Jesus and the Pool C - 3
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 paralyzed. 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?”
“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. When I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
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.”
John 5:2-14 (NIV)
In most stained-glass windows I have seen, Jesus is hanging around with people who have halos. So this story might make you wonder … why would Jesus be hanging around a place filled with society’s rejects? The sick, lame, blind; the smell, the noise, the depression there would scare off most visitors, including certainly me. The “in” crowd, this wasn’t. But Jesus is different; he had healing and making someone whole on His mind. There was no other place He wanted to be on that day.
Yes, Jesus often asked people to have faith, and, yes, faith was an integral part of so many miracles. But this was a different situation. This man had no faith, no trust, no hope, nothing going for him.
When Jesus asked him one of the most important questions he would ever hear, “Do you want to get well?”, his response dripped with negativity. He didn’t even ask to be healed. Rather, he made it clear why he could never be healed! He was stuck to living out his remaining years as he had lived the last thirty-eight years: hopeless, helpless, faithless, futureless, bitter, lonely, dry, a shell of a man. And stuck in a physical place of sickness, sorrow and pessimism about the future.
Have you ever heard a list of “do’s” and “don'ts” that supposedly must be taken care of before God would stoop to listen to us? And if our do’s and don’ts are not perfect, God may just pass us by. Gobbledygook, as this story shows!
Jesus just could not let him stay in darkness. Faith or no faith, he deserved compassion and care. When Jesus told him to walk, notice the exclamation point! In other words, Jesus meant it! The care Jesus had for this man was stronger than the man’s pessimism.
Finally, when Jesus later found him, notice that the instruction was to “stop sinning”. Sinning? Well, this invalid certainly wasn’t a bank robber, or a get-away driver on a camel, or even a donkey-jacker. Might his sin simply have been his soaking up and retaining bitterness, darkness, pessimism, and a self-assurance that God couldn’t, wouldn’t, or even shouldn’t, heal him? It seemed that he built quite a high wall around him to keep God out!
We don’t have to be perfect for Jesus to come and be with us. We don’t necessarily need the kind of faith that moves mountains for Jesus to begin our healing. His compassion on us is far stronger than our fears, weaknesses and doubts. As a matter of fact, Jesus is passing by our own home-made pool right now, ready to knock down walls. He wants us to pick up our mats and walk freely!
1) Why would Jesus visit that particular pool?
2) Why did Jesus offer help to that particular person?
3) Why does it seem that the man in the story had bought into the idea that his disability was permanent? Why didn’t he show interest in this visitor?
4) Why is there an exclamation point in this process of healing?
5) Why didn’t Jesus talk to him some more? Why did Jesus heal him right away, in spite of the man’s negativity?
6) Might you identify, sometimes, with this disabled person?
7) Jesus found him at the temple after this healing. What might that indicate?
8) Finally, what kind of sinning might Jesus have been referring to?