Jn 5:5-9 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?" "Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me." Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

The story of the invalid at the pool raises a number of important questions. He is, we note somewhat obviously, described as “an invalid” but we are not told what it is that makes him in this condition. It is obvious that he is unable to move himself and so whether it is a form of paralysis or some form of wasting disease where the muscles have been deprived of their strength is unclear. Whatever it is, he has been like it for a very long time. How he survives we don't know. Whether his family come back once a day and feed him or whether he begs, we don't know. He has a mat on which he lies and his life is just lying by the pool waiting for something to happen.

Now, apparently, every now and then the water in this pool became stirred and it was believed that if you got into the water when it was being stirred you would be healed. One assumes that this had happened otherwise the belief wouldn't have come about. Again whether such healings had been psychosomatic or had been physiologically genuine we don't know, but people in need will grasp at whatever straws they can.

Now there is a horrible hopelessness about this man's plight. He can't move quickly on his own and if there is anyone else there when the water stirs, they are likely to be those who are sick and so will ignore him and get in ahead of him, for it seemed it was only the first person in who could get the healing. There was no way, in a land where there appeared a lot of sickness and even demon possession, this man was going to get in first. It was an utterly hopeless situation. Then Jesus comes along.

The question he asks is devastating for such people: “Do you want to get well?” If you've never come across anyone in this sort of situation you might wonder about such a question, but it is a very real question. The truth is that we learn to live with our illnesses and infirmities and after a while we can't imagine life without it. In fact very soon we become so used to it that we fear the alternative – being healed. Today in Western society it is even worse for we provide financial benefits for such people and the fear becomes, what will I do if I am healed and they take away my benefit? This is very real and I have heard it expressed at least twice.

So, in this sort of situation there is not only the illness itself but there is also the fear of the alternative that locks us in. Although, most of the time, such people would deny this, it is nevertheless true for many, and it is a very real and genuine fear. The fear of how to cope with a totally different life is very real, even though it may be one that most of us cannot comprehend. So when Jesus asks this question he is probing for the truth. The man does not answer with a “Yes, of course!” answer but seeks to justify why he's there, and that too is a very natural reaction. In a more humorous vein, when there is discussions about differences between the sexes, men so often are chided for their fears of going to a doctor when there is something wrong. The wife eventually finds out that there is something wrong with her husband and then chides him to go to the doctor. Watch the resistance! What it is that creates this resistance in us I don't know (because I'm, a man!). Perhaps it is that we don't like facing up to the fact of it, and hope it will just go away if we ignore it. It's a form of denial whatever it is and it's a form of denial that we find in this man. He puts the blame for his ongoing infirmity on the lack of people to help him. Maybe that is a genuine cry; maybe it is an excuse.

In the face of his impossible situation, Jesus simply declares healing for the man in the form of a command to get up and walk. Now there may be those who may suggest that this was just a psychosomatic illness and in fact there was nothing wrong with the man at all, but the fact is that he had been like it for thirty eight years. If it wasn't physiological, it was therefore a psychological illness – yet it is an illness that makes a person lie on a mat for that length of time if there is nothing wrong physically! It doesn't matter if it was psychological; it was just as real to the man. There may be those of us who are locked in by some psychological thing. It is just as real to us and we are just as much a prisoner to it as if it had been purely physical. Whatever it is, such a thing needs the command of Jesus being spoken to it to break the power of it. Gloriously the man is freed and he gets up and walks. If it was physical it was a miracle of healing. If it was psychological it is just as wonderful that the word of the Son of God can release the bondage of the mind. Mind or body; Jesus is still our Saviour! Hallelujah!