“My Life Will Never
Change”
Several
years ago around Christmas time an elderly mother and her adult son stopped by the
church office. They were looking for some financial support. I’ve never met
them before, but I could find their names in a pastor’s discretionary fund
account book. They seemed to make their rounds. While I was having a
conversation with them, I really wanted to help them not just one-time
financial support, but help them to break out of a vicious circle. So I shared
the good news and invited them to come to church. But they said, “I have never
been to church for more than 20 years. I am unholy. If I go to your church, the
church will be falling apart.” I said, “No, we are all broken people, but Jesus
is able to help you. He is mighty to save if you turn to him.” But they persisted,
“No, my life will never change.” And they walked away.
Do
You Want to Get Well?
How sad! But somehow many
of us in this room are also struggling with certain areas of our lives. Some of
us feel like things will never change. Some of us feel like our prayers are not
answered. Some of us feel like healing doesn’t come. If you feel that way,
today’s passage is for you. In today’s scripture we meet a man who had been ill
for 38 years. At that time there were hundreds of sick people – blind,
crippled, paralyzed – laying on the porches. But for some reason, Jesus saw
this particular man lying there and knew that he had been there a long time.
Here in verse 6 the Greek word gnous, translated
as “to know” refers to supernatural,
divine knowledge. Jesus knew what
this man was going through. Jesus knew
that he had been sick for 38 years. More importantly, Jesus knew that his mind was just as sick as
his body. Jesus knew that he had been there a long time without hope.
Perhaps,
at first this man came to Bethesda (“healing place”) with hope. He was eager to
be healed. He got up early in the morning and kept watching a pool. But little
by little, he began to get used to his dull life at Bethesda. He began to get
up late. For him, everyday became the same. Eventually, he had lived in
Bethesda, the healing place, for 38 years. But ironically, he had never
experienced healing there. He just got used to his dull, powerless life. He got
used to maintaining the status quo. He came to believe, “I will never be
healed.” “My life will never change.” Deep in his heart he already gave up being healed. He already accepted this powerless life as his fate. Once I had a
chance to ride an elephant while I was in Thailand as an exchange student. I
was amazed how this big elephant was so submissive to his trainer. And after
that, I heard how they train an elephant. It was very simple and easy. First, a
trainer just ties an elephant to a stake. At first, the elephant tries hard to
escape. But later on, the elephant gives up and just stands beside the stake. Then
the trainer unties the rope. The amazing thing is that the elephant would never
try to run away any longer although he is untied.
The
invalid became the exactly the same as the tame elephant. Now his heart was
filled with despair. Jesus knew
that this man’s illness of the mind, disease
of despair, had to be healed first. So Jesus asked this strange question,
“Do you want to get well?” The man didn’t say, “Yes.” But instead, he said, “Sir,
I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I
am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Basically, he was
making excuses, complaints, and blaming others. “I am not healed because no one
helps me! I am miserable because no one cares for me!” But nevertheless, Jesus
said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk!” Many of us grew up in the church. We got used to living here in this
place. We feel comfortable. We feel at home. But, have you experienced healing
and transformation through Jesus Christ in this place? Jesus is asking us today,
“Do you want to get well?”
Healing
on the Sabbath
In verse 9 John purposely
says that the day on which this healing took place was a sabbath. Why is this important? Why did Jesus heal this man on the sabbath?
It is because Jesus wanted to reveal his glory. He wanted to reveal who he is
to the Jews and us. When the Jews saw the man healed, they were mad and said,
“It is not lawful for you to take up your bed on the sabbath.” Then later, they
accused Jesus of breaking the sabbath. Jesus said to them, “My Father is still working,
and I also am working.” Then they were seeking even more to kill him because
they thought Jesus made himself equal with God. Actually, they saw his point:
“Jesus is equal with God.” But they refused to believe. They refused to come to
Jesus to have life. They were expectantly waiting for their Messiah for a long
time. And now there he is. They should celebrate their Christ. They should
celebrate this healing and rejoice with the man. But instead, they are angry
and furious. Why are they mad at the healed man? Why are they so angry with
Jesus? It is because of their spiritual
sickness – a deadly disease of legalism.
They did rigidly observe the sabbath.
But they couldn’t celebrate the
sabbath. There was no joy, no life, no power on their sabbath-keeping.
Karl Barth tells us a
story about people who live in a wilderness alongside a canal. The canal was
there to bring them water and life, and it was with great effort and cost that
the project was built for their place in time. Great sacrifices were made, and
many even died as the canal was cut through mountain and desert. But the great
irony is that the canal has become dry, and while its walls still convey
evidence of the coursing of water, there is nothing there that can give life to
anyone. Nevertheless, the people continue to service it, to defend it, to name
their children after its architects and engineers; but it is only an historic
thing. A canal meant to convey something— water and life— now has become
static, an end instead of a means. Something for the museum. People tell
stories about it instead of drink from it. And no one has a memory of what
water in the canal really looks like.[1]
“You
Must Kneel”
If the invalid was an irreligious
person who believed superstitions and struggled with despair and self-pity, the
Jews were religious people filled with a self-righteous, legalistic spirit.
Jesus invited both of them. Jesus loves religious hypocrites and irreligious
people. Jesus loves the healthy and the sick, the self-righteous and the
self-pity. Jesus loves them all. Jesus invites all of us, saying, “Let anyone
who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the
scripture has said, 'Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living
water.'” (John 7:37-38).
Today’s passage is called
the third sign. Each sign in John’s
gospel points us to the truth that Jesus
is the Messiah, the Son of God, so that we may believe this glorious truth and have life in his name (cf. 20:30-31). In his book Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis says in this way:[2]
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying
the really foolish thing that people often say about Him [Jesus]: I’m ready to
accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.
That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the
sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either
be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else
he would be the Devil of Hell. You must
make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a
madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him
and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God,
but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human
teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
I want to close with a
story of a sculptor. Once there was a sculptor who sculpted a statue of our
Lord. And people came from great distances to see it – Christ in all his
strength and tenderness. They would walk all round the statue, trying to grasp
its splendor, looking at it now from this angle, now from that. But for some
reason, they couldn’t grasp its grandeur. So finally, they consulted the
sculptor himself. He said to them, “There’s only one angle from which this
statue can be truly seen. You must kneel.”[3]
Jesus’ question is still
valid: “Do you want to get well?” If so, come to Jesus in faith. He knows what
you are going through. Let him in. Accept Christ on bended knees as the only
new and living Way. Love him. Worship
him. Give him full control. And streams of living water will flow from your
heart. Your life will never be the same.
[1] Gary M. Burge, The NIV
Application Commentary: John (Zondervan, 2000), 137.
[2]
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (HarperCollins, 1952),
52.
[3]
John Stott, The Incomparable Christ (InterVarsity
Press, 2001), Kindle Locations 4038-4041
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