12 March 2024 John 5:1-16
Thirty-eight years is a long time to be sick.
Thirty-eight years is a long time to be taken to the pool, not being able to get into the pool at the right time, picked up at the end of the day and taken home, day after day, after month, after year.
Thirty-eight years is a long time for people to be wondering if you’re really trying to get better.
Thirty-eight years is so long that maybe you don’t really want to face the challenges of healthy life anymore. Thirty-eight years is plenty long enough to decide that your life is now to sit by the pool and watch other people go in, and not really notice if they are getting any better. Not really caring if they are getting any better. Thirty-eight years is more than long enough to give up thinking about being well.
But then He turns up.
You don’t know much about Him, but you have heard the stories. Countless people healed, evil spirits and dark powers obey Him, the wind and the sea obey Him, thousands are fed by Him. You don’t even know His name, but here He is, and now He has asked you the question that reportedly He asks everybody: “Do you want to be well?”
You start to explain that you don’t know Him very well, don’t even know His name. You explain your situation – you’re stuck, you’re too slow, nobody will help. He rolls his eyes a little, and doesn’t ask again. Just says, “Get up and walk.”
And you do. Despite yourself, you do.
It is an act of pure power – He speaks the weakness right out of you. He spoke the universe into being. Your weakness is child’s play. He speaks the weakness right out of people, and just as immediately replaces it with strength. His word is power, it is strength. But it’s more than that.
His word is life, and he tosses it around as casually as a farmer casting seed. The same power that created the universe, he handles it as casually as the loose change in his pocket and he tosses it at you. He says, “It’s all I have to give. I have it all to give. All the life. Every bit. Take it.” And you do.
Thirty-eight years is a long time for people to see you sick, and now see you well. They are suspicious. They think maybe you are tricking them. They ask you who made you better, and you don’t know. But once He has tossed His Life to you, you are easy to find again. You stick out like a sore thumb. He finds you and tells you His name. You tell the people who asked you, and they say, “Oh. Him.” It didn’t occur to you that they wouldn’t want to meet Him. It didn’t occur to you that they wouldn’t like Him, that instead they would despise Him. Now they even despise you a little.
But there is no rewind, there is no going back. You can’t live like you haven’t had the power of life tossed to you. There is no going back to a time when you didn’t know what that felt like. It turns out that catching the life tossed to you is not like catching a ball. It is more like catching a cold. It gets inside you, but unlike a cold, it doesn’t make you miserable.
It makes you well.
It’s a wellness that goes all the way down to the bone. Even farther. It’s a wellness that doesn’t just mend you. It is you. And now you have it to give, too. You can handle it as casually as the loose change in your pocket, cast it as casually as a farmer casting seed.
Now you can ask others, “Do you want to be well?” And you can toss life to them.
He is here now, once again after all these years. Life is in His hands. He is tossing it up and down, like a ball, smiling, asking, “Do you want to play?”
Do you want to be well?
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