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In John Chapter 5 and at verse 1, we read of Jesus Christ going back to Jerusalem.

Now, there is a pool in Jerusalem called Bethesda Pool, and it has five porches.

You can visit this pool today. It was discovered around 1888, and it has been carefully excavated. I have had the privilege of visiting this area in Jerusalem on various occasions, and it is situated only a quarter of mile from the Temple area.

Around this pool lay hundreds of lame, weak, sick, blind, withering, paralysed people, waiting for the moving of the water. It is a picture of absolute misery and despair.

Bethesda means the House of Mercy, but in reality it was a place of misery.

Our world today is an over-sized Bethesda, waiting for instant blessing and instant healing and instant change. How often have we heard that word over the past months? Change!

Every now and again the water moved, or bubbled. In some way it was ruffled, and the first person to get into the water was healed.

Can you imagine the frustration and the selfishness? The waters move. The surface begins to bubble and ruffle and ripple, and the lame and the paralysed and the withering ones who could see but who could not move – and the blind who could move but who could not see when the water was disturbed.

There are all these hundreds of poor invalids with such little hope. There is no doctor. There is no nurse. It would be every man for himself.

One day Jesus Christ came along and walked into this situation of despair and hopelessness and loneliness and suffering. There was a man lying there who had been paralysed for 38 years.

That man had been lying around this pool before Jesus lay in the manger.

Jesus looked at him and knew how serious and severe his case was, and Jesus asked a most searching and almost disturbing question, “Do you want to get well?”

Jesus knew everything about him. He knew what was in his heart and mind, as well as the condition of his body. Jesus knew all about him physically, mentally and spiritually. It was Jesus who began this conversation with this rather shocking and startling question, “Do you want to get well?”

He had been sick for 38 years. Is this not an unnecessary question? Is this not a ridiculous thing to ask? No. Not really. The man does not answer the question. He doesn’t reply “YES”. He blames his circumstances. He blames other people.

You see, I can’t help my condition – I can’t help lying here. Life has treated me badly and harshly. I can’t help it! How many times have we heard that?

This is not answer to Jesus question. The answer to Jesus question is either YES or NO.

His will is paralysed too. The problem is not just in his body but in his mind as well. It appears that he has lost the will to get better or live.

He is lying not all that far away from the Temple but he does not seem to have had much help from the Temple, and those who attended the Temple.

The Temple had become a kind of business centre. Pay for the lamb and in you go and sacrifice it. “Send money to this ministry, and we will pray for you!” Some things have not changed all that much.

When we read of Solomon’s prayer and the inauguration and dedication of the Temple, most people had walked a long way away from that. Do read it in II Chronicles Chapter 6 and especially verse 29.

38 years is a long time to be lying chronically sick and with a permanent disability. This is the scene of immense anxiety, as people struggled for mere existence.

And Jesus Christ walks in. Do you want to get well? Do you want to be set free? Do you want to be released from that problem and saved and forgiven and helped?

How do we respond and react to these piercing and penetrating questions?

"Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life" from Tom Kelley

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