Living Stones – Monday, October 9, 2017
Do you want to get well?
John 5:6-7
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?” 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, like every good Jew, was in Jerusalem because there was a feast. Jesus, as a Jew, upheld all of the Jewish responsibilities before God. There were three feasts (Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles) to which every adult male Jew within 15 miles of Jerusalem must attend, once fit and able.
Jesus takes a stroll down by the Pool of Bethesda in this story in John 5:1-11 (today there is a church there called St. Anna and archeologists digging nearby have found what could be the pool and place where this event took place.)
There is no available evidence to confirm that there were any curative events that took place at this pool. This idea of an angel troubling the waters was probably pure myth. However, people who are desperate enough for healing and deliverance are prepared to believe many things and to try almost anything. Such was this man’s case.
Some researchers and archeologists have found evidence of an underground spring that fed this pool and, it appears that from time to time as the spring “built a head” it disturbed the waters – an event that people at the time believed to be an Angel troubling the water to bring about its healing and curative properties.
Here, in crowded Jerusalem, Jesus walks up to this focal point of human suffering and poses a question to this particular man among the many desperate souls. Jesus asked the man if he wants to be made well. The man had no idea of who Jesus was, he did not see Jesus as the Healer, or Jesus as offering healing, so he begins a lament about his situation, and about his superstition. His lament about his circumstances then extends into blaming his family and friends for abandoning him.
Jesus discusses neither the man’s sickness, nor the man’s superstition. Jesus ignores all the lamenting and blame sharing and commands the man to do the seemingly impossible – get up, pick up, walk up!
We all have to be very careful that we do not fail to recognise Jesus in our situations. We could be so consumed with all that is challenging us, so disappointed in all of the people who have failed us, so overwhelmed by how far back we seem to have fallen, that Jesus, standing by us, and offering to help us, gets ignored.
Jesus asked a loaded question, “Do you want to be made well?” the question is loaded because in the question is an offer of help. Jesus, by his question, is saying that you could carry the thing that had to carry you, you could break down the thing that is a hindrance to you, you could defeat the demons that resisted you, you could love the family that hates you, you could overcome the chronic pain, and you could beat the family ailments that plague you. Jesus’ question is a declaration that He could turn our situation right side up.
Jesus cuts short this man’s lament and speaks. Sometimes we are so busy in our lamentations that we forget that God is speaking to us in our circumstances and situations right now. Sometimes we need to shut up, listen and act on His commands.
Think on these things:
- What is God commanding you to do?
- If you do not know what God is commanding you to do is it because you are too busy taking and spend no time listening?
- Do you think that the thing that the Word of God said, or that the Spirit of God is saying directly, or that the preacher said, is impossible for you?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that we would learn to listen in order to hear God speak, and then quickly obey His commands.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex