THE RIGHT CURE

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed (and they waited for the moving of the waters. From time to time, an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had.) One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, He asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”

At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

John 5:1-9a

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

There are any number of things marketed today that are connected to the matter of healing or curing the ails of people. The items run the gamut from clothing laced with copper to special vitamins or supplements to any number of home or homeopathic remedies. Some people even still prescribe to ancient practices such as acupuncture or leech therapy.

Why have this discussion?

Because people seem to miss the one real cure that exists for them and that is healing by Jesus, the Great Physician.

We have seen over and over again in our early stages of studying from the Gospels that Jesus’ ministry was underscored by His amazing, miraculous acts of healing. Nothing was beyond the scope of His power and He removed long standing afflictions from those who were brought to Him. In specific highlighted events, we have seen that it was typically a person’s faith in Jesus that earned them being cured by Him but as we see in today’s scripture passage from the Gospel of John, this wasn’t always the case. Look again at these words here as Jesus encounters a paralyzed man:

Sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed (and they waited for the moving of the waters. From time to time, an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had.) One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, He asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”

At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.  John 5:1-9a

Over the last several devotions, we found Jesus in Galilee doing most of His ministry work. Raised in Nazareth, we know it was Jesus’ home region but it was also where He would spend most of His time spreading the Gospel and performing incredible acts of wonder.

Of course, we know that Jesus was a devout Jew and obediently observed what was required by God, His Father. This included traveling to Jerusalem three times a year for the prescribed Jewish festivals: Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of the Tabernacles. The scriptures don’t specify which of these was occurring during the time of this encounter with the paralyzed man but we do know he was right outside the city near the Sheep Gate.

In that place, the scriptures tell us that there was a pool “surrounded by five covered  colonnades” which bore the name Bethesda (also Bethsaida in some manuscripts). Of interest, the words used in the passage, “there is”, indicated that the pool still existed at the time John wrote the Gospel.

So what was the big deal about this pool outside the Sheep Gate of Jerusalem?

Well, we read where it was a place that drew people who were disabled, the blind and lame and paralyzed. These people would lie next to the pool and wait for the water to be stirred for it was believed that when that happened, an “angel of the Lord” was present and thus curing was possible for the first person who was able to enter the pool.

Among those lying next to the waters was a paralytic who had been there for a long time, thirty-eight years according to the scriptures. He was where he was every day as there was no moving from any one spot unless someone helped him move. Imagine the frustration the man must have felt every time the water was stirred and he watched others able to get into the pool when he could not. He may have thought it would take a miracle for him to not die in that place before he would ever get healed. Further, he saw the pool as his only option for that to happen, not considering that maybe it was all a ruse, a superstition with no validity.

The man needed the right cure, there was no question about that, and this would be the most blessed day of his life because he was about to meet Jesus.

The scriptures tell us that Jesus saw the man next to the pool and upon learning a little about how long he had been in that condition, He engaged him asking:

“Do you want to get well?”

Maybe Jesus was seeing if the man was going to show the kind of faith He had heard others profess but when the man spoke it’s obvious he had no knowledge and understanding of who Jesus was or what He was capable of doing. The man did tell Jesus his story and dilemma, saying:

“Sir, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

Through this testimony, we sense the sadness and frustration embedded in thirty-eight years of lying on that mat, unable to move as others could. Anyone with any sense of empathy would feel compassion for what the man had gone through and we know Jesus was a man who showed perfect sympathy and care for everyone He met, especially those who were in need of help. And so, Jesus, without needing to hear anything else from the man, commanded Him to “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”

Immediately, the “man was cured” and “picked up his mat and walked.”

It was simply another amazing feat of healing power displayed by Jesus and as for the man, after thirty-eight years, he had finally found the right cure and that cure was Jesus.

Today, so many people in our world are like that paralytic, lying on their respective mats of affliction, unable to find their way into the place of healing they yearn so much for. Maybe you are one of them as you read this. My prayer for all in the midst of their respective needs for restoration and recovery is that they would come to meet Jesus wherever they may be and in whatever circumstances they are going through, that they would come to know that He and He alone is the right cure for everything they might face down in life, even death.

For in the end translation, no one can make someone well like Jesus. No one.

Thanks be to God for the gift of His Son.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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