John 5:1-15-5 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda[a] 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. [4] [b] 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.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10 and so the Jewish leaders 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 Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.
There were a great number of people around the Pool of Bethesda. Lots of people were there, and they were all sick or limited in some way. Imagine a hospital without any individual rooms, without any walls. That would be the scene by the Pool of Bethesda. Jesus engaged one man in the midst of a crowd of people. It wasn’t that Jesus wasn’t concerned for the crowd; it was simply that He planned to have an encounter with one person. What I want to highlight is that God deals with us as individuals.
The one Jesus focused on had been an invalid for 38 years. I have to assume he saw lying by the pool as his only option for healing or as his lot in life. I believe he wanted healing, but on some level, after 38 years, he had accepted his condition as a way of life and located himself, somehow, with others who had the same situation or outlook. I think he was stuck in a rut of hopelessness, but I think he found comfort in being in a rut with other hopeless people.
The man put himself, probably at least initially, where he thought healing could occur, but after time, he was simply stuck in a spot that offered him no hope. He quit looking for other options. He just resigned himself to being where he was.
Jesus approached him and asked him a question. “Do you want to get well?” Jesus boldly asked the question because He was leading the man to an understanding that his current condition involved more than a need for physical healing.
Here’s the kicker, the man never answered the question. You’d think he’d lift his head and say, “Absolutely, I’m not just here for a sick convention!” But he didn’t. Instead of seeking rescue he gave reasons why he wasn’t healed yet. He kind of went into victim mode. He talked about not having help to get into the pool when the water would start to bubble. That pool was fed by a spring and would start to bubble at times. Instead of saying to Jesus, “Yes, I want to be healed,” he gave the reasons why he wasn’t healed.
It was a really great question that Jesus asked. Not everyone wants to be healed of an addiction, or have their life dramatically change. Some people get used to experiencing life the way they do and “getting well” could mean starting over and that is too scary for them. “Getting well” could mean reconciling with family, and they are too proud to admit their role in the breech. “Getting well” could mean having to take responsibility for their life, to go to work, to work some recovery steps, to ask for help, to depend on others, to become accountable, to start going to church regularly, I don’t know what all could be involved, but the point is that not everyone wants to get well because of the way their life would change. For some people, if getting well means forgiving people or exposing hidden sin, well, they’d rather simply stay the same.
Perhaps the guy’s response to Jesus was an indication that, yes, he did want to get well, but that he knew that his healing would have to involve an outside person, that he knew he would need help from someone to find healing.
Jesus then gave him a command. “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” That is an impossible command. How can someone who hasn’t been able to walk for 38 years all of the sudden get up? How could he even think it was possible? Jesus enables impossible things to become possible. (Matthew 19:26)
Verse 9 says, “At once the man was cured.” I don’t know if he felt his legs strengthen. I don’t know if his muscles bulked up after having withered away, you know, like Popeye after he eats some spinach? I don’t know if he felt someone underneath him, like undergirding him, but at once he was cured, and he picked up his mat and walked.
He had no real reason to trust Jesus. He didn’t even know who Jesus was. He had no idea who he was talking to. But here is what I do know, he had a willingness to do what Jesus asked. That tells me he did have a desire to get well.
To enjoy the healing that had taken place he had to get up and walk. To enjoy the new life that Jesus was offering, he had to pick up his bed and relocate himself elsewhere.
How tragic would it have been, if the man was healed, but remained where he was, in an atmosphere of hopelessness and sickness? How often does that happen to people we know? How often does it happen to us because in the final analysis we want status quo more than we want wellness?
You see, when Jesus asked, “Do you want to get well,” I believe He was asking the man, “Do you want the life I can give you?”
Verse 14: 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.”
Y’all, Jesus wasn’t finished with the man. Healing wasn’t his end game. It was just a step in the process. Jesus went and found him at the temple. Though he didn’t know Jesus by name or reputation, he now knew Jesus through a personal experience and Jesus’ next words to him revealed the deeper reason for the question, “Do you want to get well?” He said, “See, you are well again.” Jesus called attention to the fact that the man had not only been healed, but he was still healed. This was a permanent healing. He didn’t ever need to go back to that hopeless atmosphere.
I have met many people who get healed, who get delivered, who are helped out of a desperate place by Jesus, but they forget to pick up their mat, their resting place, and they wind up going right back to the place of desperation where Jesus found them.
He also wanted the man to understand that in addition to that location, he needed to be done with the preoccupation with sin. Suffice it to say, sin has consequences, and sometimes they are physical.
I don’t know to what degree this man’s sin played into his sickness, but the fact that he was steeped in sin is confronted by Jesus. He said, “Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” What is worse than being an invalid for 38 years? Going to Hell for eternity. Jesus not only wanted to heal the man, but he wanted him to be whole. He wanted the man to turn away from a life of sin and to receive wholeness, peace with God, from the inside out. The man had an opportunity to go from hopeless to healed to holy.
You see, the invitation for the man was more than healing, but it was an invitation to leave a way of life behind for a better life. In this story, Jesus asked one question but gave two commands. Pick up your mat and walk. Stop sinning.
Do you want to get well? It’s Jesus’ way of asking, “Do you want the life that I can give you?” If you do, “Pick up your mat and walk. Stop sinning.”
