I first preached this message in 2006, five unique variations in five different services. And with each one, I was profoundly blessed by the inexhaustible dimensions through which the same Scripture revealed Christ. One text. One Christ. Multiple perspectives.
This particular message is the “waiting” perspective of the John 5:1-9 narrative, the story of a man who out-waited even Abraham. For thirty-eight long years, he remained in the same position and predicament, waiting for what he so desperately needed: wholeness.
God is our ever-present Help in the time of need. This man at the Pool of Bethesda was broken. But he didn’t need just any help, he needed divine help. For no man could lift him… until Jesus came.
Whether black or white, rich or poor, great or small, young or old, we all need help.
“...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...”
Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been in that condition a long time, He said to him, ‘Do you want to be made 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, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk.’” — John 5:3b–8
Notice that the Bible only said the man had been in that condition for 38 years, but it doesn't say, that he was by the pool for 38. years.
When you've been in a bad situation (a situation that renders you immobile, incapable, hinders your movement and ability to go forward, a situation that not only renders you impotent but also leaves you helpless and incapacitated without help because you are surrounded by impotent, helpless medical decrepit like yourself), for a protracted period of time, chances are, you acquiesce with/to that situation, you become numb to it and so used to the situation that you become comfortable with being uncomfortable. Dysfunctionality becomes normal to you. The psychological debilitation that comes from being oppressed, or being abused or being disadvantaged in a sociological environment can be very traumatizing and subjugating (How you think becomes who you are) that it leaves you paralyzed and fossilized- sometimes without you even knowing it.
Here is the story of a decrepit who needed help with not only his physical condition, but more so his psychological dysfunctionality. Depending on people is bad enough, but when you have to wait again and again for someone to help, it is most gruesome, because waiting is not a position anyone wants to live daily in.
Waiting is not Natural: It is not natural for humans to wait. i.o.w, waiting is not natural to the human flesh. We don’t like to wait. That’s why It takes the supernatural for the natural man to wait. Hebrews 6:12 calls it faith and patience.
“That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” – Hebrews 6:12
A real expectation must be mixed with faith and patience to obtain what God has promised. But waiting is work according to Hebrews 6:12, because Paul infers that lazy, sluggish people don't know how to wait, and can’t wait either, so therefore, follow after those who thru faith and patience waited or are waiting for the promise. It takes Faith to believe in something and it takes patience to wait for what you believe in. This then means that waiting cannot be measured by the external state of a person, but by the psychological and spiritual state of the individual, because laziness is not a physical state of inertia, it is a mental and spiritual state of inertia. Your body can be at rest, but your mind be on a runway to destiny! Conversely, your body can be on a jet cruise but your mind locked down in self-imprisonment.
Hebrews 6:12 acknowledges the human tendency to become sluggish and weary during seasons of delay, hence the call to emulate those who endured with faith.
Sometimes, what we think is a wait may not really be a wait. Someone in an idle and stagnant state may say they are waiting for / on something when in honesty, they’re not. So how do you decipher a real wait from a wishful thinking that thinks it is waiting?
It requires faith and patience – the twin graces that don’t come naturally. You may argue here that as a natural unregenerate man, you have faith and you are a patient person. But no sir, faith and patience are fruit of the Holy Spirit. It is not natural to have faith and patience. You may be an optimistic person, that’s not faith, because faith is not optimism, or positive thinking, faith only comes by the hearing of the word of Christ. You may say you are a patient person, but no sir, you may be a tolerant person but tolerance is not fruit of the Holy Spirit – patience is. Optimism is not a fruit of the Holy Spirit, faith is and it comes by the word of God.
Waiting is not Passive: Not only is waiting unnatural to the human flesh, it is also active. It is an active state of the mind. As quiet and stationary and as stagnant and immobile as the word wait sounds and feels, it is not passive, it is active. It is active because by mere definition, faith is a verb, it is action and patience is not inertia, it is active. Waiting therefore is an activity. This brings me to my definition of waiting: “Waiting is the intentional, conscious, invisible and active discipline of expectation.” — Christabel N. Onuoha (Rev’d. Dr.) or waiting is the active intentional, conscious, quiet and invisible state of expectation. It is that discipline that forms the quiet state of expectation that we live in, even when nothing on the outside seems to be moving.
Waiting sometimes can look like laziness, but it isn’t.
Sometimes, what we call waiting may not really be a wait. That a person is in an idle and stagnant state of being or existence may not necessarily be in a waiting position. Because a person may think that they are waiting for/on something when in honesty, they’re not. So how do you decipher a real wait from a wishful thinking that thinks it is waiting?
So, Hebrews 6:12 indicates that nobody likes to wait because waiting seem like a waste of time and a trial of our patience and of our faith. (Question then is, so if waiting is not natural and requires the supernatural forces of faith and patience, that then suggests that the man in our text had faith and patience, or was his waiting at the pool suggestive rather of something different than what we have always thought he was doing?
This then means that waiting cannot be measured by the external state of a person, but by the psychological and spiritual state of the individual, because laziness is not a physical state of inertia, it is a mental and spiritual state of inertia. Laziness is first spiritual and psychological before it is physical. Your body can be at rest, or stationary whilst your mind is on a runway to destiny! Conversely, your body can be on a jet cruise but your mind be locked down in self-imprisonment.
It is here that we find the man in our text in John 5:1-9: The paralytic man by the pool of Bethesda who had been in a state of inertia, waiting 38years before receiving his miracle. The bible did not say he was at the pool for 38 years, rather, that he had been in that condition (paralysis, inertia) for 38 years. His condition was older than Jesus! Yet Jesu, in just three years of His ministry, came looking for him to get him out of the sick bay. So the question is, what kept the man for 38 years in his condition when others in similar (allos – another of same kind) condition were getting healed through assistance from people, what kept someone from assisting him for 38 eight years, until Jesus came?! Was he lazy or was he immovable? Was he truly waiting for assistance or was he just idling around for 38 years?
To answer this and dissect the man’s real situation, let’s look at the Greek word for waiting. The Greeks have three different words that the English language translates as waiting or that connotes waiting:
Lambanomai - An objective active waiting
Dechomai - a subjective passive Waiting
Haireomai - a violent willful seizure of one’s desire, to seize by force, to take, to prefer and choose at will
This narrative in John 2:1-9 uses ek-dechomai, the subjective passive waiting.
Years ago, I read a book by Gene Roberts, titled, The Road Less Traveled. And gene redefined my definition of laziness when he said, laziness is the partial failure of love. Oh God, God help me!
The partial or passive failure of love - the inability or unwillingness to believe in something enough to wait for it and/or to do it. Because faith says, I believe it's going to happen, patience says, I STILL believe it's going to happen, therefore, I'll wait until it happens.
Faith worketh by love, meaning, the active power of faith is the love of God (not your love for God). So then if you say you have faith but you cannot wait, then what you have is nothing but optimism, it isn’t faith, because, you don’t love it enough to wait and hold out so long until your faith obtains the object of its desire.
This man was crippled, helpless, hopeless, dysfunctional just like the rest of them, but he had a little more trouble than the others because of his answer to Jesus’ question, "I have no man..., another steps in..."
When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been in that condition a long time, He said to him, ‘Will thou be made whole?’ – verse 6
Jesus seeing that he had been there in that condition (not by the pool) a looooooong time, came by to help him not by pulling him up from the waiting line, but by asking him the question of his life – will thou be made whole? What a question!
How do you ask such question when the man’s physical condition was quite salient? Why not just pull him up by the hand and heal him like Perter and John did to the paralyzed man by the beautiful gate.
Every time God asks a question, He’s not eliciting an answer, He’s making a statement. So when Jesus asked, will thou be made whole, Jesus wasn’t eliciting a response neither was He being insensitive to the man’s obvious condition and need, He was telling the man what his real challenge was and the specific need element of his life – it wasn’t his physical paralysis, but the paralysis of his WILL.
What had kept this man in the waiting line was not his inability to walk down into the pool, neither was it the absence of loved ones or empathy from people to help push him into the pool, his real problem was in his will, his willingness to want to live, his willingness to want anything in life. People call this lethargy or laziness. Like I earlier said, laziness is not only physical, it is first mental before it is physical. It is easy to hide our physical dysfunction behind our psychological dysfunction. In that way we legitimize our laziness and excuse our lethargy, and put the blame on other people who are not enabling our dysfunction.
This man was hiding the real situation behind the obvious, he was sort of living in self-deception, but you can’t hide truth from the Truth Himself. So, Jesus came to unmask his real issue with the question of the will – will thou be made whole? In other words, are you truly willing to move, do you want to be made well, do you really desire to be better or are you just pretending you really want help but have reclined and given up due to the protracted nature of your situation?
Let’s interrogate Jesus’ question in verse 6 to get to the core of the issue at play here.
“… ‘Will thou be made whole?’
The word Will in the Greek is thelo, meaning, to determine or to be determined as an active voice option from a subjective impulse or state. This simply implies determining to taking action or deciding to do something actively, rather than passively. I asked ChatGPT the meaning of this statement o (because it sounded a bit of a mouthful to me), and ChatGPT said, “this statement suggests making a choice based on a personal feeling or desire in an active voice as opposed to a passive voice. It implies taking action or deciding to do something actively, rather than being passive or lazy. It also implies a passive acceptance or agreement, even if you may not personally want or wish to do something, but an external factor influences the decision.” Wow!
So, then, Jesus; question was interrogating and bringing to light the truth that the man was in a perhaps worse stage of lethargy and apathy, laziness and passivity, that required the influence of an external factor – Jesus, not men, because no man knew this fact about his passivity to give him the real help he needed. Jesus was laying the axe of His word to the root of the problem – Laziness of the mind – the partial failure of love, and love is the internal force of motion and goodwill.
The man’s response, justified Jesus’ question and proved Jesus was right:
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, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk.’”
He quickly flashed the blame game by shifting his responsibility on others. He was not confronting his real challenge, rather, he was dressing up his issue. Perhaps he was ignorant of the real disease of his soul, that’s why Jesus came to enlighten him and heal the real problem, so when he is physically cured, he does not return to a worse stage of lethargy and passivity in life that would keep him progressively immobile even though he now has physical mobility. This is what wholeness is about.
As earlier mentioned, another word that corroborates that the man’s root problem was passivity is the word waiting. Three Greek words for waiting are:
Lambanomai - An objective active waiting
Dechomai - a subjective passive Waiting
Haireomai - a violent willful seizure of one’s desire, to seize by force, to take, to prefer and choose at will.
This narrative in John 5:1-9 uses ek-dechomai, the subjective passive waiting, meaning, the waiting posture was passive not active.
The final phrase that corroborates even much stronger the man’s mental and psychological state is in verse 7b:
…but while I am coming, another steps down before me.’
While I am COMING, ANOTHER steps in…
The word “coming” in Greek is erchomai (is in the passive voice not active voice) – meaning, an intention that never happens. So, he always had the intention to want to get into the pool, but never moved. In order words, he was never actually coming, he was never coming, he was only always wishing but never taking the responsibility to make the move, he only kept wishing, living in intention rather than in actuality. He was a day dreamer, and this mentality kept him longer than should have in his situation.
Since scripture isn’t specific about the actual nature of his challenge, we may deduct that absolute paralysis of the limb may not have been his physical challenge, it was termed infirmity, and infirmity could be anything that limited wholeness and comfort in life. Because if he could not absolutely use his legs due to a medical condition, then Jesus wouldn’t be expecting him to actively move himself. Therefore, I suggest that his mind was his real sickness, not his feet.
Another steps in…
The word another is allos in the Greek, meaning, another of the same kind. The implication of John’s use of this word is that it goes even much further to reveal that the man had no excuse for being in that condition that long, because, in his own words, another of the same kind as he, another going through similar situation as himself, would step into the pool whilst he sat there wishing his life away. If people in the same condition as himself, kept actively moving into the pool and received their miracle, what was his problem, why couldn’t he? Passivity, laziness, lethargy, apathy of the mind was the difference between him and the others who were in same condition as himself and yet got their miracle.
With all these stacks of mental incapacitation against the man in our text, inspite of his chronic passivity, Jesus still came for him, not to warn him, not to humiliate him, not to remind him of his lethargic mind, and remind him that it was all his fault for being so lazy, not to condemn him for being so “stupid” when others were making active decisions and move to move their lives forward and not remain at the pool of dysfunction. Jesus came not even for those who had the will power to change their circumstance but were waiting for the angel to come stir the water. No, instead Jesus came for the most hopeless and helpless of them all.
Grace and mercy never condemn anyone; grace comes to enable not to judge. Religion will judge you for your faults, condemn you for your inability to hit the mark and be like other people, religion will never enable and empower you for transformation.
Hear what Jesus told him, Jesus said to him, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk.’”!
This is empowerment. When Jesus commanded him to rise, He spoke into his spirit the power to rise, He empowered the man to do what he had been disabled from doing, the will power, the volition to want to do, the desire to not only wish a thing but actively make it happen. Jesus’ word Rise, decimated lethargy, disengaged him from passivity and moved him into an active state of being, the willingness to do. Instantly his will was healed and he willingly arose and did exactly as Jesus said, took up his bed and walked. This time, he wasn’t wishing or just merely intending to walk, but he actually walked. This is the real healing.
Grace will always find us even when we are unwilling to find grace.
Grace will always overlook our faults to find our needs.
Grace will always leave the ninety-nine who know they can help themselves and help the one who knows he cannot help himself and would not help himself.
Grace will never leave you same way it found you.
Grace will not leave your deliverance and miracle to the hands of men
Grace will not leave you to a first-come-first-serve line of
Grace will not leave your miracle to the hands of time and chance.
Grace will take you out of your waiting line and will not bring you to the front of the line, but move you out of the line completely and give you your miracle outside of the line.
Grace says, you don’t need a man, you don’t need this pool, this pool is not for you. I am the River of life that satisfies, the pool can’t do much for those who are privileged to access it, to be first and to have support. Grace is for those who know they cannot help themselves.
This is the message in this miracle. Every miracle has a message, and the message is more important than the miracle. The message is always about the Miracle Worker not the miracle. This miracle is the revelation of Jesus as the grace of God, for Grace and Truth CAME by Christ Jesus. He came to us in our hopeless and helpless state. Religion will condemn you for all the things you never got right, but Grace will empower you to do what you couldn’t do and wouldn’t do.
Today I just came to tell you that Jesus has stopped by just for you, and He didn’t only move the man out of the waiting line, He ended the line! He made a new and a living Way for us in Himself.
