Imagine with me the scene unfolding in John 5…
I was laying in my little section of the five tier porch front, facing the Pool of Bethesda. This was my normal, it is all I have ever known. I faithfully come every morning, in hopes to be the one healed from the water. I have inconvenienced family members, neighbors, even strangers to get me to the pool. On this particular Sabbath, I was minding my own business trying to devise a plan on how to get myself in the waters when they started to stir. I knew I was going to have to be dependent on another person, but everyone around me was crippled as well, wanting just as much to be healed. So there I sat, trying to think of a strategic plan quickly loosing hope and finding contentment in my circumstance. Then a man came to me, asking if I wanted to be healed. Right away my mind started to go over every possible plan I have thought of for the past 38 years. I explained to him that “I have no one to put me into the pool, and even if I did, someone always was quicker to jump in before me. I have no hope of being the favored one to win the healing for today.” The man quickly replied and said to get up, take up my bed, and walk. I thought he was joking. He knew I was paralyzed, so it was impossible not only for me to get up and walk, but to get up and walk with my bed in tow. Carrying my bed would take just as much energy for me, and it would be impossible. But for that split second I thought, “could this guy be for real.” What did I have to lose, up to this point, none of my plans have worked anyways… so I decided to go for it. I got up, rolled up my sleeping mat, and walked! A crowd of people came up to me asking who had healed me, and by the time I turned around to point, he was gone. I walked around the temple for hours, still trying to grasp what had just happened back at the pool. Then the same man found me again, and told me “see, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”
I wonder how many times throughout my life, Jesus intentionally sought me out and I didn’t even notice because I was so focused on the contentment of my circumstances. Just look at the man at the pool, after 38 years, which is nearly 14,000 days… every day was like the last. I am sure he had little to no hope. There was no doubt he probably thought “This only happens to other people. I’m not the kind that ever gets the healing. It could never happen to me. It’s always someone else that gets the blessing. I deserve what I have. I don’t deserve healing.” But yet we find the Messiah right in front of him ready to perform a miracle on the five tier porch of the pool. Jesus could have totally went on a healing crusade with the hundreds of other paralyzed people at the pool, but He didn’t, He miraculously sought out this one life.
Jesus has done that for me! He has taken my troubled, excuse filled life, and made it whole. He did it 14 years ago in the quiet of my room as a 12 year old little girl… and the humbling part is, He has continued to do it every day since. I fall short, I focus on the water when I should be focusing on Jesus; but yet He still seeks me out. I give Him a list of excuses; but yet He still seeks me out. Christ is all I need, and I believe this miracle in John 5 proves that. It wasn’t the angel that healed him. It wasn’t the water. It wasn’t the person who carried the man in the water. It was Jesus! He is the One that can heal with a simple word, He is the One who can forgive any sin, and He is the One true Master of the “Mercy House”.
Do you want to be healed today? Today is your day. Through Christ you find that you can do what you have always failed to do. You can be what you could never be. You can master what has constantly baffled you. You can love like you could never love before, and can forgive those you’ve never been able to forgive… including yourself. You are not too far away where Christ can’t reach you. You are not a hopeless case. Maybe it has been 38 years or maybe it has felt like 100… but you haven’t done so much wrong that Christ can’t redeem and heal you. Jesus has said, “take up your mat and walk.” Are you going to answer?
