Jesus’s power to heal
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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[a] 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. [4] [b] 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.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10 and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”
11 But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”
Introduction
The pool with its five porticoes (or covered porches) was rediscovered by archaeologists in 1871, and may be visited today in Jerusalem. It is not impressive, but it was obviously important in NT times. It may very well have been a spring-fed pool with medicinal qualities, like some of the famous spas of Europe. The image of such a pool, and of the many sick and disabled people who went in to be well, reminds us that there are natural places of restoration in the world. Not just spas and mineral springs, but NHS when we are feeling ill or disabled- hospitals clinics, care houses, and the like.
Let us look at this miracle of healing through three lenses [1] The pool of bubbling water [2] The healer’s question [3] To do what you cannot do
[1] The pool of bubbling water
The pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem was famous for having a stream or geyser that bubbles the waters of the pool. It was believed that the bubbling was caused by an angel and the first person to get into the pool at the bubbling would be healed. We know the science of it today and we know it to be superstition, but it was a view held by all the people of the day.
Maybe as Jesus walked round the pool he heard about this man’s story, his disability, paralysuis, made it impossible for him to be first in the pool at the bubbling.
Not that Jesus didn’t tell him the superstition was nonsense. Jesus’s desire was not to put him right but to make him right! He had the power to heal.
Illness can grab you without warning & despite all our capabilities we are left at the mercy of our frail body emotions, we feel trapped but what we need is the mercy of our Lord who has the power to hold and to heal us in our time need.
A woman in one of our hospital wards recently described to me the state of mind she was in after her trauma...
"I felt as if I was in a swiftly moving river and the current was carrying me towards rapid falls. I was waiting to go over the edge, and there was nothing I could do about it. I felt completely helpless!"
In this story of the disabled man, He too was helpless. For years he had sat near the pool of Bethesda, watching others get into the waters when it stirred.
It probably looked like January Sales, with everybody pushing and shoving to get in. But he was disabled and didn’t have help. ONly the compassion and mercy of our Lord can help…He alone has the power to hold and to heal us in our time of need.
[2] The healer’s question: Jesus asked the man if he wanted to be cured
Let us look at the pattern of Jesus as he reaches out to this disabled man.
[When I was in Jerusalem in 2010, I stood at the same Pool of Bethseda and wept as I asked once again that the Lord to heal me. to answer all those prayers prayed over the last years. It was indeed a time of healing but not the miraculous stand up and walk I was longing for.]
When Jesus asks the man if he wants to be cured, it is not a silly ques. He had been disabled 38 years. Maybe hope had died. Maybe has become accustomed to his disability or even content in his disability. For many disabled people that state of contentment and acceptance of it is something to be strived for.
There's a story of an eagle who spotted the carcass of an animal floating in the icy waters of the Niagara. As the carcass sped towards the Niagara Falls the eagle knew it could land & feast on the carcass with the confidence that it could flap its great wings & soar over the Niagara Falls. It swooped & landed & feasted on the carcass with its razor beak & sharp talons. As the carcass approached the edge of the Falls the eagle majestically flapped its large wings but its claws had frozen fast into the icy carcass & it plummeted off the edge. It was not so with this man at the Bubbling pool. He wished to flap his wings and soar but he was held fast in his disability. Only the healing power and heat of the Lord Jesus could free him from this burden.
The man’s response was immediate – he wanted to be healed even though he felt totally helpless in achieving it. When Jesus says do you want to be changed what is my response, what is our hearts response? Do you want Him too make the change?
[3] To do what you cannot do. Jesus tells him to get up.
Jesus asks the man to do something he cannot do. It is as if that act of the will of trying is a factor (man didn’t say I cannot. The man yearned, he willed it. It seems Jesus power does not do away with our longing and our effort. As we realise our own helplessness, our will and God’s power combine to make the impossible possible – that’s also true of our Salvation.
There are many things which can beat us but when we have an intensity of desire and determination and turn to Jesus, even though our situation looks hopeless, the power of Jesus conquers what has conquered us for so long.
Even though this question was to a disabled man (paralysed), it challenges us, as well, because to be made well is to be made whole, and to be made whole is to experience the gift of life in Jesus - Christ’s life in abundance.
