“Do You Want To Be Healed”
“Do you want to be healed? … Take up your bed, and walk.”
John 5:6 & 8 NIV
Isn’t it easy to settle into a routine? Some routines we (should) learn as kids are essential: “Get up; Eat breakfast; Go to school,” are preparation for adult life, where you still have to get up and show up for work on time if you want to get paid. Other routines can become addictions that destroy lives; we usually refer to those as bad habits. Yet, even religion can become a routine that may appear healthy but can destroy the soul if it separates you from God. Religious practices like attending church, reading the Bible, and even praying become unhealthy habits if I’m simply going through the motions but not trying to hear and obey the voice of God.
The Gospel of John addresses religious routine. John makes it very clear he’s addressing a religious problem you and I need to correct if we’re to experience the power and joy religion should provide. For example, in John 4:54, John calls the healing of the official’s son “the second sign.” Religious people in Jesus’s day should have recognized these “signs” as evidence that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, the Savior of the World. But did they? No. Similarly, you and I can get comfortable in our religious (or lack of religious) routine and miss out on experiencing the power and life religious activity is supposed to provide.
Consider the third sign, in today’s passage from John 5:
* Jesus arrives in Jerusalem on a Feast Day and goes to a pool by the Sheep Gate (the access point to bring sacrificial animals to the Temple).
* The pool is five-sided (symbolizing the five Books of Moses containing God’s Law).
* Plenty of sick people are present (spiritually illustrating that many people follow the Law of Moses without experiencing a healthy relationship with God).
* Religious leaders are present (but are powerless to physically heal people).
Into this religious, ritualistic, even superstitious setting Jesus approached a particular invalid who had been trying to change his fortune for a long time without success. When Jesus asked if he wanted to be healed, the man essentially lamented, “I’ve tried to do everything right according to tradition…”
However, the Law of Moses was intended to instruct, not to redeem. Moses said, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him”(Deuteronomy 18:15 NLT).
Routines are hard to break, especially after 1500 years. To maintain their religion, many people substitute tradition for faith. Forgetting the purpose of God’s Word, they become oppressed by it, or abandon it, and fail to recognize the signs alerting them to the Presence of Jesus.
Today, Jesus asks, “Do you want to be healed?” Jesus instructs you and me to get up, pack up tradition, and walk by faith. Only Jesus gives you eternal purpose and joy; listen to Him!
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