Rick and I have been studying the book of John. We are now in chapter 5, which begins with Jesus healing a man who’s been unable to walk for 38 years. For years, this poor man has been laying by a pool that would bubble from time to time—maybe there was a natural spring that fed the pool that caused the bubbling? No one knows, but there was this superstition that when the water began to bubble, the first person into the pool would be healed. Anyway, this man had been laying there, hoping to get into that bubbling water for a super-long time. Along comes Jesus. What do you think happened next? Jesus healed the man! Right then and there. One minute, the guy couldn’t even get himself into the water, and the next minute, he got up, picked up the mat he’d been laying on, and walked away. Amazing!
You’d think there would be all kinds of joy from the people who were there, right? I mean, here’s someone who’s been in absolute misery for almost 40 years and bam! He’s completely healed. But no. We hear nothing about any rejoicing. All we read is that the Jewish leaders were mad, so mad they wanted to kill Jesus. Why? Because Jesus had healed the man on a Sabbath—and that was against their rules. They clearly couldn’t care less that this man was suddenly well. Now, let’s think about this…who can heal in this way? God. If Jesus can heal in the same way as God, who does that tell us Jesus is? God in the flesh. And that’s exactly what Jesus told them. He said, “My Father is working until now, and I am working” (John 5:17). What does this mean? It means that, like God, Jesus never stopped working!!!
From the Old Testament, we read that God never sleeps or slumbers (Psalm 121:3-4). How is it that God never sleeps? Because “He does not faint or grow weary” (Isaiah 40:28). God never gets weary—He never is tired and He never gets tired! From this, we can conclude that God is always working. Now, as God in the flesh, Jesus was both fully God and fully man. Being fully human, Jesus did get tired—one time, Jesus was so tired, He was sound asleep in the boat in spite of a raging storm going on (you can read about it in Mark 4:35-41). Jesus got emotional too—He got so angry that God’s house of worship had been turned into a market that He cleared everything out (John 2:15). He wept tears of sorrow—remember how, in the week before His death, Jesus wept over the people of Jerusalem because they rejected Him and the life He had to give them if they would only believe (Luke 19:41)? So while Jesus did get tired and emotional because He was fully man, Jesus also constantly did the work of God, because He was fully God. His claim to be God is what made the Jews mad. But here’s the thing. Jesus was not a madman, claiming something that He wasn’t. And He wasn’t a liar when He said He was God. He was God in the flesh and He had proof—His miracles, for one thing! Only God could do what Jesus did!
So what happened to the man Jesus healed? We can’t be sure, but Jesus found him later on in the temple and told the man, “Sin no more” (John 5:14). That was not a suggestion. That was a command. Did the man obey? It doesn’t seem like it, because the Bible tells us the man went to the Jews and told these guys—the ones who wanted to kill Jesus—that it was Jesus who had healed him. The man turned Jesus in, his Healer. In spite of personally receiving the blessing of healing, the man refused to believe in Jesus. What about you? You have the chance to believe in Jesus and receive life, which only He can give. I pray that you won’t be like the healed man and refuse Jesus. If you need prayer or a Bible, let me know.
