Meditations/Sermons that didn't get away

Do you want to be healed?

John 5:5-7 One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, 'Do you want to be made well?' The sick man answered him, '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.'

Thirty-eight years is a long time to lie around waiting to be healed. No doubt the man himself felt guilty about that. His answer tells us that he felt defensive: he gave excuses for why it was so. It’s easy for us to shake our heads and tut-tut. Why, when we’re sick, we go to the doctor, or the drugstore. We do something about it. We take care of the situation.

But while I’m feeling self-righteous, I am avoiding thinking of the disease I’ve had for well over thirty-eight years that I have not been cured of: overeating. A disease? It harms the body. A sin? It keeps me from loving God and my neighbor with my whole heart. It keeps me from loving myself.

Do I want to be made well? This is not the time for excuses. Do I want it? What would the cost be? For of course there is a cost, as there was for the sick man. No longer could he lie around the pool. He had to carry his own mat, and find a place for himself in normal, working society. Was he pleased when he had that opportunity? We can’t tell. Did he tell the Jews that it was Jesus who healed him so that they too would come to know him? Or did he do it to get back at Jesus, who had saddled him with his new burden?

Do I want to be made well? Please, Lord, help me to want it so badly that I’ll allow you to make it happen, and for the right reasons.