Your Mat Is Not Your Mate

Introduction

This message is about a man who was in a crisis situation, who met Christ at the height of his crisis and got a cure. A situation of crisis calls for the intervention of Christ, because without Christ, crisis will persist. Christ was crucified so that we can overcome our crisis situation. Today’s message is about the hurting who met the healer and got his healing. It is about a man who was for several years a victim, but he met the victor and became victorious. The lesson we are learning today is not so much of what this man by the pool of Bethesda did, but more of what he failed to do. This man left his healing to chance when he could have made a deliberate choice to he healed.

I don’t know the challenges you are facing at this time, I don’t know the nature of such challenges, and maybe you have over time perfected the art of living with your issues without making a deliberate choice to seek after Him who is able to take away those burdens. The Psalmist encourages us to cast our burden on the LORD, that he shall sustain us. (Psalm 55:22), while Jesus says His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matthew 11:30). If you allow Him, He is able to lighten your burden, He is able to your situation around, and He is able to make you victorious. Turn your Bibles with me to the gospel according to St John, Chapter 5, starting from verse one:

1 After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. 3 In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. 4 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 5 Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”

7 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.”

8 Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” 9 And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. And that day was the Sabbath.

The Hurting

The Bible tells us of a great number of invalid people by this pool, among them the invalid man, a man with an infirmity, a deep seated and lingering disorder. He’s had this problem for 38 years. Thirty eight years! This was more than half a lifetime. This man was hurting, he was in a crisis, he was a victim of the devil, he had been held captive for 38 years. It wasn’t clear what his disability was, but surely he had lost the use of his limbs. Whatever his problem was, he, like the rest of this great multitude of the sick and the hurting, was in need of victory.

Bethesda was known as the House of Mercy while at this time, the passage tells us there was a feast in Jerusalem. It was a time of feasting, a time of festivities, a time of felicity. It was a time of joy, a time of jubilation, a time felicitations, a time of elation, a time of celebrations. It was a season when the whole of Jerusalem was in a bright mood, when gifts were being exchanged, meals were being shared, when the air was filled with the flavour of every good thing, when there was the euphoria of victory. It was a time when young men would dance on the streets with little inhibition. But for this great multitude of sick people, none of these things mattered to them; their priority was neither food nor drink. Many of them had no leg to dance, no eyes to admire the scenery, no ears to listen to the music. Mercy was far from them in the House of Mercy, they couldn’t feast at this time of this feast.

Have you ever being in a situation where everyone around you seems to be having the time of their life, when your friends and neighbours always seem to have great testimony about how good things are for them? Your friend’s daughter has just been admitted to that great college while your son is struggling to make the grade. Your colleague just got promoted and you are not even sure if you will be in employment in another six months. You are struggling to keep your car on the road and the brother sitting next to you in church who may not be as faithful as you in paying his tithes has changed his car twice in the past three years. You seem to be passing through hell and nothing is working for you at the moment.