Timing

A man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, He said to him, "Do you wish to get well?" (John 5:5-6)

This raises a very compelling question in my mind. The way that John wrote this belies something much deeper than what appears on the surface. I have to state the obvious to get it out in the open better so that what is deeper might emerge.

Jesus certainly could have seen and known the very same thing about absolutely any person that was among that crowd around the pool that day. It could just as easily been written that Jesus saw some other person and would just as surely have known their circumstances and could have spoken to them just as He did to this single individual.

So the question must be asked, Why did Jesus only talk to this one man only? Why did He heal only one person out of such a mass of desperate humanity all surely longing for healing just as much as this man longed to be healed?

Was Jesus arbitrary in picking only one man out of many who were in obvious need of help? That certainly fits the view of God that many people hold today and back then as well. But I no longer buy into that skewed thinking about God anymore, at least with my mind. My heart may still cling to those old lies, but what God has been teaching me over the past few years strongly disputes that opinion.

Was Jesus only there that day to find someone to use as a prop in order to challenge popular distorted beliefs about the real purpose and meaning of the Sabbath day? That certainly happened in the rest of this story, but again that harks back to the arbitrary idea. Of course Jesus could have healed every person around that pool that day and caused an enormous problem for the Pharisees and leaders who were so upset about people violating their Sabbath regulations. But He didn't do that and I believe there are a number of reasons that He didn't.

Was this healing solely for the purpose of making His point about the real issues revolving around the Sabbath instead of for the benefit of this man? I have a hard time buying that logic either. Right now it seems to me that Jesus wanted to do more than one thing at a time here and He did that very effectively. I also suspect that there may be a number of things that He accomplished that we are still overlooking because we haven't taken enough time to dwell on this story sufficiently to discover them.

It seems clear that one of the reasons that He healed this man had to do with an intentional purpose to create a confrontation about the issue of Sabbath observance. But I don't believe that this was the only reason that Jesus healed this man. It was just the reason for the timing as far as the day that He chose to heal this man.

So I am back to one of the first questions I had; why did John mention so specifically that Jesus saw and knew the condition of this man in distinction from doing the same for anyone else around there? And even in the previous verse he makes a note that this man was there and that he had been sick for a long time, a specific number of years. This whole setup seems to have the ring of intentionality to it, that Jesus didn't just randomly pick a man out of the crowd to heal on the Sabbath, that there must have been something unique about this man that somehow made him ripe for this encounter that quite possibly was not the case with anyone else right then.

And then the next question comes to my own mind. Why does this feel important to me right now? I don't think it is just my own intellectual curiosity that wants to be satisfied, though that can be part of it. I feel that the Spirit takes things like this from stories I am meditating on to convey something of vital importance to my own heart, something that God wants to speak to me about in my own life, that He wants to address an issue inside that resonates with something I am reading or thinking about.

I have sensed and believed for a number of years that the proper way to evangelize in the true sense of the term is to follow the example of Jesus instead of the popular methods and motives most often used by others. Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit in everything that He did and in so doing was led to people who were ready for whatever it was that He wanted to do for them right when He encountered them. Jesus did not conduct the kind of high profile evangelistic campaigns trying to reach large groups of people to convert them to His brand of religion like we so often see today. Instead, He most often made personal contact with individuals in sometimes the most unlikely circumstances and had unusual encounters with them that left them radically different than they were before.

It is easy to understand this when thinking about it in agriculture. If I go into an orchard to help pick fruit off of fruit trees, I don't generally just pick everything in sight. I look for only the fruit that is mature, that is ripe and prime for picking. The rest of the fruit is left on the tree for another day so that it can have more time to ripen. Of course many today try to circumvent this way of living by picking tomatoes, for instance, while they are almost totally green so that by the time they end up in the store they are not overripe. But we all know that there is serious loss of flavor and quality because of such practices and the tomatoes that we buy in the store simply don't measure up to home-grown, vine-ripened succulent tomatoes picked fresh and eaten in the same day.

I believe that far too often we have used the methods of the world like this last example as our model for reaching others for God. We go out and assault people with the gospel whether they show signs of readiness or not and then condemn them if they don't respond in the way and at the time that we feel they should. But I never see Jesus doing anything like that in His ministry. Jesus always seemed to have His timing right. And when people rejected Him it was never because He had tried to pressure them prematurely into accepting Him but because they made a conscious choice to prefer something else over what He had to offer them. When it comes to picking souls, unlike fruit the person themselves have a choice in whether they will be picked and saved or not.

So what seems to be emerging in this story for me at least, is that there is something here about this man being ready for this encounter with Jesus that likely was not the case with anyone else around the pool that day. Jesus was led to be drawn to this man by the Spirit who led Him just as that same Spirit wants to lead us. Because Jesus always listened and obeyed the promptings of the Spirit of His Father, He knew inside that this man was at the point in his life where he was ready to believe, he was tired of being sick to the point of being ready to embrace new life over the status quo, that his heart as well as his body was ready to move into a new way of living and thinking.

I, like many others, sometimes get frustrated with God because it seems like He is not healing me as quickly as I want Him to do. I see all sorts of problems in my life, deficiencies, bad habits, old triggers and all sorts of other things that seriously cripple my life. I plead with God to change me, to heal me, to restore me to wholeness like He did for so many other people both back then and even today. I must confess that He is doing a great deal of healing in my life, but at the same time it seems like He is doing it the slowest way possible sometimes. I wonder if He does it this way because He wants to do an absolute thorough work of healing in me instead of a dramatic, quick transformation that does not address all of the underlying issues completely. That may be part of it, but I also think there is this element of ripeness.

I sense many times that I am like a fruit ripening on a tree and that there are times when I am finally ready for some part of my heart to be healed and it is then when God suddenly shows up in unexpected ways to offer me the opportunity to choose a new kind of life over what I have know in the past, what is familiar to me. I cannot know ahead of time when that will occur, but I need to cooperate with the ripening process so that when He does show up I will be willing to answer in the affirmative to the offers He is ready to make each time.

Of course God knows how messed up I have been, far better than I know myself. This man, in response to Jesus' question to him avoided the question by talking about his problems and all the difficulties he had and all the alternatives he was pursuing for his own healing but didn't seem to listen very well to what Jesus said to start with.

How often do I take off on a tangent when God tries to offer me a moment of healing, an encounter with Him that will address some of my greatest needs? Am I so intent on procuring healing for myself through various means that I have heard about from other sources that I fail to listen carefully to what He is saying to me personally? Jesus often spoke or did the unexpected when dealing with one person to the next. He didn't always ask if a person wanted to be healed. But in this story there was a definite reason for Him to do so.

Sometimes I wonder if I am like this poor man, rambling on about this and that method of cure while the all-powerful God of the universe is patiently standing in front of me offering me what I really need and want but can't recognize because of my misconceptions about reality?

I want to be more aware of what Jesus sees when He stands in front of me offering me something I have never imagined before. I want to be aware of what Jesus is aware of, what He knows when He looks into my heart, my past, my pain and also my potential. I want to be more present when Jesus is present instead of trying to steer the conversation toward some silly alternative when all along He is waiting to give me His faith, His wholeness, His life, His healing, His joy, His love. This is something that must take place at my heart level, not just my head. The real healing that all of us need most is to have freedom from the lies about God that have kept us so afraid of Him all of our lives. For to draw close to God is to encounter life, abundant life that will bring with it healing and wholeness and thriving and real joy.

Jesus, do I want to be healed? Is that what You are asking me? You know how confused I am, just like this man by the pool. But even after all the discussion was over about other things, you still gave him opportunity to embrace your healing offer. He accepted Your words and experienced a new life that he had possibly never known before. I want to accept Your offer too even though I am just as confused as he was about what You might be saying to me. Open my eyes to see as You see and my heart to perceive what You perceive. Come to me and fill my soul with the same healing that You have for everyone who is broken and messed up and ripe for a new life in You.