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Church of the Nazarene Harrisonburg
Questions Jesus Asked: “Do you want to get well?”
Do you want to get well?
Today we continue in our 4-part teaching series “Questions Jesus Asked”
Often, we are quite content to ask questions of Jesus. Who are you? Where are you? Do you hear me? How could you let that happen? What do you want me to do?
We often ask questions of Jesus, but do we pause to hear the questions he asks of us?
Today we hear Jesus ask “Do you want to get well?”
John 5:1-9
Some time 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 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. While 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. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath,
What begins as perhaps an oddly framed question, ends in life changing transformation.
We see Jesus joining the man in the middle of his pain, in the middle of his hopelessness, and bringing him new life.
When Jesus asks this question- he has a greater healing in view.
We know what healing He has in mind for the man by the pool. What is His intent for you, in this room today?
Jesus makes his way to the pool of Bethesda, where the text says a great number of people who had physical disabilities were lying.
Depending on your translation, you may have noticed that verse 4 is missing in the text. The tail end of verse 3 and all of verse 4 are not found in the earliest manuscripts, meaning they wouldn’t have been Johns original words, but a later author may have inserted them.
So, if we included the text it would read: Here a great number of disabled people used to lie- the blind, the lame, the paralyzed -“waiting for the moving of the water, 4 because an angel would go down into the pool from time to time and stir up the water. Then the first one who got in after the water was stirred up recovered from whatever ailment he had.
The omitted text contains an explanation of sorts, of why people were at this specific pool.
I think sometimes when we hear things like this in scripture, of people looking to a bubbling spring for healing, we are quick to assume a place of superiority over the people of the bible.
While most of us are not running past the hospital to get over to Lake Shenandoah for healing, we do look to many things for healing or reprieve from the brokenness, pain, and pressure of life, don’t we?
We sit beside the pool of perfection, don’t we?
How often do we sit broken and longing beside the pool of relationships?
The pool of a few beers to take the edge off or to forget our problems.
The pool of approval through followers or likes on social media.
What pool are you sitting beside today?
Within the man’s response we begin to understand that he was fixated on this pool for healing.
His response is so true to our experience it’s easy to imagine right?
“I can’t do it on my own…I can’t get there… I’ve been so close so many times, but I just can’t seem to make it”
“And Nobody will help me… they are all out for themselves… they don’t even see me struggling…they don’t care…”
Having been there 38 years he had given his life to this cure. But he had nothing to show for it, and no hope for a future without it. And that loss of hope is at the heart of it right?
That’s where Jesus enters his Story. That’s the place Jesus wants to bring life.
So, he asks him “Do you want to be healed?”
So, what’s your pool today?
Can you imagine your life differently?
Just like the man in our text today, you may have been searching for healing for so long in other places that you can’t imagine a different future anymore.
The thought that you could live with hope- seems impossible
The idea of life free from addiction, seems unattainable
The reality of forgiveness and a new start- seems like it’s for everyone else.
Jesus asks “Do you want to be healed?”
Will you take the step of faith and embrace Jesus and the life he offers you today? Will you leave the pool behind?