Do You Want To Be Healed

John 5:1-9 NRSV

“After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 

Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” 

The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.”

In the KJV there is a verse four and explains why the water was stirred. “From time to time an angel came to stir the waters and the first one in after the stirring was healed.” In dynamic versions (NIV, NRSV, etc) it added as a scribal note. So the man, and others would have been trying to get in the water after it was stirred because he saw that it his others were healed. 

There were five covered colonnades at the Pool of Bethesda. And everyone there has some form of disability. People of status actually avoided that area. But Jesus went right there to those who needed him. He went to that man who had been disabled for 38 years. 

All that man knew was to get into the water. When Jesus asked him did he want to be healed - he explained why he couldn’t get Into the water. He didn’t answer Jesus question. All he knew was what he had seen and heard and he was trying to do what others did-get into the water. Sometimes when we have been in such a state of trauma we may not think as clearly, because all we are trying to do is get better- from whatever the trauma may be.

Even in the man making an excuse - Jesus said “Get Up. Pick up your mat and walk.”

That was that man. This is us. Jesus asks us - “Do you want to be healed?” We can give excuse on why we are not where we think we should be or why we have been as we are. But we can answer “yes.” That is all it. Takes.

many times we find ourselves trying to get something done the way others have it. Jesus asks us this question time and time and time again. It’s time to get up, and walk. enough for now.