Do You Want to Get Well? - John 5

One of the biggest challenges we face as Christians is when we pray for people for healing and they aren't healed. Or, at least not in the time or way we think God should do it  I am sure you have experienced this as you have prayed for others that some are healed and some aren't.  We don't control who gets healed and who doesn't. 

I learned a lot about healing ministry from John Wimber, who was one of the founding pastors of the Vineyard church and big force in the charismatic movement in the late 70's here in Southern California.  His philosophy which I have adopted is, "When we prayed for no one, no one got healed.  But when we prayed for everyone, some got healed."  This is what makes the story of the healing of paralytic at the pool by Jesus so interesting.  What can we learn from the interaction between Jesus and the paralytic?

Healing at the Pool

5 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.  5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 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?” 7 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” 8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

There at least three points in this story I think are worth noting. 

1.  Did he want to get well? I am very interested in Jesus' response to the man who has been lying around 38 years waiting to be healed. He says, "Do you want to get well?"  It makes me think that there are some people who may have a chronic sickness or disease have become so accustomed to it they have lost their desire to get healed.  

"This was a sincere question. Jesus knew that not every sick person wants to be healed, and that some are so discouraged that they put away all hope of being healed. Jesus dealt with a man who may have had his heart withered as well as his legs. Jesus therefore attempted to build the faith of this man. (David Guzik, Enduring Word Commentary)

2. Jesus simply told the man to get up and walk.  There was all kinds of history behind this mysterious healing pool called Bethesda.  It appears some people got healed in the pool and it is possible God used it for such a purpose.  We don't know.  But what we do know is Jesus simply told the man to get up and walk.  No pool or stirring of the water necessary.  

3. The man took Jesus at his word.  Imagine you had been paralyzed for 38 long years and someone asked you to get up and walk.  You might say, "Are you crazy? Don't you see I have been sitting here for 38 years?" He may have gotten really offended by the request as well.  But the man did not take this tact.  He got up and walked.  He didn't need the pool just Jesus. 

So what is the application for us today?  

Is`Jesus the last one you turn to for healing? Do you turn to Jesus only when you have run out of options? Are you so used to being sick or living dysfunctionally that you would rather stay stuck than get healed? Have you ever considered that Jesus might say to you the same thing he said to the man, "Pick up your mat and walk!"  Don't wait 38 years, turn to Jesus for healing today, and then be ready to get up and walk.