There’s a man who had been ill for 38 years. An invalid lying by the pool, waiting for healing when the waters are stirred up. 38 years is a long time to wait for healing. And Jesus knows he’s been there for a long time. So the question he asks, is a strange one:

“Do you want to be made well?”

Clearly the man wanted to be made well.

But there is no joyous “yes.” Why not? We are not told. But one possibility is that he knew it was the Sabbath. And he knew the rules of Sabbath. That all “work” ceased on that day, even healing.

You’d think that Jesus might have waited an extra day knowing it was Sabbath. After 38 years of waiting, another day would hardly matter. But, Jesus knew that the Kingdom of God was a tide. It was the Spring surge of new life. It was a wave moving relentlessly to the shore.

At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus quoted the Prophet Isaiah:

The Spirit of the Lord… has anointed me to bring good news to the poor… release to the captives… sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.

The Spirit of the Lord was upon him and the Kingdom of God had come. It would not wait – not even for the Sabbath. You could no more stop the power of the Kingdom of God brought by Jesus than you could have stopped the earth turning around the sun.

The man does not say yes. And his response is as strange as Jesus’ question. After 38 years, you’d think he’d take the offer, Sabbath or no Sabbath. You’d expect a joyous, “Yes, please heal me!’ Instead he says, “There is no one to put me into the pool, and someone always gets there ahead of me.” Maybe 38 years of being ill left him depressed and with little hope. Even when the Kingdom of God came to him and the King himself came in power to him, he could not reach out for it.

Despite all this, Jesus’ authoritative words “Take up your mat and walk” bring healing. This invalid of 38 years is healed – instantly. He does take up his mat, and begin to walk.

But read further, and you wonder…

…where is the gratitude? Even if he didn’t know who Jesus was, where is the amazement? Where is his desire to fall at the feet of the man who healed him and say “Thank you Lord,” or “Who are you that you have healed me?”

Where is his sense of awe – his realisation that God was at work in his life?

Follow the man as he walks off, and you discover that he hasn’t even asked those around him who Jesus was. Can you believe it? He has not bothered to find out who healed him! He bumps into the Jewish leaders. They confront him… They don’t care that a man has been healed after so many decades. He’s carrying his Mat! On the Sabbath! How dare he!

The former invalid explains that the man who healed him had told him to carry his mat. In the presence of God’s power, this man and the Jewish leaders focus on the carrying of the mat that violated Sabbath law.

We follow the man as he goes to the Temple where he meets Jesus again. And Jesus tells him “See, you have been made well.”

Incredible isn’t it?

That such an act of love, mercy and healing, has to be pointed out to the man who experienced it, to make him appreciate what God had done for him.

Jesus, adds “Do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.” What sin? Well, there is one glaringly obvious one…. and it isn’t the violation of the Sabbath. It is unbelief and ingratitude. In the face of God’s grace extended to him, unasked, the man shows no response. Instead, he returns to the Jewish leaders – who didn’t care about him, and who hated Jesus – and he tells them who his healer was.

After the miraculous healing, the man leaves with no interest in or passion for the Lord of life and light and healing. Instead, at the end of the story, we find out that he has set the Jewish authorities on Jesus’ trail. His response to being healed was the betrayal of Jesus.

 

It is incredible. Every time I read this story, I am baffled by this man’s response. How could he not have felt joy about what Jesus had done for him? How could he not have wanted to know who he was?

 

I wonder if sometimes we are that man? We may be crippled (physically, emotionally, spiritually) for years – even decades – with some “sickness” or “hurt” within. We wait for healing and freedom, but when Jesus asks if we want to be healed, we do not respond. On the other hand, if he does heal us, we forget it, and walk away.

I am reminded of the ex-leper in the film Life of Brian. When asked who cured him, the ex-leper replies, “Jesus did, sir. I was hopping along, minding my own business. All of a sudden, up he comes. Cures me. One minute I’m a leper with a trade, next minute my livelihood’s gone. Not so much as a by your leave. ‘You’re cured mate.’”

The ex-leper longs for his old life. So Brian asks: “why don’t you go and tell him you want to be a leper again?”

To which the ex-leper replies, “Ah, yeah. I could do that, sir. Yeah. Yeah, I could do that, I suppose. What I was thinking was, I was going to ask him if he could make me a bit lame in one leg during the middle of the week. You know, something beggable, but not leprosy, which is a pain…”

 

Jesus asks us, ‘do you want to be healed?’

“Do you want to be healed of your bitterness?
“Do you want to be healed of your unforgiving attitude to people who have hurt you?”
“Do you want to be healed of your anger, and the damage you do to others?”
“Do you want to be set free from the things that trap you?”
“Do you want to live your life to the full?”

We often don’t want Jesus interrupting our comfortable existence. We don’t like our lives being shaken up. We prefer safety and maybe, like the ex-leper, we want to hold on, just a little, to our wounds. Freedom and new life can be scary, challenging. Carrying on as we are feels safe.

But Jesus is offering us a new life where we are healed and restored.

Last week, Josh, Ben Cavan, Trudi and ______ were baptised. Then they together with Callum, James, Kobe, Karl, Cara, Ben McCullough, Trudi and Andrea were confirmed. At the services, Bishop Harold and later Simon, asked them these questions. The same questions we were asked at our baptism and confirmation:

Do you turn to Christ as Saviour?
Do you submit to Christ as Lord?
Do you come to Christ as the way, the truth and the life?

Turning to Christ as Saviour and Lord is to begin to be healed of all that is broken and damaged in our lives. This is the journey we have all begun at some stage in our lives.

Those confirmed last week will be sharing in the Communion for the first time. You are coming as the people of God’s Kingdom to the table of the King you have promised to follow for the rest of your life. Together we will remember his body and blood, his Death and Resurrection that become for us a source of healing and salvation, our restoration as the children of God.

In a way, Jesus is asking us – each of us – the same question he asked the man by the pool:

Do you want to be healed?