Jesus Heals

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

JESUS HEALS

John 5:8-15

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. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10 and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, "It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat." 11 But he replied, "The man who made me well said to me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.'" 12 So they asked him, "Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?" 13 The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. 14 Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, "See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you."  15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

NIV

We are continuing with the saga of the lame man who Jesus asked if he wanted to get well, and who never really answered the question, but make some excuse why he could not get into the water first. However, Jesus still healed him by simply telling him to, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” It is interesting that this man’s healing had nothing to do with his faith. He was cured at once because that he what Jesus does. We often hear believers make some excuse that healing does not happen because the person did not have enough faith. That would mean Jesus is restricted by the amount of faith we have in order to perform a healing. How is that possible, that we have to power to keep Jesus from healing us? As for this lame man, it could have been possible that he could have refused to get up and continue to lay there, and then the question would have to be asked if he would have been healed. Again, although Jesus has all the power to heal and it is not dependent on our faith, it may be dependent on our obedience of acting upon the fact we are healed. What we also have to wonder, is did the man feel the difference in his legs when Jesus healed him. How did he feel about getting up, standing up, after not being able to for over thirty-eight years? We would believe he would be so overjoyed with excitement he would have gone jumping and leaping and praising God, like the man Peter and John had that encounter with, but we are not told about how he reacted to his healing. All we know is that he got up, pick up his mat and walked. Where did he walk to? We do know he walked somewhere in town, as some Jews, who must have been counting their steps because they were chastising this man for breaking the law of the Sabbath. If they were concerned about the law, they must have been counting their steps for they were only allowed so many on the Sabbath and then how could they do both, count and criticize? Isn’t that just like today? There are Christians who are so concerned about the law, or doing or not doing something that is right or wrong, at least as they see it, and judge, or criticize others who are not living under the same rules they are. This man, although he had been lame for all those years was expected to still be aware of how many steps one was allowed on the Sabbath and as to what constituted work. How did he get to the pool on the morning of the Sabbath? Did his family, or some friends carry him to the pool on the Sabbath? That would have been work too. So many things we just do not know about this situation, but what we do know is the Jews were so concerned that he was breaking the law they had to accuse him. But he tells them that he was told to do so by some man, a Jew no less who made him well. He had no idea it was Jesus, or for that matter who Jesus was. Again, we see the authority of Jesus trumps everything, our faith, our knowledge, our situation or condition. We will leave this man’s revelation to later, as this statement Jesus makes about stop sinning needs further attention. So, for now, let us simply consider that Jesus heals because he is Jesus, and it does not depend on us, but on Jesus.