April 18 - Do You Want to Be Made Well?

April 18 – Do You Want to Be Made Well?

After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

Now that day was a sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, “It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.” But he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’ ” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take it up and walk’?” Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. (John 5:1-15)

This is one of those stories that trips me up every time.  “Do you want to be made well?”

Well, do you?  Do I?

It is much easier for us to lie in front of the pool and whine about how no one will change things for us and live with what we are accustomed to than to make any type of change that will get us off our mat and walking again.

This man had lived this way for thirty-eight years!  And while that might seem like a long time for all of us, how long have you been living with whatever it is that keeps you trapped?  How long will you blame the world for your problems or someone else for your set of circumstances! Do you want to be made well?

Jesus didn’t sit and commiserate with the paralyzed man. He didn’t ask about those who hadn’t helped the man, he didn’t want the man to focus on any of the things in the past … he simply wanted to know if the man desired to be well. 

It would be really nice if the man had said ‘yes,’ but he continued to whine about how no one else would help him.  Jesus didn’t wait for too long.  There was no need to hear about everyone else.  “Stand up.  Pick up your mat.  Walk.”

With Jesus as our mediator – we don’t have to put up with those things that stop us from being whole, from being all that He calls us to be.  And guess what – He also isn’t telling us to do it on our own.  His command was part of the work that He did.  The man did nothing.  He didn’t heal himself, he didn’t make his own life better.  All he did was respond to Jesus.

That’s all you have to do – respond.  When Jesus commands, listen and respond.