(I want to listen to this sermon)

Reading:          Jn.5:1-18

Text:                Jn.5:6 "Do you want to be healed?"

Have you ever been in a queue in a supermarket? You've been waiting some time and just as you're about to unload your trolley someone pushes past with a peremptory "You don't mind if I go ahead of you, do you?"       

Or perhaps in the days when you went to the doctor's surgery and just waited your turn with everyone else apart from that person who jumped up before you could move and took your turn?

Frustrating isn't it.

Well this evening we're going to look at an encounter between Jesus and a man who knew what it was to see others regularly push ahead – he'd been in the queue for 38 years and still hadn't got to the front. But his life was about to change.

Jesus is back down in Jerusalem. It was the time of one of the regular Jewish feasts that all Jewish men should attend and as long as these feasts lasted and remained in the plan of God Jesus would attend them. Jesus was no law-breaker and it was in keeping these laws along with all the others that He was to fulfil all righteousness. He had come as a man born under the law, to live according to the law so that He might redeem those who were under the law.

In the event that unfolds we observe His redemptive processes worked out in the life of one specific individual.

While in Jerusalem Jesus visited a well-known pool near to the Sheep gate. This pool was called Bethesda. The name is significant it meant "House of mercy" and in God's providence it was a merciful place. The waters were granted unusual powers to heal – an angel troubled the waters from time to time and it was believed that the first into the waters after they had been troubled would be healed.

Thus the place became a place much frequented by sick folk hoping and longing for deliverance from their sufferings.

The day that Jesus was there the place was crowded with folk – multitudes were there suffering from a wide variety of different ailments – blind folk were there, lame folk were there and so were the paralyzed.

What a testimony to the suffering that there is in the world and our Lord Jesus was neither unaware nor indifferent to the very real suffering that He saw.

When we read the invalid's story of how he had been ill for 38 years we are made to realize that not only is there a great deal of suffering in the world but there is also a great deal of human selfishness and hard heartedness too! All those years and no-one had ever done anything to try to help this poor man with his sickness. Doubtless he had benefited from help with folk etc. on occasion but for the thing he sought most – no help was forthcoming. All those years and others had pushed repeatedly past him looking out for themselves with never a thought for him.

And all that was about to change!

So there they all were, gathered around the pool waiting for an angel to come and trouble the waters wherein they had focused all their hopes of deliverance and they were unaware who was in their midst. If only I can get into the troubled waters first was their only thought – will the angel come today and do it? And they were oblivious to the presence of the Master of a myriad of angels was walking in their very midst. There they were waiting for a messenger from Heaven when Heavens Lord who could call upon the aid of innumerable hosts of angels and at once be succoured by 12 legions of angels!

This is a sobering thing. Is there a danger that we might do the same thing? Might we be so sure that our help will come in a particular way at a particular time that we don't actually pay any heed to Jesus Christ?

As John recounts the episode we don’t hear of anyone crying out to Jesus for help, nobody seems to recognize Him at all. Oh my friends I hope that the same will not be said of us that we never recognized Jesus as the One who could help us and so we remained as we were in our own woeful state, not calling out to Him for His mercy and for His salvation.

Well if none amongst that multitude would call out to Him He would call out to one of that multitude. None seeks Christ but Christ seeks one.

But doesn't that make us want to ask questions?

Why this man? Is there something special about him?

Why only this man? Why not the others? Aren't their needs just as pressing just as great?

Let us try to reason together and see if there is anything that might help us towards the beginnings of an answer. But at the same time let us remain humble – the fact that we don't have all the answers ourselves is not the same thing at all as saying that there is no answer!

Well let's begin by remarking that this man like the others didn't approach Jesus – he didn't know who He was – so it wasn't the case that Jesus responded to any faith on the part of this particular man.

The second thing that we know about him was that he had been ill for a very long time – 38 years in fact – as he answered Jesus we find him responding with something of a hard-luck story, he has no friends and no family to help him. Jesus knew the history of this man before speaking with him – whether He made enquiries or whether it was an exercise of supernatural knowledge we don't know – and it was Jesus who began the conversation between the two of them with the asking of a direct question:

v.6 "Do you want to be healed?"

This was something of a pattern when Jesus dealt with folk in need – He often called upon them to be open with Him concerning their need and what they really most wanted.

Although superficially the question might seem strange – surely the man wanted to be made well we might think – but just think about it a little more. He had been in the same condition for 38 long years – was he really prepared for the changes that healing might bring his way?

There is a certain sympathy for the sick – allowances might be readily made for a long-term sufferer which would certainly no longer be offered to a well man.

In his condition he was almost certainly unable to work for a living and would depend upon hand-outs and the charity of others. But who would offer a hand-out to a man who was fit and well? No, he would have to start to work – was he really ready for that? As we know in our own day there are plenty of people who prefer to live on benefit rather than to work – was this man sure he wanted to be healed?

So Jesus puts His question inviting the man to reflect with some degree of seriousness on his own physical condition and to recognize openly that if he were to be made well then he needed some help.

We could be tempted to think that his needs were so evident that his response was a foregone conclusion. He was a cripple and couldn't pretend otherwise – healing was the obvious solution. But don't you know folk whose lives are so mixed up that you would think they would leap at any chance of possessing the peace that the gospel offers? And do they all jump up to receive the free gifts of God's grace? Sadly to ask the question is to know the answer already – folk may well be in need and yet not be desperate enough to humbly receive God's help.

I wonder whether you are always ready to own up to God how desperately you need and want His help or whether you prefer to plough on doing things your way?

I wonder how you read the response of the paralyzed man to the question Jesus asked him?

I wonder whether you think his response is worthy or your approval or your criticism?

a.      Did he respond positively and hopefully to this stranger who asked him a question? Did he wonder whether here was a man who might be prepared to offer him the help that had been denied him over the years? Would this stranger be willing to stay a while with him and help him into the waters should the angel trouble them soon?

So we can read his response as a simple explanation of his situation cast in a light that was designed to extract sympathy and compassion from this stranger: it is possible to interpret his response as a veiled plea for the help he though he needed in getting into the waters.

b.      Or was his the response rather of a grumpy old man to what he thought was a stupid question? Of course he wanted to be healed and he was only there because of the fact he could never get into the healing waters first. Do you see that is the reason I'm not yet healed – if I could do something for myself I'd have done it long ago?

The two answers representing two differing attitudes nevertheless point to the same and unique desire to be made well and Jesus responds to him accordingly.

And the man is immediately faced with a challenge as Jesus continues to speak to him.

This man had been an invalid for 38 years – we don't know exactly how long he had been present by the pool but the implications are that he had already been there for some considerable time as his references to others stepping down before him indicate. His whole focus, as with the others gathered by the pool, had been upon the healing waters – that was the way for a sick man to be healed – everyone knew that!

But now Jesus speaks to him and tells him to do something so completely different: how will he respond?

v.8 "Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”

Wasn't that just the strangest thing to say to a paralyzed man? The very thing he couldn't do!

Doesn't Jesus understand what his problem is? Why doesn't He just help him into the waters?

How will the man respond? He doesn't know who this stranger is and yet is influenced by Him. (Thus his situation was in marked contrast to that of the paralytic lowered through the roof in Mark's gospel.) Was it the stranger's compassion for him so different from the indifference he had grown accustomed to expect from other humans that affected him? Or was it the firm steady authority that so many others also noted when Jesus spoke and acted? Was it sheer desperation that drove him on?

Whatever it was the man did respond and as he responded he discovered that the power to obey was conveyed in the command and was exercised in the step of obedience. We're not told he felt some new power surge through his limbs and then he got up we're simply told that he was healed and immediately got up and walked picking up his bedroll thus given absolute proof of a complete healing. No staggering weakly away from him for a number of weeks in rehab as life slowly crept back into his stiff and relatively useless limbs but a complete restoration!

In his joy (or in his dullness) he doesn't even to bother to find out who this man was who had just so thoroughly turned his life around!

Now there are some lessons for us here.

Is it possible that we are so focused upon one particular way in which we believe the Lord must deal with us that we too, just like the paralyzed man, are looking for a solution in the wrong direction?  

Is it possible that we have so convinced ourselves that one way is the right way that we're not actually looking to the Lord but rather to the fulfilment of our hopes and dreams?

Is it possible that instead of casting ourselves upon Him for His grace to save us that we are still looking to secure our lives by looking in a different direction? The law is good when properly understood and applied but we make bad use of it if we think that we will be accepted by God if we could only keep it!

Are we prepared to give up our cherished dreams to allow Jesus to be Lord in our lives and to do what He tells us?

We are told to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved – that's it! We don't just need help we need faith and we need to look to Him for even that. Are you looking to Jesus or are you looking somewhere else, even to something that might be good? How often in our busy secular lives the best can be crowded out by good things – we must be oh so careful that the same be not the case in our spiritual lives. There are many good things that we can do but if they keep us from coming to the best, to Jesus Himself then they are no help to us!

The paralyzed man that day might so easily have responded to the words of our Lord that it was all impossible. He could have gone on and pleaded with the Lord to stay until the waters were troubled again and then give him some helpis grace to get his healing in the way he expected it to come. And that way he would have missed out of ever being made whole!

Don't make the same mistake and expect the Lord to bale you out in a way that meets with your approval! The Lord comes to us and offers us salvation and peace with God – He tells us that we've been wrong all along and we need to own up to that fact – this is repentance. We then need to go off in a new direction and put our faith and trust in Him and in Him alone – this is conversion. It all focuses upon Jesus and on no-one and nothing else! John will later record some more of Jesus' words in Jn.14:6:

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

Don't argue with Him, don't reject Him, but listen carefully to what He says and act upon it. Go to the Father in the name of the Son and plead for His mercy and His grace!

This man didn't deserve Jesus' help even he did have a hard-luck story to tell but He got it. He wouldn't find out who it was who had helped him so tremendously until later when once again Jesus sought him out and spoke with him some more.

Jesus did this for a man who was so dull in his understanding that he then went and effectively "shopped" Jesus to the authorities. And he must have known from the reaction of the authorities to his initial conversation with them that they looked very unfavourably upon some-one who would go against their understanding and their legalism and do good on the Sabbath and instruct a poor paralyzed man to take his bedroll home that same day.

If Jesus could do so much good for a man who has so little to recommend him either before or after then there is hope for us all!

I'm not offering you physical healing for your bodies this evening. The physical healing that Jesus carried out was not the goal of His mission in coming into the world. If you just consider the events of that day there was a whole multitude of people that were present at the pool who were blind, lame and paralyzed and we hear of only one of them being made physically well that day. If healing of the body was His immediate goal then He could have healed a multitude but He chose not to: why? The miracles He performed, acts of charity and compassion that they were, were signs that pointed out Who He really was and established His worthiness of receiving the trust of sinners.

Yes, Jesus by His life and death has secured the future well-being of His people and that includes a perfect health but that health is not to be expected in this fallen world. Sometimes healings broke through and sometimes they still do break through but these are foretastes of glory when with resurrection bodies all the imperfections of the past will be left forever behind us, every tear will be wiped away and we will serve in the power of new spiritual bodies when we are made like the Son.

What a wonderful perspective lies ahead of the believer! What a wonderful salvation has been won for us by the Saviour! Is this your Saviour? Please God that it be so!

Amen