Do you want to be made well?

When Jesus saw him lying there . . ., He said to the man, “Do you want to be made well?”

John 5:6

Survived my church history class (woohoo!), now on to “Spiritual Formation” for eight weeks. We are reading through the book of John and writing on three chapters each week. I submitted this for this week and thought it might be meaningful for some . . .

Reflection on John 4-6

The Message of the Passages

There are a few stories and messages in John 4-6. The three passages are framed with Jesus being the source in that 1) He tells the Samaritan woman “those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty” (4:14) and 2) He tells the crowd, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (6:35). Whatever the Christian’s physical sustenance, Jesus is the source of true life.

Throughout these chapters, the response of Jesus’ heart to the Father’s will is seen. The believer can take this as an example of our response to the Father as well: 1) My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to complete His work (4:34); 2) The Son can do nothing on His own, but only what He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise (5:19); 3) I seek to do not my own will but the will of Him who sent me (5:30, 6:38); and 4) Seek glory that comes from the one who alone is God (5:44).

Characters

Between chapters four and six is the story of the man who had been ill by the Beth-zatha pool for thirty-eight years. It was to this man that Jesus said, “Do you want to be made well?” (5:6) People have made much of both Jesus’ question and the man’s answer, but to me, his answer is an illustration of my own thought patterns. If Jesus asked me if I wanted to be made well, I may want to shout “YES!” but my fear of disappointment that He might not, that it did not fit into His big scheme of things or He had some lesson for me to learn through my present physical condition would preclude my honest answer. I am presently working through these sorts of things, to instead simply answer with childlike faith, “yes, I want to be made well!” and to trust Him with the response, for what child would not say to a Father they trust, “yes, Father, please make me well.”