In reflecting on this question that Jesus posed to a man disabled for thirty-eight years, I stated in my last note, that the innocuous-sounding question was profound, calculated to elicit a response that enabled Jesus to bring the solution to the man’s problem.
To recapitulate, in John 5, there is told the story of Jesus healing a paralysed man who had taken residence for thirty-eight years at a place called the Pool of Bethesda, a place for people seeking healing for diverse diseases.
It was believed that from time to time, an angel of the Lord would stir the water, and when that happened, the first person to jump into the water would be healed. It is recounted that Jesus went to this place and headed straight to a man who was paralysed, and who had been in the place for thirty-eight years, apparently seeking to be healed.
The man’s issue as he told Jesus, was that in the thirty-eight years he had been at that place seeking to be healed, he had not been able to get into the water after it was disturbed by the angel.
Without a word of disappointment, censure, or rebuke, Jesus told the paralysed man to take up the mat he was lying on and walk. The man did so, and was completely healed of his paralysis.
Why would Jesus who was obviously moved with compassion and wanted to heal this man ask him if he wanted to be healed?
As I said earlier, this apparently naive question, far from being the irritant it may appear, was the solution to the man’s problem.
In my last writing on the subject, I suggested that possibly the man did not really want the status quo changed, as he may have become accepting of his new normal. I am now making a different proposition: that perhaps, it was more a lack of hope than an embrace of a new normal.
There is no denying that a man without hope could find it difficult or even impossible, to receive a change in his circumstances, even if he was in the place where such was available.
Is it possible, that the man, having been disappointed for so long, had lost all hope of ever obtaining his healing?
I believe when Jesus asked him that question, it gave the man hope that he could be healed. That hope I believe made it possible for him to have the needed faith to receive his healing. With hope in place and faith activated, he took Jesus at his word picked up his mat and walked.
Until last week, I was very worried about myself. I had lost my edge I thought, and that included a loss of all ambition. This was because I had been in a situation of drought, and I found it difficult to summon the energy to do anything beyond a humdrum existence.
Last week, something changed in me: for the first time in a long while, I dared to hope that things could change. With that hope has come a new energy, a new zest for achievement, and a new attitude, eager for the change that I now believe to be possible.
My whole life has changed, and I am waiting in eager expectation for my prayer to be answered.
Hope is the engine for change, as it enables a person to dream and provides the drive to achieve or receive.
Perhaps hope is what you need, in order to put yourself in the place where you can receive a solution to your problems, even a miracle from God.
Hope is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13 as one of three things (together with faith and love) that endure and abide when everything is gone.
May the Lord grant you hope so you can look up again.
