Where were you thirty-eight years ago—the year 1983? It seems like a long time ago doesn’t it?
Today we read about a man who spent thirty-eight years of his life lying on a pavement in Jerusalem, hoping that someday he would be restored to health. Thirty eight wasted years! John 5:1-16)
“Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes. In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be well?’”
What a sorry scene. The Sheep Gate must have been the place where livestock were brought into the Temple area–the least important gate and probably a place that smelled like sheep. The five porches were packed with sick people, moaning and groaning and probably reeking of body odor. Among the hopeless cases was the one whom Jesus approached. Why was Jesus attracted to him? For some reason this particular man caught Jesus’ attention. The first thing Jesus asked him was “Do you want to be well?”
This question makes us wonder whether or not the man really wanted to be healed. After thirty-eight years he had probably given up. We wonder why he kept going to down to the Bethesda pool, where people, occasionally were miraculously healed. How did he respond to Jesus’ question?
“Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.”
Apparently, whenever the water was stirred God had injected healing power into it. Only the first to get into the water were healed. This man lagged behind, and no one seemed interested in helping him.
“Jesus said to him, ‘Rose, take up your mat, and walk.’ Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.”
Imagine the depth of this miracle. Thirty-eight years is a long time. Then the day came when Jesus walked by and with a word of command he sent healing into the man’s sick body. Suddenly the man had the power to walk!
It turns out, some Jews got on the man’s case for carrying his mat on the Sabbath. When they asked him who healed him, the man didn’t know. Jesus slipped into his life and suddenly disappeared again.
“The man who was healed did not know who it was (who healed him), for Jesus had slipped away…After this Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him, ‘Look, you are well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse may happen to you.”
Jesus sought out the man when he was sick, now he seeks him out when he is well. He warned him not to use his newfound freedom to go on sinning. If he turned back into his old sinful habits, something more serious might happen to him. Jesus is more concerned about the man’s relationship to God than about his physical well-being.
What can we learn from this story? Sometimes we have an affliction that lasts for years, and God seems to be turning a deaf ear. Or we may pray for an intention year after year, and an answer never comes. We never know the day when Jesus comes our way and speaks a word of command to us. Let us never give up waiting for Jesus.
“Give me back O Lord the joy of your salvation” (Ps 51:14).
