to Bethesda.
The Lord of Mercy came to the House of Mercy.
And He chose a man who had no chance of ever being healed… and He healed him.
(Pause)
Now… there’s one last thing.
The man at the pool was there, because he’d sinned.
There was something he’d done 38 years before that crippled him for life.
Jesus said to this man “Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” John 5:14 (ESV)
For 38 years, this man had lived with the results of a poor choice he’d made as a young man. For 38 years, he was crippled by a sinful decision that haunted him the rest of his life. For 38 years, he had been imprisoned in his body…because of the sin he’d chosen.
But then Jesus came… and healed him.
Jesus released him from his body of sin.
CLOSE: Now… here’s the deal:
Many of the people in this world have their own little pool of Bethesda.
It’s the place where they think they’ll be healed of the heartaches of this world. It’s a house of “merit” where they believe - if they can just be strong enough, smart enough, connected enough - they’ll be able to fix whatever’s wrong in their lives.
Just like the people at that pool 2000 years ago they vainly believe their little pool will bring the hope and change they long for. But it never quite happens. After a while they realize they’re not as strong, quick, smart as they thought they were and they’re left with a life without hope and change.
The choices they’ve made, the sins they’ve committed trap them and rob them of the peace of mind and healing presence of God. All because they’re looking for healing at their own little pool… but not at the fountain – filled with blood drawn Immanuel’s veins.
(Sing solo)
“There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins
And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains
They lose all their guilty stains,
Lose all their guilty stains
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.”
Are you tired of trying to get healed at your own personal “House of Merit”? Maybe it’s time for you to come to the “Lord of Mercy” and receive cleansing at the fountain filled with His blood.
