Do You Want to Be Made Well? by Rev. L. John Gable
January 30, 2022
(A first-person presentation of John 5:1-18)
We’re walking. We’re walking. If you are just joining us I’d like to welcome you to the walking tour of great walled city of Jerusalem. My name is Simon and I will be your tour guide. Please feel free to ask me any questions as we proceed. We are entering a rather congested area of the city as we near the temple area, so I will ask that we do our best to stay together. Let’s pause here for a moment.
If you will look back behind you, you will notice that we just passed through a gate as we entered the interior portion of the city. There are many gates around the circumference of the wall, this one is referred to as “the Sheep Gate”. Since offerings and sacrifices are a common part of our worship tradition it is necessary to have a means by which to get animals from the pasture land outside into the temple area. The Sheep Gate is so named.
Although it has a rather common use, as well as a distinct smell, this is a particularly beautiful place in which we are now standing. Please note the large columns and the five porticoes. These covered colonnades serve as shelter for many of the sick, infirmed and lame who come to sit by this pool each day. You will also notice the shallow pool around which we are standing. This is commonly called Bethzatha, though many also refer to it as Bethesda. There is an interesting story that surrounds this particular pool. Legend has it that the waters here have curative properties. It has long been believed that when the angels come to bathe in this pool they trouble the waters and the first one to follow them into the water will be cured of whatever diseases or infirmities they may possess. That is why there are so many sick, diseased and disabled here today. They are waiting for the waters to be stirred, hoping to be the first one into the pool and so be healed. Whether anyone has ever actually been healed here in this way or not I really don’t know, but the legend started and has continued. You know when people are desperate for healing they will try anything.
I tell you this story because I was one of those who came here every day. I was one of them. For 38 years I was an invalid and each and every day my friends brought me here. They would carry me on a stretcher and leave me here until evening when they came to pick me up again and carry me home. This is where I met with my friends. This is where I earned the little living I had begging for alms. This is the very spot where I sat for 38 years.
A question? Yes. How was I healed? Well, I was healed right here, but not by any moving of the waters.
One day a man came by and I could hear Him asking questions about all of the people waiting by the waters. I didn’t pay much attention to Him at first, thinking He was just another tourist. But then I thought perhaps He might be a rich tourist with a soft heart for a lame beggar, so I looked up as He walked near. Someone told Him I had been sitting here for 38 years, so He approached me and asked me the strangest question. He kind of knelt down, so that He could look me in the eyes. I remember that distinctly because no one ever does that to a beggar. Normally they just walk quickly by, perhaps dropping a coin in or near my cup. But He squatted down and said, “Do you want to be made well?”
At first I didn’t have any idea what He was talking about. I didn’t know who He was so I didn’t really know what He meant. I thought, what kind of question is that? Of course, I do. But before I could even say a single word my mind began to race. Do I really want to be healed…really?
I have known all sorts of people who complain about their lives, but don’t really want them to change. I thought first of a man I met once who had spent years in jail for crime he swore he didn’t commit. He complained constantly about how terrible the conditions were and how he couldn’t wait to get out. But once he was set free, he discovered that he didn’t like it very much on the outside either. He didn’t have a place to sleep and there was no one to bring him his food. He had to get a job and work. That man went out and committed some silly crime, so that he would get caught and go right back to jail. Ask him, do you want to be set free? And truth be told, his answer is, “No, I have grown dependent on my imprisonment.”
All of this began to run through my mind when this man asked me if I wanted to be healed. You see, as much as I hated being an invalid, there was something kind of comfortable about my life. It was safe. Sure people felt sorry for me, “poor little lame man”, they’d say, but at least they felt sorry for me. Every day they came and carried me to this pool and home again. They gave me my meals and took care of me. I earned my alms, all I really needed to get by. Every so often some kids would come and throw stones at us, but we got some pleasure out of seeing them get caught and punished. Sure I got bored sitting by the pool day after day, but at least I knew what my day was going to be like. There is some comfort in monotony and change is threatening.
The thought of walking again, of having to get a job and take care of myself, the thought of people seeing me for who I am, not just as that lame beggar down by the Sheep Gate, all of that scared me to death. After 38 years I wasn’t even sure who I was or what I could do or if I could even get by without my disability. In my own eyes I was just that lame beggar down by the Sheep Gate.
So, thinking about that, the man’s question made a lot of sense, “Do you want to be made well?” Truth is, I really wasn’t sure whether I did or not. I mean of course I wanted to walk again, but the thought of taking responsibility for myself scared me to death.
I also thought, I don’t know how I can be healed. After all that time sitting by the pool I was losing hope of ever being the first one in the water. I was certainly at a disadvantage because I couldn’t move very fast when the waters moved, and the blind were even worse off, they couldn’t even see when it happened. So I didn’t really even understand what the man was talking about. So I told him, “I can’t be healed. I have no one to put me into the pool.” That had been my excuse for years, but He kind of cut me short and said, “Stand up. Take up your mat and walk” then He got up and walked away.
That was it. No fancy words. No hockus-pockus. I thought to myself, “That was strange. I don’t know who that guy is or what He thinks He can do. I was just using Him to pass a little bit of time, hoping to get a little money out of Him”, but suddenly I felt a tingling in my toes. Now that may not be a very big deal to you, but I hadn’t felt anything in my toes for 38 years. Then a kind of fire shot up my ankles to my knees and up my legs to my hips. I didn’t really mean to, and if I’d thought about it I never would have even tried, but suddenly I just stood up. I wasn’t shaky or wobbly, I just stood there. I was as surprised as everyone else. Suddenly everything looked different. I had forgotten how tall I was because I was used to looking at everything and everyone from the ground up. In that instant, my whole world view changed.
I didn’t really know what to do, so I started to walk, just like the man said, and I didn’t stumble or trip. Nobody was saying anything, really. I think they were as amazed as I was. Then I realized, wait a minute, I don’t have to stay here any longer. After 38 years I can go home, on my own. So just like the man said, I picked up my mat, said goodbye to my friends, and started home.
Well, as I started walking a crowd began to gather around me, saying, “Hey, aren’t you that lame beggar over by the pool at the Sheep’s Gate.” I said that I was but that I had just been healed, and that started to attract some attention. That’s when the religious leaders confronted me. They told me I couldn’t be carrying my mat because it was the Sabbath. I started to laugh at how silly that seemed and told them my story about how I’d been a beggar in the same place for 38 years and how this man had come and healed me and told me to pick up my mat and walk. They didn’t seem to care about that at all. They said there are 39 specific things the law says you cannot do on the Sabbath and number 39 is you “cannot carry a bundle from one dwelling place to another”. I asked, “After 38 years do you expect me to just sit there another whole day and go home tomorrow?” They didn’t answer. They only insisted I could not carry my mat.
I suddenly found it very curious that for all that time they couldn’t have cared less about me. Day after day, year after year, they walked right past me on the way to the Temple without stopping. They didn’t care about me. They didn’t associate with me because people like me weren’t even allowed in the Temple. Now suddenly I am healed and you’d think I was some kind of a celebrity.
Then one of them asked me, “Who is it who healed you?” I really couldn’t say. I told them I didn’t get His name and by the time I got up to thank Him He was already gone. He didn’t seem like any ordinary man and certainly not like any magician I’d ever seen. He didn’t use any fancy words or magic potions. And besides I’ve seen a lot of magicians do a lot of silly tricks like pulling pigeons out of bags, but I’ve never seen one make the blind see or the lame walk. But then again He didn’t seem like any religious man I’d ever met either. He didn’t seem full of Himself, or wanting to attract a crowd of followers. He seemed genuinely interested in me and genuinely disinterested in the fact that He wasn’t supposed to heal on the Sabbath.
Those religious folks who were questioning me suddenly rushed off to try to find Him. Apparently they knew exactly who I was talking about and wanted to talk with Him, so I picked up my mat and continued on my way home.
I was taking the shortcut through the middle of the Temple courtyard when this man, this healer man, came up beside me and said, “I see that you’ve been made well! Now stop sinning so that nothing worse happens to you.” Who is this man, I wondered, who cares more for my soul than He does my feet? He told me His name is Jesus, and with that He was gone again. Much later I discovered He comes from Nazareth. He is a great teacher, as well as miracle worker, and many are calling Him the promised Messiah of God.
I told the religious people His name, but I wish I hadn’t. They started after Him and began persecuting Him for breaking their rules. I understand they are greatly threatened by what He is saying and doing.
I have told a lot of people about Him, particularly as I give my tours, but I always do so with a word of caution. Oh, don’t get me wrong. He is a wonderful man and it would be a tremendous honor for you to get to meet Him, but if you do, just be aware, He may ask you if you want to get well. Keep your distance from Him if you don’t, because once He touches you your whole life is going to change, just as mine did. You will no longer be able to hide behind whatever mask it is you are wearing. You will be set free. I know that can be a scary thing, but you don’t need to be afraid, because when Jesus sets you free, you will be free indeed. You will be given your real life again, just as I was.
I apologize, that was a very long answer to a very short question. If there are no others we will continue our tour as we head toward the Temple area. This Temple mount is in the process of being rebuilt by King Herod on the original site of the Temple King Solomon built some 900 years ago. Just ahead of us you will see that we are entering the courtyard of the Gentiles. It is crowded today, so please do your best to stay together. We’re walking. We’re walking.
This is the story of Jesus’ healing of the lame man by the pool at Bethzatha recorded in John 5:1-18. Thanks be to God.
Rev. L. John Gable
Tabernacle Presbyterian Church
Indianapolis, IN