"Do You Want to Get Well?"

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

“DO YOU WANT TO GET WELL?”

John 5:1-9

5:1 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. 2 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.

NIV

This is not the complete narrative concerning this lame man at the pool of Bethesda, but it is enough to give us seeing  Jesus healing this man. What is interesting, is why Jesus went to this pool in the first place? Was he aware the pool was surrounded by the blind, the lame and the paralyzed people? We would have to believe he has this divine knowledge because he is God in the flesh and he does not do anything just for the sake of doing it, but rather for a divine reason. The other interesting point is that Jesus picked on this one lame man. John does say that Jesus learned that he had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. Does that mean Jesus did not know beforehand? If that is so, then did God truly give up his divinity, his omniscience, his divine knowledge and was merely like all other men in human form, with the same mental abilities? We find that impossible to believe. Still, we have to believe the reason Jesus went to this pool was for the express reason of healing someone and he either already knew, or decided at that moment to choose this lame man. The question Jesus asked him is at the center of this narrative. “Do you want to get well?” This is the question for all of us believers who suffer from some illness, or infirmity. The particular belief in the supernatural healing powers of the water may have had validity as it would seem whoever did get into the water first was healed, although we are not expressly told anyone is healed by the water. John is the only gospel writer who includes this activity of Jesus, so all we know is what is told by John. There are some less important manuscripts, which are used in other translations, which are seen as verse 4, which the NIV omits. This verse 4 states the idea of the angel who comes down and stirs the water and the first one in after the stirring would be cured of whatever disease he had. Could this have been what Jesus went there to prove He is the power that heals and not the water of the pool, or that his power was greater? Nevertheless, the question is still at the center. This is the question it would seem that Jesus is still asking all of us today. “Do you want to get well?” We have to notice the lame man did not answer the question. Instead, he made some excuse for why he had not been healed. How did he get to that pool each day? Was it someone in his family who brought him each morning and then came back at night to take him home? Surely he had not laid there twenty-four seven for thirty-eight years. How did he eat, or who cleaned him, or took care of his human needs? Yet, after all those years of his difficult life, he makes this excuse that there was not anyone to help into the water. Where were those who brought him each day? Could they not wait with him for the stirring of the water? It seems people will always let us down and the only one who we can truly count on is Jesus. And we are back to the question. Do we want to get well? Do we make some excuse for why we are not? Do we say the doctors just don’t know what is wrong? Do we just like to complain? Why don’t we just answer the question? Yes, we want to get well! We have to believe that if we would just answer his question, he would heal us of every disease, every infirmity. So then we have to ask the question, do we really want to get well?