Questions from Jesus : Do you want to be healed ? (2)

Friday January 28, 2022

There was a man there, crippled for 38 years. Jesus, seeing him lying down, and knowing that he had been in this state for a long time already, said to him : Do you want to be healed ?... Jesus said to him : Get up, take up your stretcher and walk. John 5. 5-9

Questions from Jesus : Do you want to be healed ? (2)

Jesus is in Jerusalem near a pool where there are “a multitude of cripples – blind, lame, crippled” waiting for healing. There, he sees a man, lost in the crowd, silent, crippled for 38 years, who cannot access water to be healed. Jesus asks him : “Do you want to be healed ?”

Surprising question at first glance ! Don't we want to be healed of what paralyzes us ? However, if we allow this question of Jesus to touch us, perhaps we will become aware of certain habits or attitudes which paralyze us but which we find difficult to give up. This question invites us to a real inner examination.

The crippled man's response, poignant, sounds like a discouraged complaint : "I have no one". Reaching the place of healing to dive first into the pool is impossible for him. Jesus, who has the power to respond to her faith directly, said to her : “Get up, pick up your stretcher, and walk.”

No need to dive into the pool. This man believes Jesus. Lying down, he gets up, he walks, he lifts his stretcher, full testimony of his healing. Faith obeys the word of Jesus, even if it seems impossible.

If we are broken down, without strength, in despair today, through our fault or not, Jesus tells us through our inner pain : “Do you want to be healed ?” The place of our suffering then becomes, through the presence of Jesus who loves us, the place of our deliverance. Let us welcome Jesus with faith, and his message that heals us.

Source (The Good Seed)