At the Healing Pool
By Ami Vielehr

At the Healing Pool, Jesus approached the invalid of thirty-eight years and asked him, “Do you want to get well?” It seems as if the crippled man would look at him, and say, “Well…duh.”

Instead, he replies, “I’ve been here thirty-eight years, I’m trying to get in but every time I get there someone hops in front of me.”

It seems pathetic. This poor man works so hard to get there, and someone else thwarts his efforts. It is not his fault. He’s crippled. But if I know Christ, I know he never uses his words unwisely.

If he asked, “Do you want to get well?” I can surmise Christ must have known there was something that kept the invalid on his mat—and it wasn’t his inability to walk.

But what was it? What was his gain in remaining unhealed?

I dig inside John 5:11-17 a little further. I can see the real height of this man’s “dis-ability.” There is a spiritual metaphor here for the sin life I have lead, those sins that keep me bound in procrastination, judgment, disbelief, or even jealousy. In the duration of my sin, the savior confronts me. At first, I may be unaware of who he even is, though, deep within, I sense the disconnect, because God has hardwired me with the choice of life and death. It is only when I am cognizant, however, of “who” He asks me to choose that I am able to be healed.

Jesus asks me questions. Do you want to be healed? Do you want to be free? Do you want to stop sinning? I have to acknowledge the part I play in it before I can be set free from it.

How do I keep that freedom at bay?

I wonder how many times I have been caught up in my own pity party. I have tried to help myself, but it is somebody else’s fault: Mother in her craziness. Dad when he drank. I couldn’t study. I had to survive. I just wanted to be like all the other kids. I can hear the excuses in my head.

And I can feel Jesus staring at me saying, with such infinite patience, “When you have come to the end of your excuses I will be here. Just let me know when you are finished.”

No judgment. No condemnation. Just waiting for me to choose.

I am that man at the healing pool.

I have been here for thirty eight years. And every time I try to get in, someone stirs the waters and keeps me from entering. I am cold with the excuse, broken like the invalid man. I exchange the excuse for my willingness to change.

I want to be healed. S&L