Do You Want To Get Well?
Introduction
In 2017, I went on a trip to a country whose name ends in-stan. It’s a Central Asian country with a heavy Russian influence; however, the major religion is Islam, and less than 1% of the people are Christian. This country has hostile countries at its borders. It’s known for its rugged mountains, hiking, climbing, and hunting of a large mountain ram named “Marco Polo.”
They also have a few hot springs that the locals believe have healing properties. The friend we were visiting was acquaintances with the governor of the region. He invited us to come to the hot spring in his division, which happens to be the largest of the country’s four divisions. He kept urging us to visit this hot spring-to heal our bodies from the extended travels, and we almost accepted his invitation. We respectfully declined the invitation when it was translated into English. Why did we pass on the invitation you ask? Well, you could only get in the water in your birthday suit.
How should we think about Jesus and His healing power?
Today’s passage is remarkable because it shows us Jesus’ desire to heal and how we should think about his healing power. Jesus can heal our world, but we continue to be plagued with sin, disease, viruses, calamity, and death. I want each of you to join me in a different pool, one called Bethesda, but fully clothed. I pray that God will use this rich text to open our hearts and minds and lead us into Christ-exalting truth. Let’s see if we can answer the very question that Jesus asked this disabled man. “Do you want to get well?”
John 5:1-18 After this, a Jewish festival took place, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2 By the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem, there is a pool called Bethesda in Aramaic, which has five colonnades. 3 Within these lay a large number of the disabled—blind, lame, and paralyzed. 5 One man was there who had been disabled for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and realized he had already been there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to get well?" 7 "Sir," the disabled man answered, "I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I'm coming, someone goes down ahead of me." 8 "Get up," Jesus told him, "pick up your mat and walk." 9 Instantly, the man got well, picked up his mat, and started to walk. Now that day was the Sabbath, 10, and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, "This is the Sabbath. The law prohibits you from picking up your mat." 11 He replied, "The man who made me well told me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.'" 12 "Who is this man who told you, 'Pick up your mat and walk'?" they asked. 13 But the man who was healed did not know who it was because Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. 14 After this, Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, "See, you are well. Do not sin anymore so that something worse doesn't happen to you." 15 The man went and reported to the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. 16 Therefore, the Jews began persecuting Jesus because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. Honoring the Father and the Son 17 Jesus responded to them, "My Father is still working, and I am working also." 18 This is why the Jews began trying all the more to kill him: Not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal to God.
Where do we find ourselves? John 5:1-5
After this, a Jewish festival took place, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. By the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem, there is a pool called Bethesda in Aramaic, which has five colonnades. Within these lay a large number of the disabled—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been disabled for thirty-eight years.
After what? Jesus has just healed a certain official’s son who was sick in Capernaum. His son was about to die, and this man believed Jesus when he told him that his child would live and then believed again when he arrived home to find his child healed at the very time Jesus said to him that his child would live.
Jesus is now in Jerusalem for a Jewish festival. As he did with the Samaritan woman, he makes a point of coming near to a religious outsider.
Why do you think the gate is called the Sheep Gate? What is the significance of the Sheep Gate?
The Sheep Gate was the starting point for Nehemiah to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. It was also the ending point. The list of repairs on the wall ends where it began. The enclosure of the City of David has been completed. In Psalm 24:7-8, David sings, ” Lift up your heads, you gates! Rise up, ancient doors! The King of glory will come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle.” This mighty Lord, the King of glory, is also “the Good Shepherd (John 10:11) and the “gate for the sheep” (10:7). Jesus is himself, the Sheep Gate.
Look what he says in John 10:9-11, “I am the gate. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will come in and go out and find a pasture. A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.”
So Jesus enters Jerusalem through the Sheep Gate-this very gate has been used to bring in sheep that will be sacrificed. John, the author, is very intentional in showing us these subtle details of Jesus’ deity. Jesus is the sacrificial lamb for atonement; he is the gate by which we must enter, and he is the good shepherd who cares for his flock. Is there anything we must do to achieve salvation?
Where is verse four?
Also, did you notice that verse four is missing from the text? Why is this verse missing from our text? The answer is that it’s complicated. In most cases, the oldest and best Greek manuscripts are reliably translated through a long, complex process. Still, particular instances arise that are uncertain if manuscripts are not exactly 100 percent positive of originality. This passage is one of those instances. However, there is no significant historical or doctrinal issue at stake with verse four.
John 5:4 Some manuscripts include here, wholly or in part, paralyzed—and they waited for the moving of the waters. 4 From time to time, an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had.
It seems perhaps that a copyist drew a marginal note in the text explaining verse seven. This explanation might be correct, but our most recent translations omit the verse to be as original as possible since it is missing from earlier manuscripts. The workings of the pool are not essential to the story. The work that Jesus did is what’s vital to the story.
The House of Mercy
We also notice in these beginning verses that Jesus is in a crowded space. There are a large number of disabled people-blind, lame, and paralyzed. This particular man Jesus had compassion on had been disabled for thirty-eight years. That’s longer than I’ve been alive. This pool, called Bethesda (house of mercy) in Aramaic, had five colonnades. A colonnade is a row of columns.
So, this pool has five rows of columns. It’s an ample space filled with many desperate people.
Moving forward…
When Jesus saw him lying there and realized he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to get well?” “Sir,” the disabled man answered, “I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I’m coming, someone goes down ahead of me.” “Get up,” Jesus told him, “pick up your mat and walk.” Instantly, the man got well, picked up his mat, and started to walk. Now that day was the Sabbath,
Jesus sees this man lying there and already knew that he had been there a long time. Jesus says to him, “Do you want to get well?”
Everyone Is preventing me from receiving my blessing
Uhh, sort of a silly question, right? Of course, the man wants to be healed. He has been disabled for 38 years. Day after day, he would fight to be the one to get into the water first so the waters could heal him.
The man says, Sir, this is how it works. I need to get into the pool. Everyone keeps me from receiving my healing. I’ve almost given up hope. I have no one to help me get to the water. Thank you for the conversation, but I’ve got no one.
Do you ever feel like this man? Like you have no one to help you?
Let’s take a look back in chapter 4 and revisit the encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well.
I’ll summarize the encounter.
Jesus has to go through Samaria, and he comes up to this woman and says, “Hey woman, give me a drink.” She responds, “But you are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan; I don’t think you know what you are doing.” Jesus says, “I’m not worried about that; give me a drink.” She’s like, “You don’t have a bucket.” Jesus essentially responds, “You don’t need a bucket when you are the well. I am the Living water, and if you receive the water that I have to give you, you will not thirst again.”
Back to chapter 5 near water.
The Essence of Salvation
The pool represented salvation and hope to this man and everyone else in Bethesda, remember the name means “House of Mercy.” This man couldn’t get in the pool. In his mind, he could not experience salvation and receive hope unless he got in to be touched by the swirling waters. So Jesus walks up to the man, and the man keeps talking about how he can’t get to the water. Jesus is like, “You don’t get it, man. I saw that you couldn’t get to the water. That’s why the living water came to you.”
Isn’t that the essence of salvation? We could not do anything to earn salvation, so God came to earth to do it for us. He was providing the only way to salvation through his very own death and resurrection.
After hearing all the man’s excuses, Jesus says to him, “Get up. Pick up your mat and walk.”
What did Jesus NOT do to heal the man?
He didn’t pick him up and place him in the water. Jesus asks, “Do you want to get well?” Jesus demonstrates to this man that his knowledge, power, and authority go far beyond superstitions and false hope.
This healing was scandalous. Why? This healing took place on the Sabbath. The Sabbath was to be a day of rest. No Jewish person was to work on this day. It goes back to Exodus 20 when God is giving the law to Moses on Mount Sinai.
Let me ask you this, “What are some Jewish laws that you can remember?” There are 613 Jewish Commands. Can you name a few?
What was considered work in this passage? Practicing medicine and carrying your mat were acts of work and therefore broke the Sabbath laws.
The Gospels record many miracles, but from what we can determine-there are only seven mentioned that happen on the Sabbath. Seven. That’s an interesting number. What does the number seven represent in Scripture? Completion.
Jesus chose to heal this man on this specific day, to bring the religious leaders to see their hypocrisy and misinterpretation of the law. They have not submitted to God and his authority entirely. They find more comfort in man-made laws than they do in a God who is always working, even on the Sabbath.
People start talking about this man’s healing, and before he gets home, the religious leaders begin to question what has happened and why he is working
on the Sabbath. Notice they don’t even address the fact that it is a miracle he is well. They only address the fact that the law was broken. He was carrying his mat. They would rather this man continue to be broken than to be healed. This man’s healing should be a time for celebration, but the religious are lovers of rules, traditions, and possessions more than they are of people. These religious leaders would say they love this man, but their blindness to this miracle speaks more of their hypocrisy than their love for their neighbor.
Turning on the light
God created the Sabbath to be a blessing. A day of rest. Jesus said in Mark 2:27, “The Sabbath was made for man and not man-made for the Sabbath.” It was a day to rest from the regular labor of employment, not a list of made-up rules. Did you know, that currently, it is against Jewish law to open your refrigerator on the Sabbath? Why? Because the light turns on. It goes back to Exodus 35:3 “Do not light a fire in any of your homes on the Sabbath.”
How had the Pharisees misunderstood the purpose of the Sabbath?
So, Jesus is exposing the perversion of the Sabbath God intended for man. Jesus did not defend himself by clarifying the Sabbath’s purpose, but instead, His defense was that God was working on the Sabbath. Of course, they would have to agree with Jesus about that statement. God doesn’t take days off; He is God. Jesus was not justifying that anyone can work on the Sabbath, just Him because well He was about His Father’s business and like Father like son.
It’s on like Donkey Kong
If you thought it was hostile before, oh, it was on like Donkey Kong now. Jesus has done it. He has riled up these religious leaders to kindle a different type of fire, anger that will eventually lead to his death on a cross. Not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but He also was calling God his own Father, making himself equal to God.
Our hearts are a battlefield, and every day, a war is being raged. Do we submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ or submit to our way. As believers in Christ, we must diligently fight to obey Christ, putting our desires for control to death. Winning the battle is only possible with the powerful work of Christ in our lives.
I’m going to ask you the same thing that Jesus asked this man, “Do you want to get well?”
If you’re like me, I often miss the point. Just like this man, I come up with excuses and blame others when things don’t go my way, and I sin. It’s important to note that this is not a faith healing like it was with the official’s son. Here is an old man embittered, broken, and helpless. He has done nothing to deserve this healing, yet Jesus healed this man freely and fully to demonstrate grace. He then disappears into the crowd. Jesus meets up with him again in the temple and says, “See, you are doing well. Do not sin anymore so that something worse doesn’t happen to you.”
We don’t know what happens to the man after this last encounter with Jesus. We know that just like this man, we often ask God for physical healing, and it might be what we need at that moment, but what Jesus is revealing to us is that what we need more is spiritual healing. Jesus is after the totality of our lives and surrendering to His lordship.
If you have found yourself still asking questions about this text or about your next steps in surrendering your life to Christ; I want to hear from you and would be a delight to walk with you on this discovery.
