His Friends Must Also Die

John 5:1-18

In Jerusalem there was, near the Sheep Gate, a pool, which in Aramaic was called "Bethesda." This pool was surrounded by five porches or colonnades. A number of sick, blind, lame and paralyzed people lay there waiting for movement of the water.

The waters became miraculous every time an angel descended and touched them. The first sick person that went down to the water after the angel had touched it would be healed of any illness that they had.

A very special sick person

There was one special individual amongst all the sick. It was not for some external reason. It was because of his extreme defenselessness; he was an invalid.

In the Lord Jesus' days, many people were healed, and among them, there were many with long-term, painful illnesses. A woman was healed from her bleeding, after having suffered for 12 years. Another woman who was crippled was healed after 18 years without being able to stand up straight.

However, this paralytic was the most debilitated; his illness had lasted the longest. He had been prostrated for 38 years. More than the other two sick women put together.

Many sick people had been healed when they came to Jesus. Some had even dared to run after him to claim their miracle (like the Syrophoenician woman), others had screamed next to the road until being heard.

But this man was in a worse condition than all the others, because he lay there, next to the pool, without being able to move. He didn't have hope in being healed.

Every time that the angel stirred up the water from the pool, he took a long time in lowering himself. There were always others that were closer. Even the blind men and the cripples beat him to the water.

So, the fact that the angel came down didn't mean a whole lot to the invalid. Every time that it happened, it was a new frustration, added to the previous one.

A special day

However, one day something extraordinary happened.

Jesus moved away from the multitudes that always harassed him, and went straight toward Bethesda. A space opened up between all the people; he didn't look at anyone else. That day the Lord had a single silhouette in his heart, a single name on his lips.

When he arrived next to the invalid, he told him: –Do you want to be made well?

It was a brief question, but it surely produced a chain reaction in the paralytic's heart. What did he mean?

It was a question that allowed a single answer. But it was so obvious, it was almost absurd. Did he want to get well? He had spent 38 years yearning for it; he had spent an entire life needing it.

For that reason, his answer was not an affirmation. It was not, as one might expect, a song of faith and joyful expectation. Rather, it was a cry, a groan. It was the overflowing of a bitter soul, with that bitterness which had accumulated for almost four decades.

The Lord didn't ask again. To continue asking would have been like putting his hand in the wound and deepening it. In fact, the paralytic's answer was equal to a thousand affirmations, to a thousand "yeses."
Jesus tells him: –Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.

At once the man was healed. Then, he took up his mat and walked away.

This class of Humanity

What importance does this story have for today's Christian? Apart from showing us Jesus' compassion for individuals, and his power to heal all illness, it teaches us something else.

God looks to heal people like this; those who cannot go to Jesus - the helpless, the victims of the greatest of all illnesses. God uses these people to build his house, which is also Bethesda (House of mercy.)

They are not the conquerors among the great leaders, the shining stars in the constellation of the Christian universe; they are not those that dazzle: they are the paralytics, those abandoned by good fortune, those forgotten and discarded even by man's compassionate hand.

This class of individuals, those that don't have anything, to whom nobody gives anything, are those that God uses to show his glory and to build his house.

The evidence

They are easily recognizable, because there are some evidences that identify them.

They, for example, are still carrying their mat. They cannot forget from where God brought them. They cannot be exalted, because their mat accuses them. No matter how much they may want to hide it, their mat still shows their history: they are vile, they are common.

They are also recognizable because of their limp. For 38 years their muscles were numb, dry and stiff. They don't have the grace and charm to stroll up the gangplanks. Their walk, insecure and clumsy announces the 38 years of paralysis. They don't shine well in the scenarios of the world; furthermore, they are ridiculed there.

If the Lord had ignored them, who would have known about it? Who would have reproached the Lord for forgetting them? Nobody would have known about them; and nobody cared if they were forgotten. In that pool of misery they had been able to continue until their bones became powder and nobody would even have spilled a single tear for them.

What the wave throws out

They say that the sea only allows things that have life in its breast. What is dead is discarded and thrown onto the shore. What the wave throws out is dead.

The great sea, that is the world, has many beaches filled with people considered to be waste. We are among them, Jesus Christ's disciples.

The world didn't find us valuable. We were not of any use, so it threw us out.

Of course, we presume to say that we have left a world that needed us, or that we left it scornfully. No. That's not the way it is. The world threw us out, as the wave throws everything that is dead out of the sea.

In this state, abandoned on the shore, the Lord found us. He picked us up for who we were, useless like a broken vessel.

Beloved Christian: there is something in your character, or in your temperament that makes you worthless to the world. Your abilities, for all the value that you see in them, are not able to hide that defect. You were a lost case, and you would still be even if you forget your real condition, and become conceited. God has not chosen you because you were better than others, but because you were the most insignificant, and yet, in spite of that, he loved you. (Deuteronomy 7:7-8).

God has not chosen you, for what you were, but in spite of what you were. Perhaps God has been able to transform you and use you for some things, but he didn't do that because of you, but rather in spite of you. Perhaps he takes you forward -if he desires- but bear in mind that if he does this, it won't be because you are a special person. If he takes you in certain direction, don't think that it is because you were going in that same direction; on the contrary, the best thing that have been able to do is present him with tenacious resistance. However, he leads you on in spite of that.

You go putting the brakes on the carriage that he pulls; so, if you advance, it is because he takes you, in spite of you. You believe that you are a special class of individual; and you are, but not because of your abilities, but rather because of your awkwardness. You are especially clumsy and obstinate. So much so that God found you in Bethesda and not in some more desirable place. He wanted to go there, and to heal you. Out of his pure grace he came to you, because of all the paralytics, blind and crippled, you were the worst and the most abandoned. Humanly speaking, you didn't have a chance.

You were what the wave had thrown out.

Other cases

If you think that we exaggerate, let us examine the Scriptures. Here we find many cases that confirm what we are saying.

When Abraham spoke with God concerning to Sodom, he says of himself that he is nothing but "dust and ashes" (Genesis 18:27). Does Job not respond to the Lord: "I am unworthy - how can I reply to you?" (Job 40:4). Gideon considered himself the least in his family (Judges 6:15). Moses said -speaking with God -: "I am slow of speech and tongue" (Ex.4:10). Jeremiah didn't think any different. He said: "I do not know how to speak, I am only a child" (Jer.1:6). And Paul, already an apostle, recognized himself as less than the least of all God's people. (Eph.3:8)

However, that is nothing compared with what the great king David, the sweet singer from Israel, said of himself. He likened himself with nothing other than a dead dog or a flea. (1 Sam.24:14)

Only he who has never seen God can consider himself great. Only he who has not seen the glory of God can be presumptuous.

Non merits; only demerits

Because of who you are, and of the place from which the Lord brought you out of, you know that you do not have any rights, only debts. You have heard -just as he did to the former paralytic - the Lord say to you: –See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." (John 5:14).

The only thing that is important to know now is that you should not sin any longer. Perhaps when you are healthy, and robust, you can think that you are somebody, and begin to demand rights. However, you should know that in the House of Mercy there are no rights; there are only debts. Why? Because there are only former-paralytics there. And they have heard the Lord say these same words.

In this Bethesda, that is the church, there are no individuals with merits; but only with debts.