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.

Where's the Power?

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)

I am still confronted with this question in my own heart. But I am glad that Jesus is confronting me this way. I am tired of being sick spiritually, emotionally and sometimes physically. When I am physically sick it is easier to see more clearly and want to pay attention to doing anything and everything to take better care of my health. My unhealthy indulgences suddenly come into sharp focus and I make strong promises to myself that I will put away my sloppy lifestyle after I get well and be sure to eat better foods and do all the things I need to stay healthy. The pain of being sick has a way of really putting life into perspective and making me realize how valuable good health really is.

But what is sometimes harder to be aware of is the spiritual condition of my soul and how much more sick it is than my body ever has been. I suppose that one of the problems I have is that I have never been very healthy spiritually, not healthy like Jesus was anyway. So since I have never even experienced a day where I felt totally alive, joyful, intimately connected to God and thriving, eager to bless others from a totally selfless attitude, then I don't have anything to look back to or long to return to. I have always been baffled by Jesus' statement to one of the seven churches in Revelation about returning to their first love. If a person never had a first love experience, especially when they were raised within a religious environment all of their lives and had no dramatic conversion event to look back on, then there seems to be no measurement to which to compare any other part of their life.

In a way I suppose that is not really much different than the man Jesus was talking to that day near the pool of Bethesda. It says clearly that he had been sick a long time. He may have been sick so long that he had pretty much forgotten what it was like to be anything else, if he ever was. Other than comparing his condition with those who could freely walk around that he could observe nearby, he had little to compare himself to and had little hope of any change for his life.

Yet there is something very intriguing about Jesus' question to this man. There is something very strange and compelling that Jesus would ask anyone who so obviously was in desperate need of restoration and was in such poor condition, such a strange question. The implications of this question almost sound insulting to our ears today. Which is precisely why I find it so compelling to look much deeper into this event and perceive more clearly just what was going on in this situation that can relate directly to my own circumstances and my own heart condition.

What if Jesus were to ask me this very same question today?

What if He really is asking me this question right now?

Who's to say He is not asking me this question?

To doubt that He is is to expose a heart full of doubt – which only reveals that I likely am much more sick that I might suppose.

Am I so used to being sick – emotionally, spiritually, soul-sick – am I so accustomed to living in the fellowship of sick people all around me, clamoring after this gimmick or that potion to reduce my discomfort, that living life the way God has in mind for me is just too far-fetched to even consider? Is living a healthy life such a stretch for my imagination that I am refusing to believe it can happen for me, that it is only something that could happen for others but that I am too broken for even God to repair?

As I write those words I am starting to see at least part of the conviction buried within this challenge from Jesus. Because underneath my reluctance to believe that I can live much differently than I am accustomed to living lies a bed of lies deep in my soul about how God views me. I am starting to see just a little more how much I am infected still with so many false assumptions about the heart of God toward me personally. It is so much easier to believe that God wants to heal someone else of their immense difficulties and transform them into joyful, passionate Christians living in new-found freedom from their past. But when it comes to my own heart that has been repressed, abused, stuck, wounded and full of fear of ever being seen by anyone else for so long – when it comes to my own healing it is so much easier for me to focus on all the impossibilities of my situation than it is to imagine that God might just want permission to do the impossible in my situation.

I caught a glimpse of this as I was reading today's devotional by Oswald Chambers a few minutes ago. It forced me to rethink the way I perceive my relationship to God and God's relationship to me in the gospel. The word 'gospel' is one of those tantalizing but obscure words that has eluded clear definition much of my life because it was so difficult for me to resolve the obvious conflict between the definition of this word – 'good news' – with what my heart was being taught about how God felt toward me. I found myself saying secretly that I couldn't see anything that sounded very good about the news I was hearing about God or religion. All I was seeing were long lists of requirements and demands and threats if I didn't come into line with the high standards imposed on me by 'religion'. This perception of religion has suffocated my own heart and damaged my emotions and soul for much of my life. But what I read this morning reminded me of what God has been trying to get through to me for so many years.

We are apt to make sanctification the end-all of our preaching. Paul alludes to personal experience by way of illustration, never as the end of the matter. We are nowhere commissioned to preach salvation or sanctification; we are commissioned to lift up Jesus Christ (John 12:32). It is a travesty to say that Jesus Christ travailed in Redemption to make me a saint. Jesus Christ travailed in Redemption to redeem the whole world, and place it unimpaired and rehabilitated before the throne of God. The fact that Redemption can be experienced by us is an illustration of the power of the reality of Redemption, but that is not the end of Redemption. (My Utmost for His Highest : February 1)

After I read this and then opened my Bible to come back to the story of this sick man, it struck me that I have focused so much more on the condition of this sick man anytime I read this story instead of on the fact that standing in front of this man was a God who was all-powerful, who had instant connections with all the resources of the universe at His command, who had the perspective of eternity at His disposal and in comparison to what was all around Him everything else sank into near total insignificance. A poor analogy would be if the president of the richest company in the world were to stand in front of a poor beggar and ask if he wanted any money. Given that perspective it is easier to see that the real focal point of my attention should not be so much on all the difficulties or circumstances that surround this beggar's life but the incredible potential that is being offered to him that is only a choice away.

I am convicted from Oswald's words here and in the words of Jesus that I need to train my mind to think and dwell far more on the reality of what God is like as well as what He is really offering in order to eclipse the nonsense of how much I think my problems seem to have power over me. The only power that the enemy can maintain in my life is the extent to which I give him that power by believing his lies about me and about God. I am starting to realize that it is my choice of how to view reality that gives or removes power from the chains and bars that still imprison my heart and mind.

Yes, I too have been sick a very long time. But I want to be made whole. Jesus, save me from my own resistance and unbelief!

Emerging Pattern

In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, waiting for the moving of the waters. (John 5:3)

I just noticed what seems to be a pattern emerging from this verse. As I look back over the stories that John is relating so far in this book, I see a deepening of the situations in each story as far as sick people are concerned.

At the beginning of this book, Jesus turns water into wine at a wedding. There is nothing in this story about sick people at all, just people who are celebrating life but find themselves in a quandary concerning their party supplies.

Next Jesus disrupts the routine way religion is performed at the temple in Jerusalem, the same general area where this current story takes place. Again there are not apparently any sick people involved, at least physically. But there is some serious spiritual sickness being exposed which does not appear in the previous story.

After that Nicodemus shows up at night as one of the leaders of the religious establishment trying to negotiate and maybe mediate with Jesus. Again Jesus exposes a far deeper level of spiritual ignorance and sickness than can be seen by anyone else. But still there is no physical sickness involved.

After that John relays the story of the people of Sychar in Samaria. This time, especially from a Jewish perspective, there are people who might be considered spiritually sick and even worse than dogs in the eyes of His disciples. Yet Jesus confounds the presumptions and prejudices of His disciples about the labels and the hearts of various people groups and wins over a whole town into trusting Him as their Saviour. But still there is no hint of a miracle involving a physically sick person.

However the next story does involve both a sick person physically as well as a very sick person spiritually. The father of a sick boy is so filled with doubt about Jesus that it is only his desperation concerning the health of his son that drives him to risk talking to Jesus, begging Him to heal his son. Likely he had tried everything else and was only coming to Jesus because he couldn't think of anything else to try. However, Jesus confronted him with his serious faith deficit and exposed this nearly fatal spiritual sickness which prompted this man to not only accept healing for his own heart but his whole household entered into belief with him on top of the physical healing of his son.

But in that story we still are only beginning to be introduced to the fact that Jesus may be interested in more than just spiritually confronting people about their belief condition. For the first time in this book we are starting to see that He can do more than just invite people through various ways to move out of unbelief and trust Him as their Savior. He now begins to demonstrate in a small way that He is also interested in physical sicknesses as well. But still it only involves a single sick boy, and this from quite a distance, not up close and personal.

Now as I move into chapter five I suddenly see this reference to a whole arena full of sick people in which the story is set. John now described there to be a whole a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered... This is in contrast to no references so far in this book to any sick people at all except for the single sick boy from a distance referred to in the last story. Now Jesus is shown as walking around amidst masses of sick people; and yet strangely enough He only focuses on one single individual out of all these multitudes of potential healings. That too seems to be an odd and interesting fact that raises more questions. But it certainly fits the pattern of progression that I am seeing here as far as the type of activities that Jesus is doing as John deliberately takes us through his narrative, showing us vital lessons of what God is like in the person of Jesus Christ.

Do You Want to be Healed?

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 5:6)

There is so much deep and intensely important lessons in this verse that I can see I may be here for some time. These words of Jesus resonate very deeply in my own heart as a means of confronting me just as He did this sick man, making me face my own inner motives, attitudes and paradigms.

Do you wish to get well?

At first this seems like a no-brainer. What a silly question! Why, anyone can see how obvious the answer to this question would be. Or is it so obvious?

Do you really want to be well?

Or are you so used to living in dysfunction that you may find it too uncomfortable to be free of all those familiar ways and co-dependencies and crutches you have used for so long. Are the props and excuses that you have arranged all around you so important to you that you are actually loathe to give some of them up in exchange for a radically different life? This new existence will not only involve a healed body but more importantly a healed soul where you will have to face the requirements of being more responsible for yourself and your actions.

You think this is a no-brainer and that the question itself is something of an insult to your intelligence. But that feeling of insult itself may be a warning signal that far deeper down inside there are false beliefs and assumptions buried under years of sickness that justify your views of reality and the ways things are or should be for you. You have been living most of your life now with this sickness and may not even be able to remember living any other way. You may have spent years living in the midst of a whole clutch of people who likewise live in disabilities, sicknesses, dysfunction and pain who share similar assumptions about how God feels about you.

Do you want to be well?

Ah, now some of the deeper issues are beginning to emerge. What is your gut-level picture of God and how He views your situation? I am not talking about just your theological beliefs and professions about what and who God is, I am talking more importantly about your heart feelings that have a way of subtly insisting they are more true than what anyone else could ever say about God. I am a Stranger who suddenly has shown up in the crush of the crowd around you, who looks no different than any other man walking by except that I am daring to challenge your whole paradigm of reality by asking what at first seems like a blatantly stupid question like this. But this question has a way of exposing many assumptions deep inside that you have never thought were important enough to challenge before because they are shared by so many you have lived around for so long. But I ask again,

Do you want to be well?

The seeming absurdity of this question has the ability to bring all sorts of other questions very quickly to the surface. And the direction that you choose to have these questions to take your mind will reveal your even deeper beliefs about how I feel about you, about principles of life and the way things really are. Are you ready to question your status quo? Are you ready to let go of your daily routine, of your beliefs about magical cures or mystical options in favor of trusting a total Stranger who is standing before you suddenly able to read your heart and your thoughts? What are you going to do with Him? His questions are uncomfortable but somehow compelling and intriguing. Are you ready to be different from everyone around you, to change your beliefs about what you really need and the methods God might use to bless you and empower you?

Do you want to be well?

Are you at the point in your life yet where you are sick and tired of being sick and tired? But the option I am offering you may look and feel so unfamiliar that you will be strongly tempted to doubt its viability. What evidence do you have upon which to make such a radical decision? Why should you take action based on such little proof to go on? All you have known your whole life is being brought up for question now and a whole new way of perceiving reality is being offered you. But this is all so unfamiliar and strange and unlike anything you have ever dared to think about before that it requires some vitally serious choices on your part before you can know what is beyond the next step. It means that you are going to have to trust in My word alone without having the benefit of observing others coming to freedom ahead of you.

Do you want to be healed?

Here we are, Me standing in the midst of a busy crowd of people pushing and shoving and involved in religious activities, hurrying around to fulfill their supposed religious obligations and expectations on this Sabbath day while inattentive to the needs and pain of those around them, preoccupied with religious formalities and schedules. We both live in a society with strong religious restrictions and expectations about proper behavior and severe limitations on what a person can do or say or even how far they can walk. Yet all of these restrictions are designed to reinforce pictures of a God who is severe and exacting and demanding and must be properly appeased in order to remain on His good side.

You are very familiar with all of this, but do you realize the implications that these rules and expectations have on your opinions about God and about life and about who does or does not deserve to be healed? You are also familiar with the superstitious notions that have grown up in your culture about what might bring about your healing. That is why you spend so much of your time here at this particular pool, because it seems to be the only faint hope you have left for healing even though all the odds are stacked against you. Its almost like playing the lottery. But you have determined to hang onto hope anyway even though it is obviously far beyond your reach to meet all the social demands and physical requirements necessary to get even the chance of supposed healing from the stirring of the waters.

But tell me, what are you going to place your faith in now? Do you have so much confidence that these mysterious water movements can really bring healing to your crippled condition that you will remain here for as long as it takes, hoping for a way to get into the water first ahead of all who are obviously more alert and capable than you are? Is this going to be your focus of attention, the god you depend on the rest of your life? Or are you ready to let go of these dubious attempts to cure yourself and place your trust in Someone you have never met before but whose words and demeanor resonate deep within your soul as a Man who just might know what He's talking about?

Do you want to be healed?

I detect inside of your heart a growing unrest with the kind of mutual beliefs about reality that are shared with everyone around you. I sense that you have started questioning the truth of what everyone else accepts as common knowledge, conventional wisdom, the way things must be as accepted by all the other sick and hurting people that fill this place. Something inside of you has been stirring your spirit with questions and has been challenging even your own beliefs about what God is really like. Yet you have also been confronted with the obvious reality of your own condition and the severe limitations of your ability to function in health and wholeness. These limitations have corroborated the expectations of society about your emotional and spiritual limitations as well and you have been grappling inwardly for some time now about the real truth of what God must be like.

Has God forgotten you or just been ignoring you? If He really cares about people why does He leave you hurting and impotent for so long? Based on what you have heard in the traditions and teachings of the religious leaders it may seem that God certainly must not care very much about people like you. In fact, it is commonly accepted that when you are stuck with problems and your life is filled with trials and/or sicknesses that God is upset with you and is punishing you for something that He expects you to correct before He will bless you again.

But is this really true, or is it all nothing but a big sham, religious manipulation to control people? Are you even allowed to think such radical thoughts or do you feel God might notice what is going on inside of your heart and see you as an insurrectionist? If God were to show up in person right now and confront you about what you have been allowing to float around in your thinking, would He be mad at you and demand that you re-conform you thoughts to the assumptions and assertions of the religious mainstream? Or might He be surprisingly different that anything you had ever encountered before?

Do you want to be healed?

You sense a feeling of urgency growing inside of you as you realize that this Stranger with His most unusual question may likely not stay very long. He expects an answer soon. He may be swept away by the crush of the crowd at any moment never to be seen again. You sense that you may be facing a moment of opportunity like you have never had or may never see again if you don't respond quickly. What are you going to say? Are you going to give a litany of excuses why you are not well yet? Do you tell Him all about your logistical problems with your perceived options? Does that really impress Him at all or even address the question He has asked you? Or do you feel the increasing pressure as His question forces you to face what is much deeper in your heart, the real struggles that you have not shared with anyone else, your frustration with God and with life for the way you feel you have been mistreated?

All of these thoughts and emotions are flowing through my own heart this morning in a surprising and challenging way for me personally. I hear God saying these things to my own mind even as I write them out one after the other. As I said at the beginning, there is a rich mine of healing here in this passage and I intend to not only flush out as much as I can find but far more importantly I want to encounter this radical Jesus speaking His offers of life and healing to me and to respond in ways that allow Him to do whatever He wants to do in me just as He did so long ago at that pool of Bethesda.

Father, I want to say that yes, I do want to be healed. But I also sense that You are pushing me to look deeper and deeper inside to expose weaknesses in my assertion rooted in hidden lies about You that You want to expose, challenge and replace with diamonds of glory about Your true character. Do whatever it takes to cleanse me of all my false feelings and beliefs about You and fill me with the glory of Your truth and Your presence today so that others will be drawn to want healing from You too.