Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches. One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?” “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.” Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!” Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking! But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, so the Jewish leaders objected. They said to the man who was cured, “You can’t work on the Sabbath! The law doesn’t allow you to carry that sleeping mat!” But he replied, “The man who healed me told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’” “Who said such a thing as that?” they demanded. The man didn’t know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.” Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him. So the Jewish leaders began harassing Jesus for breaking the Sabbath rules. John 5.1-16
When John the beloved apostle wrote this Gospel account he had a specific
purpose in view. That purpose was not to
tell a story from beginning to end, but to show the meaning of that story. It wasn’t chronology, but theology, our
thoughts of God – who He is. John wrote
to help us understand that Jesus is the Lord God. The way he does that in this incident is to
re-tell the conflict Jesus had with the Jewish religious leaders over rituals
and traditions. Jesus healed a man on
the Sabbath; the traditionalists in the group didn’t like the change. They loved the system of their religion more
than the God they were created to love. We
have to admit, most of us don’t like changes.
Mark Twain once said: The
only person who likes change is a wet baby.[1]
Let’s look at a man who was in sad shape before he met Jesus. The Lord touched him, and what changes
occurred!
Jesus touched the man's WILL
This man was conditioned in his spirit to be spiritually wasted in the
same way his legs were useless. For 38
years his illness and the way people related to him had kept him in a societal
bondage. He believed God was on a first
come first served accessibility.
So he had the perfect excuse for never getting better.
Jesus confronted the man…Do you want to get better? The man played his well-rehearsed line…Man,
smell the coffee…everybody else moves faster than me. Jesus’ answer was simply…Rise up! There was no pity or patronizing; Jesus told
the man to get himself together and walk.
At that point the man had two choices – he could remain in his retreat
from humanity, or he could trust the stranger with this new idea and get
up.
Christian people share the burden for leadership. We also face, and struggle with the lame
man’s temptation to opt-out of responsibility. It is easy to pull the covers back over your
head on a Monday morning. That is the
nature of our will, and God will not force us to get in the game. He will, however, “touch” us to remind us the
game is not over, and that we have a choice.
Jesus touched that man with a face-to-face confrontation. It isn’t the same way with us all, because we
are so different:
¶ Jesus touches some with the memory
of a fine Christian leader’s example of working hard, loving others and life
engaged on an enthusiastic plane.
¶ The touch might be in your Dad’s words,
still ringing in your ears long after he is gone.
¶ The Bible is a touch of Jesus; it
will prick your heart and conscience.
¶ The touch of Jesus might be in a kindness
extended from a friend or foe.
¶ The touch of Jesus might be in a child’s
admiration that you don’t want to destroy.
Jesus touched that man, and He is touching some of you right now.
Jesus touched the man's WItness
It is a certainty that this man told everyone who would listen what
happened to him. He had been lying on
that pallet for 38 years waiting for a miracle.
Day after day he was continually reminded how his life was unending impotence.
Suddenly the whole horizon unfolded before him; he had a life. It is without doubt he became a walking
billboard for Jesus. Even when
questioned by the town political/religious leaders the man was unshakeable.
Here is a question before the house this morning. What will make a weak/hopeless man into a
fearless/tireless witness? Perhaps the
answer is found in the name of the pool, Bethesda
Jesus touched the man's Weakness
The Bible tells us this man was healed.
The verb root is “enlarged”. The
man became normal, changing, growing, and it put him right in the middle of
controversy between the Healer and the critics.
What about you? Henry Blackaby
wrote about this syndrome of our weakness when it comes to being healed:
Many people have grown up attending church and
hearing about God all their lives, but they do not have a personal, dynamic,
growing relationship with God.[ii]
Our generation has taken many of the activities that the Bible identifies
as sin and has labeled them as addictions or character flaws or the result of
an abusive upbringing. We act as if
having an addiction is sufficient excuse for disobeying God's commands.
As Christians, we are no longer helpless victims of our sin. There is no
sinful habit or past hurt that is beyond the healing touch of our Lord.
Have you gone year after year without receiving spiritual healing? God is capable of freeing you, but you may
have become comfortable in your sin. You
may not want to be healed. If you really
want to receive spiritual health, God can give it today. He wants you to ask Him.
And so, the natural question now is:
¶ Do want nothing to change, or would you jump at
the chance for new life?
¶ Do you want what you’ve always had, or do you desire
a closer walk with Him?
¶ Are you satisfied with limping, or do you want
Him to make you whole?
In the name
of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…Amen!
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[i] Title Images: Courtesy of Pixabay.com.
All Scripture quoted is from The New Living Translation (unless otherwise stated)
[ii] Henry
Blackaby in “Experiencing God”
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