Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. 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. 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?” John 5:1-6 (NIV)
Interesting question Jesus poses to the paralytic of thirty-eight years is it not? I am sure he looked at Him in amazement over the question. Why on earth would he not want to dance and run and walk on his own? Why indeed. Yet Jesus has a reason for this question that goes further than “simply” making this paralytic whole physically. He is concerned much more about his internal condition than his external one. That is what makes each Biblical story come alive to us – they can be our stories too. Through each story we see the heart of Jesus – His abounding love and compassion; His keen interest on the whole person – not merely a physical weakness; His never ending mercy. We are able to see clearly that He is to be our way, our truth and our life.
This paralytic had hoped the pool would bring him physically healing, wrongly placing his hopes on the water. Don’t we so often do the same thing? Our eyes are ever scanning the horizon for answer to our “infirmities” - whatever that looks like in a life - rather than looking up to the One Who is the answer to all our dire dilemmas. He makes us whole on the inside so that we are not chronically wanting. He desires to be our sufficiency and strength in whatever we may be walking through. We can trust Him with our lives as He desires to take us from “strength to strength” until we are home with Him.
Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca (tears), they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion. Psalms 84:5-7 (NIV)