Do you want to get well?

“Do you want to get well?” If you are sick or if you are hurting, that probably seems like a rather stupid question. Of course you want to get well, you want to feel better, you want to be “ok.” Luckily so far in life, I haven't suffered with chronic illness. I have however battled injuries, the chicken pox as a kid, and the flu a couple of times in the past. Man, the flu is bad. If I was asked during the pain or sickness if I wanted to get well, the answer would be a resounding “absolutely!”

As foolish as the above question seems, it was the exact question Jesus asked an invalid man in John 5:1-18. The passage reads, 

“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, 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.” But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, “Pick up your mat and walk.” So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?” The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well. So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” For this reason they tried 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 with God."

The above scene is one of the first times, we hear of Jesus being persecuted by the Jews. Who did this guy think He was?!? If Jesus was the Son of God, He shouldn't have been hanging around this pool with all these "kind of  people!" The son of the Creator healing an invalid? To boot, Jesus was doing this on the Sabbath! For shame.

Jesus offered physical healing to the man in the passage, but Jesus offers far more to all those who believe in Him, He offers healing from Sin and a free and unearned passage into Heaven. Jesus miraculously heals the man, then when He sees Him later, He tells him to "Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." 

For 38 years, the man was an invalid and within moments he was compassionately healed by Jesus. Religious leaders at the time were more concerned with their artificially created ban on "mat carrying" and healing on the Sabbath, than the miracles Jesus was performing. Jesus' response is powerful and awesome, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working." Our Father never takes a day off, never calls in sick, no-one picks up His shifts. He is always available for us. Here's the hard part, you have to turn from your sin. You have to do an about face away from your demons. We all have temptations, you know yours. I know mine. What is keeping you from allowing Jesus to love you and heal you? 

Jesus doesn't take days off. No-one is unworthy in His eyes. Jesus is capable of miracles that men may deem absolutely improper or better yet, impossible. I've had to answer the difficult question in the past myself, and now I leave the same question with you..."Do you want to get well?"

Much Love, Adam

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