Do you want to get well?

I can't get it off my mind; this story, this man. I first encountered it last spring when I began reading Truly Fed by Gari Meacham. Much of this post is largely based off what I learned in the first chapter of her book then. However, as time goes on and life happens I find myself returning time and time again to this story.

"Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” 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 going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked."

                                                                                                      John 5:1-9 ESV

 Thirty-eight years . . . thirty-eight years he had been an invalid. Who knows how many of those thirty-eight years he had spent lying next to pool of Bethesda. Maybe he had tried to be cured for years, I don't know; but, he was there at the pool, desperate, with any hope he had left thrown to a local superstition. It was said that the pool had healing power, that from time to time an angle of the Lord would come down and stir the waters. Supposedly the first person to enter the waters after such a disturbance would be cured of whatever infirmity they had (Bible Knowledge Commentary). This man had come to the pool hoping to be healed, but it had not happened yet.

"Jesus saw this man lying in an alcove, crumbled on his bedroll. He knew he had been in this state a long time, and without any small talk or meaningless conversation, He probed to the very soul of the man by asking 'Do you want to get well?' (Meacham, 13)." This seems like an absurd question for Jesus to ask. I mean, it was obvious that the man was at the pool to get healed. Yet, Jesus deliberately asked the man, "Do you want to get well?" Why? Perhaps the man originally had come to the pool with a hope of healing, but that hope had all but died. Maybe after thirty-eight years the man had grown accustomed to his state. To be healed would bring responsibility, change, and the discomfort of the unfamiliar. To be healed would be letting go of all that he had known as life for so long. Jesus probably knew the answer, but he wanted the man to look deep within himself. The man responded to Jesus with excuses. There was no one to help him and other people, well they always got to the water first. So Jesus told him to stand up,  pick up his mat, and walk.  He left the man with a choice. The man could trust and move or remain in his excuses sitting on his mat. Jesus was willing and able to heal the man, but the man had to choose to accept healing.

I am an invalid; not physically, but in so many other ways. I am not thirty-eight, but already I have easily become accustomed to my state of paralysis. I don't necessarily like it, but it is predictable, comfortable, familiar. I can remember hoping for healing, yet its been so long my hopes have all but died. I can't imagine life without my paralysis. I have tried various remedies, yet they each have failed. It seems impossible to be healed, every time I think I'm getting into that pool I find I'm too late or I just can't do it myself.

I'm lying on my mat paralyzed. I hear the question He asks, but I can't look up, I'm mumbling excuses. To be healed I have to trust Him, I have to believe that He can truly heal me, but I can't imagine it. To be healed I have to move towards freedom by standing up, I can't lie on my mat and be healed, but I lack the energy to get up. To be healed I have to pick up my mat, letting go of my past, and walk, but I fear the unfamiliar. In my head the answer is an obvious "yes," I don't like living in this state of paralysis, but my heart does not seem to agree. I know I should be like the man and get up, yet my heart is resistant to change. I want it so bad, yet I am still resisting. "Isn't it interesting that the very thing that paralyzes our lives becomes something we hang on to and refuse to change?" (Meacham, 12).

I can't get this man, this story, off my mind. Do I want to get well? Do I want to be healed?

"O Lord my God, I called to you for help and you healed me." Psalm 30:2