Do You Want To Get Well?
John 5:1-6 (NIVUK)
Sometime 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. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralysed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 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?'
It's a slightly strange question, asking someone who has been unwell for 38 years whether they want to get well. Surely Jesus didn’t need to ask that? He could have gone to any of the people at the Bethesda pool and healed them. There are 41 instances of Jesus healing people in the New Testament and Jesus heals every single person who asks him. So why this time does he ask the man this question?
It's interesting that the man doesn’t ask Jesus for healing. It is possible that his identity has become so bound up with his sickness over a long period, that it has become a core part of his identity. Who will he be if he is healed?
In Jesus’ culture, being unwell or disabled would not only have been physically challenging, but it would also probably have thrust the individual into poverty and, worse, created a climate of blame and shame around them. This man has lived under restriction and judgment for a very long time.
We can be complicit with things that restrict and harm us. Do we really want to be changed and healed? The familiar, in all its brokenness, can feel comfortable and we don’t want to be changed. Sometimes our circumstances have intentionally or unintentionally formed and shaped us in ways that do not allow God’s love free rein. And sometimes we ignore areas of our lives because it seems easier to simply continue as we are, to avoid the light that Jesus would shine in the dark areas.
It can be a challenging question: ‘Do you want to get well?’
Jesus confronts us with this because he knows your potential, the wholly loved and abundant life he has for you. His plans and purposes are good and perfect – will we trust him to work in us?
Prayer — Holy Spirit I welcome you now to search my heart and know me. Show me the areas I need you to be at work in me. Come and heal me and fill me with your light and hope.