Do you want to be healed?
Do you want to be healed? What kind of crazy question is that? Today’s health story is based around John 5:1–18
Do you want to be healed? Jesus asked this question of a lame man who had been ill for 38 years. The Bible doesn’t specifically say what he suffered from. But there was this pool in this area of the city called Bethesda that the lame, the sick, and the ill would gather around waiting to be healed.
There were these springs under the city and they would bubble up. It was believed back then that an angel would come down and would trouble or stir up the waters. The belief was the first person who got into the pool when the angel came down would be healed.
This lame man, he’s laying around by the pool; and he can’t get to it. Jesus asks him, “Do you want to be healed?” He’s like, “Yeah, that’s why I’m here, but I cannot move fast enough. I don’t have somebody to carry me down to the water. So every time it comes up and I try to get there, someone gets there first; and I can’t get there.
Jesus tells this person, He says, “Get up, grab your bed, and walk.”
Crazy to say to somebody who has been ill for 38 years, but the point is, in order to claim this healing, we have to take some action. We have to do something. So that’s the first part.