“Do you want to be made well?”
- Jesus
Have you ever heard the phrase, “There is no such thing as a dumb question?” First and foremost, it is categorically false! I love my four-year-old to death, and he tends to ask very insightful questions, but sometimes a doozy will leak out. Micah hears adults around him discuss the time around him every single day, and he has decided to take the leap into conversation a handful of times lately. “Um Dad, is it 44?” - This is a dumb question from a sweet face. By the time I was 29, I had gone under anesthesia for 5 separate knee surgeries, one ankle surgery, and had spent a portion of every year except one over 14 years on crutches or in a walking boot. Physical Therapists had become very familiar faces. Safe to say, I had contracted what some doctors call “broken body” (not a diagnosis). What you may not know is that almost everyone has rolled an ankle or awkwardly twisted their knee, and everyone has a suggestion of how to heal someone else. “Have you tried ice?” - “I found this guy on Instagram, have you seen his videos?” - “What if you stretched this way?” - Well-intended questions can feel dumb, and even insulting.
In our passage in John 5, Jesus has to have asked what felt like an asinine question. A paralyzed man sits prostrate upon his mat, waiting for an opportunity to be healed. Today is just like yesterday, which was just like every day in the previous 38 years. Jesus walks up to this man and asks, “Do you want to be made well?” Duh, Jesus! But there is so much more to this question; older translations quote Jesus as asking, “Do you want to be made whole?” Now that is a bigger question - this question requires an acknowledgment of brokenness, like soul-level brokenness. This question means that there is One who can make you whole, and it will require that you abandon those areas of your brokenness that you may not want to admit you actually enjoy a little bit... or find your identity in... or can’t imagine your life without. “Do you want to be made whole?” - This question means there is likely a life path to walk that will ask you to continue to choose wholeness day after day after day.
Read 2 Samuel 11-12 and John 5:1-17
1. Why is the question, “Do you want to be made well/whole?” more complicated for you than a simple “yes” sometimes? When you think of something God wants to clean, mend, and heal, what comes to mind?
2. What does it require of someone to be made well, or whole, who has not received salvation from Jesus? What might it look like for you to continue to be made well/whole if you have already made the decision to receive Jesus’ salvation (if you have)?
3. Why do you think the Jews respond with such angst and hostility towards Jesus’ healing? In what ways to we harbor the same feelings toward God’s offer of wholeness towards us?
4. In what way(s) can you join God in the things that He is trying to heal and make whole in your life? What is one thing you can do this week to receive what He is offering you?