Do you wish to get well? (John 5:6)

Do you wish to get well? (John 5:6)

On the face of it, this seems like a rude question. A man has been sick for thirty-eight years, laying by a pool and begging. “Of course I want to get well! What kind of question is that?” But I believe Jesus intends for us to think about this a bit more carefully.

First of all, the man does not respond to a “yes” or “no” question with either a “yes” or a “no.” He comes up with, “there is no man to help me.” Now, this is a man who certainly needs help. But help will not heal him. He’s been sick/lame/weak/paralyzed for all these years, and helpfulness is not the same thing as healing. Care-giving is a wonderful thing, but it does not solve the problem. It seems as though Jesus is asking the question, “Do you want this problem solved?” And the man does not answer directly.

More philosophically, we might ponder, does he really want to get well? This is his life, for thirty-eight years. He has somehow learned to manage and survive in this system. His social circle is here. Life is far from perfect, but it is the life that he knows. Does he really want his life to change dramatically?

Of course, we must ask this of ourselves. Many of us have lived for more than thirty-eight years. We have our patterns and circles and support systems. We live with our liabilities, and have learned to live in spite of them, even coming to co-opt them in some ways. Do we want the kind of encounter with Jesus that changes our lives dramatically, freeing us from the current bondages to which we have become accustomed and are perhaps in love with, so that we might begin a new life in which Jesus is Lord?

Jesus steps in and gives the command: “Get up, pick up your pallet, and walk.” The man does exactly that. Jesus does not wait to be asked. He initiates a profound change in this man’s life. How does the man respond? He does not know Jesus’ identity, but later, Jesus having revealed Himself to him, the man goes back to the religious authorities and identifies Jesus as the man who broke the Sabbath, and perhaps, the man who broke the debilitating cycle of life in which the man was mired, but in which he was at home. Perhaps in the eyes of this man, Jesus had healed, but he did not see it as help.

The man seems not to have wanted the healing that he received. Jesus’ words to him are this: “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.” The man had been released from his captivity, and was now challenged to enter into a new life that would be free from a sin that Jesus knew about, and that the man knew about, but that has not been identified for us, the readers. It seems that the ungrateful man was unwilling to embrace Jesus; unwilling to embrace his wholeness; and resentful that he had to figure out a new life, alone in this world, all by himself. It seems that this story teaches us of the great peril in being “saved” and yet to not be willing to embrace the Savior and the salvation that He offers.