Monday: DO YOU WANT TO GET WELL?

May 8, 2023
2 min read

John 5:1-3;4-8

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 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.  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.

Even in the midst of a festival, Jesus can be found with the blind, the lame and the paralyzed. These people did not feel much like socializing—they were more focused on attempting to get well, even though their chances of doing this on their own had not proven effective.

Jesus doesn’t take anyone’s intentions for granted. He asked one of them, “Do you want to get well?” The man, whose heart was hardened by the surrounding culture, did not answer the question. He instead made an excuse that no one was there to help him achieve the only means he knew of getting well (the waters of Bethesda were thought to have healing properties). Jesus had compassion on the man and told him exactly what he needed to do. His first instruction was to get up, which is something that the man had not been able to do for 38 years. After he got up, Jesus told him to pick up his mat and walk.

THINK ABOUT THESE THINGS

Getting up is something I take for granted, as I do it every day. This man had spent the majority of his life laying down. All of his hopes for recovery had melted away, as he continued to lay by the pool day after day, hoping someone would help him. Jesus had a different answer to his dream of walking. He first tested the man’s willingness to be healed. Do I believe that Jesus can accomplish His will for my life?

Jesus instructed the man to rise. If the man didn’t believe, he wouldn’t have tried. However, we know that he did believe, because he succeeded in getting up—not in his power, but in the power of Jesus.

Lord, I believe you can do anything You want to do with my life. I am ready to get up and do what You tell me to do. Amen.

May you be blessed,

Chaplain Wayne Ruckman