John 5:5-7 - Do you want to be healed?

5:5,6

Jesus focused on one man in particular. This man had been there for thirty eight years, or at least he had been an invalid for thirty eight years, it doesn’t actually say how long he had been at the pool. However, the point is that his condition was long established and there was no natural cure for it.

The NIV says Jesus “learned” of the man’s condition, the Greek actually says Jesus “knew”. We have already seen two examples of Jesus having insight into people’s lives, with Nathanael (1:48) and the Samaritan woman, and this is probably another example. Jesus is fully human, as John’s gospel makes clear, and as John reemphasises in his first letter (1 John 4:2), but

He also exercises supernatural power. Now with the gifts of the Spirit there will be times when we too can exercise supernatural gifts.

Jesus asked the man “do you want to get well?” Some see psychological implications in this, ie did the man really want to get well or had be become so comfortable in his condition. Now this phenomena does happen often enough, but I don’t think there is much evidence that it is the case here. I think it is best just to take the question as a simple question, leading up to the fact that Jesus was going to heal him.

Now why did Jesus choose this particular man, when there were many others there. Maybe he had suffered the most, though that is pure speculation. Certainly there is no indication of faith from the man, nor of seeking Christ. If we try and find one “model” for who or how Jesus heals we are guaranteed to be wrong and to being unbiblical. On several occasions the person who gets healed seeks out Jesus, and on several occasions Jesus attributes the healing to their faith. So seeking and faith certainly can be useful, but they do not apply in every case. God is sovereign, and He will do what He will do.

5:7

The man was in a terrible predicament. Because of his condition he needed (at least by his thinking) to get into the pool when the water stirred so he could be healed, but because of his condition he was unable to get into the pool first. The so-called healing powers of the pool just mocked people. Before continuing with the main text, let’s consider for a moment,”did the pool actually heal people?”. Now we cannot answer that question with any definiteness. Given that people were still waiting by the pool it seems that there must have been something in it, or at least something that led people to believe there was something in it. If there was healing, was it godly? I suppose it might have been, but equally it might have been demonic, for it seemed to just taunt the majority of people.

Whatever the case, the man was in a situation that he seemed trapped in. When Jesus asked him if he wanted to be healed the man could only see one way in which that could happen, going into the pool, and that seemed impossible. So often we find ourselves in situations where we feel trapped, our minds become blinkered, we see only one way out and that way is blocked. The prospect of a solution seems only to mock us. But when Jesus comes into the situation things change, there are other possibilities than the ones that we see. We need to our trust in Christ.