The story of Jesus healing a paralytic by the pool of Bethesda has been on my mind this week. Before I share my own takeaways from the passage, lectio your way through it. If you are unfamiliar with that term, go back to yesterday’s personal worship and follow the same format (P.R.A.Y.) and replace the primary passage (i.e. Hebrews 10:19-25 yesterday) with John 5:1-9. Before you begin, ask the Holy Spirit to quiet your mind, open your ears, and speak to you through the reading of His Word.
The Healing at the Pool on the Sabbath
After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
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
What word or idea stood out to you? What might the Spirit be highlighting and circling on the page for you to notice? Take a moment to reflect.
Although the man’s illness is not named, his apparent need for help being lowered into the pool, followed by Jesus’ command to take up his mat and walk, make it likely that he was suffering some form of paralysis. After 38 years, it is not difficult to imagine that he had long given up hope of walking again. It would not have even occurred to him to ask for it. To the able-bodied, Jesus’ question sounds ridiculous! “Do you want to be healed?” “Duh! Of course I want to be healed! Do you know what it’s like not being able to walk?!” But that is not typically the outlook of the one who suffers an enduring affliction.
Most people fear change, whether for good or bad. Try to put yourself in the place of this man who could not even remember how to walk, let alone imagine what life would be like if he were to walk again. Being suddenly thrust into an unknown way of life is a scary proposition, even if others deem the change of condition an improvement.
“Do you want to be healed?” Confused by the question, the man begins explaining all the conditions that prevent him from being healed. There was apparently a superstitious belief at the time that this pool of ordinary water would occasionally be “stirred up” by an angel, giving it healing properties. Whoever was first to enter the water would be healed. As he explains, “another steps down before me.”
When you respond to the call of God, how often do you lead with your doubts? “But I will almost certainly fall! I haven’t used my legs in 38 years. There’s no chance I have the strength to hold myself upright.” That’s right. You don’t have the strength; you will stumble and fall. But when Jesus delivered you from the domain of darkness and made you a new creation, He did not ask you to put in more effort, to use willpower, or to believe in yourself. He simply asked you to believe in Him–in His power over the sin that entangled you. Why, then, do we delude ourselves into thinking that our salvation will be “worked out” (to use Paul’s language)–sanctified and improved–in our own strength?
“Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— just as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’?” (Gal. 3:2-6)
If you are a Christian, you are no longer who you were before. The old nature has been crucified; you are a new creation, free of all the things that formerly bound you. Like the Israelites in the wilderness, our deceitful hearts will sometimes tempt us to return to the comforts granted to us by our captor, but in those moments you can speak over your own soul: “No! That is no longer who I am; I have a new nature. Jesus has delivered me from it and Jesus will keep my feet from stumbling.” My spiritual legs are weak but my God who calls me to follow Him also supplies faith to believe that He is able to keep me from falling (Jude 1:24-25).
So, as you read this, what are the things belonging to your old nature that need to submit again to the authority of Christ, pick up your mat, and remember that He has strengthened you to follow after Him? Do you fear you will fail? Why do you doubt? Is it not because some part of you still thinks you are responsible for the work? What He began in the Spirit, will you now finish in your own power? This weekend, simply redirect your attention from your strengths and doubts to the one who has said, “My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9).
Do you want to be healed? Then take up your cross and follow Him, believing not in yourself, but that “He who calls you is faithful [and] He will surely do it” (1 Thess. 5:24).
P.S. Be sure to check out this week’s new song, “I Know A Name,” below. Elevation Worship is just cranking out the hits lately! How blessed we are to be beneficiaries of the gifts God has given their songwriters! The whole album “When Wind Meets Fire” is SO GOOD–add it to your library!
Your brother,
Ryan
Brandon Lake, Brian Johnson, Phil Wickham CCLI Song #7176778 © 2021 Brandon Lake Music; Maverick City Publishing Worldwide; Phil Wickham Music; Simply Global Songs; Bethel Music Publishing CCLI License #692967