Jesus Came To Heal Us
What Jesus Came To Do - Part 4 of 4
John 5:1-15
When you look around at the people who attend church with you on Sunday, what do you see? Do you see impressive people, dressed in fine clothes who have it all together? Or do you see people in need of comfort; troubled in need of hope and peace; sick people who need healing?
As we finish up the series, What Jesus Came to Do, we will take one last look at what Jesus came to earth to accomplish, and what he can accomplish in our lives. We have already concluded that Jesus came to change people’s lives. This time we catch a glimpse of how Jesus changes people’s lives through his interaction with a man who is lame or paralyzed in John 5, whose sickness reaches down into his soul. Jesus brings an offer of healing.
All of us are familiar with some level of soul sickness. All of us experience things that make the words of Psalm 130 come alive: "Out of the depths, I cry to you, O Lord," or Psalm 142:6, "Listen to my cry for I am in desperate need."
Marshall Hayden wrote an article a few years ago entitled, "Would Every Non-Hurter Please Stand Up?" He pointed out that people come to church wearing their best clothes and their best smiles. Everybody looks happy, so we assume everything is okay. But he suggests that we need to look beyond the facade and realize that the pews are full of hurting people.
It is as T. S. Eliot has written:
You neglect and belittle the desert,
The desert is not remote and southern tropics.
The desert is not only around the corner
The desert is squeezed into the pew next to you.
The desert is in the heart of your brother.
Marshall Hayden draws the following picture of a church.
"Over here is a family with an income of $550 a week and an outgo of $1000.
"Over there is a family with two children who, according to their dad, are ’failures.’ ’You’re stupid. You never do anything right,’ he is constantly telling them.
"The lady over there just found a tumor that tested positive.
"The Smith’s girl has a hole in her heart.
"Sam and Louise just had a nasty fight. Each is thinking of divorce.
"Last Monday, Jim learned that he was being laid off.
"Sarah has tried her best to cover the bruises her drunken husband inflicted when he came home Friday night.
"That teen over there feels like he is on the rack, pulled in both directions. Parents and church pull one way; peers and glands pull the other.
"Then there are those of us with lesser hurts, but they don’t seem so small to us: an unresponsive spouse, a boring job, a poor grade, a friend or parent who is unresponsive … on and on the stories go. The lonely, the dying, the discouraged, the exhausted, they’re all here."
"I wonder if Christ could heal my _____________." That is for you to fill in. What is it that produces a sense of soul sickness within you? What part of your life is in the most need of Christ’s healing touch? As you write that down it will help you as we hear about the cure for what ails us.
Jesus brings healing to the man, a healing that has three facets to it. As we read through the story, I will share with you some thoughts on each of the ways Jesus can restore health, the same healing that is offered to us today. The first facet of healing is how we would normally think of health.
1. Jesus Restores Physical Health
1 Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. 2 Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches.
3 Crowds of sick people - blind, lame, or paralyzed - lay on the porches.
The pool of Bethesda was a periodic warm water spring that is still active today. These sick people were at this particular pool because there was a tradition that this pool had miraculous healing qualities.
The story continues …
5 One of the men lying there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him and knew how long he had been ill, he asked him, "Would you like to get well?"
The man is described as an invalid. That description may mean that he had lost use of the muscles in his legs for some reason or he had experienced some kind of paralysis. Additionally, we have no real about how much of his life he had been in this state. It is possible that was a birth defect, and equally possible that he became this way because of a debilitating disease or accident.
We don’t know how Jesus to knew how long the man had been sick. Perhaps it was because Jesus entered into conversation with the man. He spent a little bit of time talking and getting acquainted, and the length of his illness became a matter of discussion. It would only be normal to assume that Jesus engaged this man in conversation just as he had the woman at the well in Samaria because he wanted to change his life. Transformation of a person’s life always seems to begin with a person engaging with Christ.
7 "I can’t, sir," the sick man said, "for I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred up. While I am trying to get there, someone else always gets in ahead of me."
Legend stated that an angel would come down and stir the water periodically, and the first person into the pool would be cured of their sicknesses, diseases and disabilities. At this point, notice that there is no recognition of Jesus as a potential healer, and his mind is fixed on the supposed curative powers of the water. It is at this point Jesus speaks again.
8 Jesus told him, "Stand up, pick up your sleeping mat, and walk."
Just like the instructions given to the man born blind to wash the clay from his eyes at the pool of Siloam, Jesus gives this man a very ordinary action to perform. And again, we see that it is in very ordinary steps of obedience to God that miracles are possible, for the text says …
9 Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up the mat and began walking!
Jesus still heals.
Last January, we all heard the news that Donna Shive, Geoff’s mother, had been diagnosed with cancer. The cancer was seriously spread throughout her body and there were even signs that it had begun to spread to the bones. Immediately, we, as well as many others, began to pray for her over the next several months. In June, Donna was tested for cancer, and no sign of cancer was found. The speed at which the prognosis had changed was surprising. The doctor’s remark was that the chemotherapy treatments had worked. However, Donna said, "It was the prayers."
However, sometimes the physical healing is not removal of the symptoms. It is what Paul, when he asked God to three-times remove his thorn in the flesh, calls grace sufficient enough to make it through. It is being assured of God’s goodness to the extent of trusting him in spite of failing health. Which leads me to the second facet …
2. More Importantly, Jesus Restores Emotional Health
6 When Jesus saw him and knew how long he had been ill, he asked him, "Would you like to get well?"
7 "I can’t, sir," the sick man said, "for I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred up. While I am trying to get there, someone else always gets in ahead of me."
Can you imagine the scene that this man is describing. Perhaps hundreds of men and woman scattered around this pool on the five different patios. Some are stricken with paralysis, blindness, and deafness. Perhaps others have varieties of cancer, heart disorders, or debilitating cases of asthma. Maybe some are the more serious cases of dandruff, hangnails and warts. When the water is stirred there is a mad rush to the pool. Obviously there would be pushing and shoving that would be part of the rush to be first. I have to wonder how many times there was a slight movement of the water and an ensuing rush to the pool. The cold plunge into the pool, and then "Oops, false start! Everybody return to the starting line. It was just the wind!"
Who are the ones to get in first? Is it those with the serious illnesses and disabilities? No, it’s the ones with the cases of halitosis and athlete’s feet. Do you catch the injustice of the entire situation? Continuously those with the serious situations would return to their places disillusioned and disappointed.
One commentator says about this scene: "The man who had lain there 38 years, like all the others was a victim of a kind of religion that supposed a tradition or legend which was inherently cruel and vicious. They were drawn to the pool with hope of healing. The whole fly-swarming, foul-smelling scene is a judgment upon a popular religion that favors the adequate and sufficient and holds out nothing before those in most extreme need."
Have you ever personally been around that pool? Where you were in desperate need of a word of encouragement, a renewed sense of peace, you needed healing in your body, your marriage, your family, a friendship, or on the job, or you just needed someone to come around you and lift you up. And the healing just don’t come. And hope comes crashing to the ground.
For many of us life has been very smooth: health, prosperity, happiness. How would you feel if the rug of security were jerked out from under you at this very moment?
That is how this man had felt for 38 years. Time after time after time, he had allowed his hopes to rise, with the movement of the water, only to have them crushed by the waves of people arriving in the pool ahead of him. He, as well as some of us, really knew the meaning of the first part Proverb 13:12- "Hope deferred makes the heart sick." You can see the discouragement and sense of hopelessness in his response to Jesus’ question.
Notice the question from Jesus, "Would you like to get well?" A simply question of grammar. What are the answers to that question? There are only really two. Yes or No. Yea or Nay. Does this man answer Jesus’ question. No, not really! He could have said, "No, I have a lot of money to loose from my begging if I were made well. He could have said, "Yes, but someone always beats me to the water." But he simply says, "It ain’t gonna happen!" Not only did he not see Jesus as a Healer he didn’t even see him as someone who could help him into the water. He had no hope of ever being healed. The man’s situation looked hopeless.
Years ago an S-4 submarine was rammed by a ship off the coast of Massachusetts. It sank immediately. The entire crew was trapped in a prison house of death. Every effort was made to rescue the crew, but all ultimately failed. Near the end of the ordeal, a deep-sea diver, who was doing everything in his power to find a way for the crew’s release, thought he heard a tapping on the steel wall of the sunken sub. He placed his helmet up against the side of the vessel and he realized it was Morse Code. He attached himself to the side and he spelled out in his mind the message being tapped from within. It was repeating the same question. The question was, from within: "Is … there … any … hope?"
That is the question that all of us have uttered at some point in our lives. When we have grabbed a hold of our dreams like a paper moon and it crumpled in our hands and left us falling. When we sat by the deathbed of someone we love. When we waited through months of treatments. When we have sat broken, abused, or abandoned. We have asked that question, "Is there any hope?"
No matter how trapped you feel in your situation, God can minister to your deepest need. Don’t let a problem or hardship cause you to lose hope. Jesus can help you claim the truth of the second half of Proverb 13:12: "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life." That is the promise that he held out to this man. It is the promise that he extends to us.
But physical healing, and emotional healing are not Jesus’ primary concern.
3. Jesus’ Greatest Desire is to Restore Spiritual Health
14 But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, "Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you."
Although we discovered last week that illness is not always the result of sin, we could read into Jesus’ statement that the reason for the man being lame was a problem with sin. Some sins have direct physical consequences, like sexual promiscuity and over 230 different kinds of S.T.D.s, of which AIDS is only a small threat, which is further complicated by the possibility of pregnancy, or the myriad of emotional scars. Or consider the man who was dying of cirrhosis of the liver because of years of alcohol abuse, crying out, "Why did God do this to me?" The answer is he didn’t! That’s like a chronic liar asking, "Why doesn’t anyone trust me?" Or maybe you are experiencing poor marital health because of a relationship on the side, pornography, or years of emotional abuse or neglect. Perhaps what is keeping you from an emotionally and physically healthy life is a problem of sin. So you find yourself mired in emotional or relational turmoil, unable to experience the healing that you desire, because you won’t give up the sin that got you there.
It is equally possible that Jesus is not pointing to the direct consequences of sin. What he is point at is the ultimate consequence of a life lived apart from God. If this man thought his paralysis was terrible, it would be nothing compared to the eternal consequences of living a life separated from God. Maybe it was hot, laying out on those porches in the Middle Eastern heat day after day, but it was nothing compared with the scorching heat of hell. Maybe thirty-eight years seemed like a long time, but it’s nothing compared to eternity.
The notes in the Life Application Bible say about vs. 14: "This man had been lame, or paralyzed, and suddenly he could walk. This was a great miracle. But he needed an even greater miracle - to have his sins forgiven. The man was delighted to be physically healed, but he had to turn from his sins and seek God’s forgiveness to be spiritually healed." The point that Jesus wants to drive home for this man, and for us, is that no amount of healing, physical or emotional, is going to make any real difference for us, if our spiritual health is not restored. Anything else is just a temporary fix.
That is ultimately what Jesus came to do. What each of us has spiritually wrong with us is ultimately and eternally fatal. But Jesus came to restore us to spiritual health. That purpose for his coming is clearly written in the pages of Scripture. Isaiah 53:5 - But he was wounded (circle wounded) and crushed (circle crushed) for our sins. He was beaten (circle beaten) that we might have peace. He was whipped (circle whipped), and we were healed! (underline healed). Or 1 Peter 2:24 - He personally carried away our sins (circle carried away) in his own body on the cross (circle cross) so we can be dead to sin and live what is right. You have been healed (underline healed) by his wounds! (circle wounds). What do those two verses tell us. The entire story of Jesus, his coming to earth, his ministry, and especially his death and resurrection can be summed up by he came to bring us healing for the fatal effects of sin.
How do we get that healing? Very simply, Jesus tells the man who had been healed, stop sinning. Jesus’ words carry an echo of 2 Chronicles 7:14. And if we break down that verse as a model, it tells us the antidote for spiritual healing.
"If my people who are called by my name" - The first thing that needs to happen is we need to enter into a relationship with God. That what "called by my name" means. It’s like a wife taking the name of her husband. We come to God and say, "Yes, I want to enter into a relationship with you because of what Jesus did on the cross for me."
Now this is not about being a member of a church. It isn’t about doing religious activity. It is carrying on a life-giving relationship with God. It’s about investment in a loving relationship where we receive God’s love and love him in return.
If you haven’t done that than in just a moment we are going to give you the opportunity of taking a step in that direction. If you are ready to enter into that kind of loving relationship with God, in a few moments I will invite you to come forward as we sing, and share with us your desire to enter into a new relationship with God.
But then entering that relationship means, we "will humble themselves", which put in its simplest terms means we accept Christ as boss. We stop living as if we were in charge of our lives, and let Christ be in charge. You know as well as I that the reason for sin in our lives is not like the early 70’s explanation says, "The Devil made me do it." It is our own self-centered living, which is the real reason for the sin in our lives. You know what I mean. You have done it, and I have done it. Then we turn to God for answers. That what it means to "pray and seek my face". And lastly, we abandon our life of sin, we leave sin behind, "and turn from their wicked ways."
And what is the result. Just look. "Then I will hear from heaven", our relationship with God is restored. "And forgive their sins, we will receive forgiveness for all the times we have done our own thing. And lastly, "And heal their land", there it is spiritual healing. Whatever you had written at the very beginning, here is where real healing happens. Anything short of this is just a temporary fix.
Let’s take one more look at the story of the healed man, and then we will close. The spiritual prospects didn’t look so good. After the healing, the Pharisees questioned him about who it was who told him to take us his mat and walk because he was breaking the law. At that point, he didn’t even know, so when Jesus searches him out again, and offer him spiritual health, he finds out who it was that healed him. Jesus had returned to him the use of his physical body. Jesus had restored to him a reason for hope. But look at the picture that we are left with of this event.
15 Then the man went to find the Jewish leaders and told them it was Jesus who had healed him.
After Jesus gives this man a pair of fresh legs, all he can do is turn Jesus in. A tattle-tale. This is not a story of faith. There is no indication that this man ever made a move toward Christ. It’s ultimately a rejection of what Jesus really came to offer him. He accepted the temporary cure, but rejects the eternal antidote.
It’s just like us sometimes. We run to Jesus to ask him to put things back together, to heal our bodies, to heal our marriages, to heal our emotions, to heal our relationships, and families, and jobs. But we turn and walk away before we commit ourselves to the loving relationship, which will really cure the deepest wounds in our lives.
Would you like to get well? Jesus invites you to experience the healing that he has come to offer. Would you take a step toward that relationship as we sing.
