Would you like to get well?

A couple of weekends ago, I found myself stuck at the side of the road: something went wrong with our car’s engine, and there was nothing that I could do. The road was super busy – with lots of people making their way to wherever it was that they wanted to go. But I found myself walking to and fro along the edge of the road. Without a tow truck, I wasn’t going anywhere…

This year, our church is making our way through 12 steps of apprenticeship to Jesus, based on the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. The first step, our focus in January, is realising that we are powerless to save ourselves.

In John 5, we read about a man whose life was far more stuck than I could ever fully imagine. His story is far from unique; there were and are countless people like him. In fact, we’re told that he was just one of a crowd of sick people – blind, lame, and/or paralysed – that would spend their days lying under one of the public porches near the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem. Rumour said that the first person to get into the pool when it started bubbling up would get well. Whether that actually happened regularly is anyone’s guess. The cynic in me doubts it; perhaps there had been some sort of healing that had occurred in the past, and which had been blown out of all proportions. But when you’re stuck, you grab for whatever slim thread of hope you can find.

Why do lonely people fall prey to romance scams? Because the promise of someone who loves you feels like a thread of hope in the darkness. Lotto tickets are another thread of hope for people looking to turn their woeful financial circumstances around . For those who have lost loved ones, the thought of being able to communicate sounds like a thread of hope. If you’re desperately sick, talk of experimental treatments can feel like a thread of hope.

When circumstances are dire, we find ourselves desperate for threads of hope. But so many of those threads turn out to be utterly unable to hold the weight of our problems. We throw our weight on them, only for them to break. And we find ourselves either right back where we were, or in even worse circumstances. Many of the threads we cling to are far from spiritually neutral; they can often be malicious tools of evil forces and powers. We so easily make idols out of our threads, putting our trust in them. But idols always ultimately disappoint.

The man in John 5 was convinced that he needed someone to put him in the pool to get better. He had been sick for almost 40 years. He knew his limitations. He knew that he couldn’t get to the water in time. But he was also convinced that this was his only option. He was stuck.

Until Jesus turned up on the scene, and asked him an odd question: “Would you like to get well?” Well, maybe not that strange a question. Sometimes we don’t want to get well; “better the devil you know,” and all that. Sure, you might be stuck, but at least you know where you’re at in life. Because if you get unstuck, that’s going to require a massive change in your life.

The man in John 5 wanted to get well – but he had all but given up hope. He needed someone with him 24/7, on the off-chance of the water bubbling, to drag him through the crowds and into the pool first. That was his thread of hope, his last-ditch desperate gambit. Notice that he doesn’t ask Jesus for help; he just tells Jesus that he’s hopelessly stuck.

But he wasn’t dealing with just anyone! Jesus isn’t a thread of hope – He is God with us, the utterly faithful One come to invite us to life in God’s Kingdom for ever. And when Jesus told this man to get up, pick up his mat, and walk… he felt his legs changing, healing, getting energy. It felt different; he tentatively stood up… and rolled up his mat and started walking around!

This was no thread of hope; this wasn’t something for him to cling to. This was someone stepping into his life and changing things.

This man had two things going for him: he knew he was stuck, and he knew he didn’t want to stay that way. Of course, those two things are pretty useless in and of themselves. But with Jesus in the picture… everything changes.

Are there places where you are stuck? Are you honest enough to admit it? What fragile threads, which never seem to come through for you, are you clinging to? Maybe Jesus is today asking you what he asked the paralysed man in John 5 so many years ago: “Would you like to get well?”

John 5:1-15

Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. ² Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. ³ Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches. ⁵ One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”

⁷ “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.”

⁸ Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”

⁹ Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking! But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, ¹⁰ so the Jewish leaders objected. They said to the man who was cured, “You can’t work on the Sabbath! The law doesn’t allow you to carry that sleeping mat!”

¹¹ But he replied, “The man who healed me told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”

¹² “Who said such a thing as that?” they demanded.

¹³ The man didn’t know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. ¹⁴ But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.” ¹⁵ Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him.