One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew how long he had been ill, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?” “I can’t,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to help me into the pool at the movement of the water. While I am trying to get there, someone else always gets in ahead of me.” Jesus told him, “Stand up, roll up your sleeping mat and go on home!” Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up the mat and began walking! But it was on the Sabbath when this miracle was done. John 5:5-9 TLB
Have you ever felt like your prayers would work better if you had a specific step by step instructions? Or if you only had that key word or order that would unlock the answer to your needed miracle? The paralyzed man found himself in much the same situation. He saw God as healing in only one way, through the pool at Bethesda when the water was moved.
Although it was true that the pool brought healing at times, it was God who brought the healing, not the pool. He had a very limited view of God’s power. That’s why Jesus asked him, did he want to get well? Jesus wanted him to challenge his thinking about why he was still lying beside the pool after all these years. But His response is deeper than saying he needed help. What he told Jesus was the second response to why he still was not healed. The New King James version says it best, “I have no man”. Once again the mans focus is on man. This is probably because he can’t see beyond the natural, and he simply didn’t know who Jesus is. But Jesus was about to rock his world. He not only didn’t need the water, he didn’t need man helping him at all! All he needed was to see Jesus.
Jesus spoke to him with authority to pick up his bed and walk! Now why would Jesus tell him to take his mat with him? The same reason Paul said, “Old things have passed away, and all things have become new” (2 Cor. 5:17). Jesus didn’t want him to come back to where he had been held captive by his infirmity for 38 years! Instantly he received his healing, rolled up the mat and walked away. His whole focus of where healing came from changed that day and probably wondered why he didn’t know that before.
How do we know his thinking had changed? When he was questioned later by the religious leaders, he told them, the One who made me well told me to pick up my mat and walk. He no longer saw the water or other people as his healer, he now saw Jesus only. How often have we been like this man? We look to everything and everyone before we decide to look to Jesus and listen to Him no matter what we’re going through. Let’s learn from this man, whose story still resonates with us today, because Jesus will help us see Him as He truly is, becuase He is the same yesterday, today and forever.
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