Pick Up Your Mat • John 5:5-16
By Rick Henson
We do not know what the man did that led to his condition, but for 38 years he was an invalid. We read about him in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of John. Later we understand that his action led to his condition, though health issues and physical conditions have many causes.
Jesus surprisingly asked him if he wanted to be made whole. The man did not answer directly, instead telling Jesus why he had not been healed.
Many were lying there — the blind, withered, sick, and the lame — waiting to get in the pool which they believed had some medicinal properties. Why did Jesus select this man from the multitude of sick? We are not told, only that Jesus spoke to him alone.
First Corinthians 2:16 asks, “For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him?” (KJV). In his providence, Jesus selected this unnamed man for healing. John 5:21 reads, “For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them,even so the Son gives life to whom He will” (NKJ).
Jesus gloriously healed the man, who walked for the first time in almost four decades. Later Jesus found him in the Temple and warned him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to 00you” (John 5:14 KJV).
While we do not know the man’s sin, Jesus let him know his previous condition resulted from sin. Such is not always the case but was for him.
After healing a woman bent over from a bad back, Jesus asked the Pharisees, “And ought not this 00woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” Luke 13:16 (KJV).
Clearly, Satan was the source of her ailment. In Luke 13:1-5, Jesus taught that neither the Galileans that Pilate killed nor the eighteen who died in an accident died because they were worse sinners, but that all should repent.
Later his disciples asked Jesus if a man was born was blind, whether his parents were to blame. Jesus said, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:3 KJV). With the blind man we learn that the reasons for ailments are not always obvious and may be to the glory of God.
The Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 11:30, “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep” (KJV). Some had taken the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner, bringing sickness and even death on themselves.
Also, in Galatians 6:7, Paul warned, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (KJV). If someone drinks alcohol for decades, should he be surprised when his liver is destroyed? If a person is promiscuous, is a diagnosis of a sexually transmitted disease unexpected?
Jesus lovingly warned the man recently healed to not repeat what led to his condition. The text does not reveal what his sin was. In the same way, we should resist diagnosing the sin of others or even guessing the reasons for their condition or sickness.
As Jesus said in Luke 13:3 and 5, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (KJV). May it be enough that we “pray one for another, that ye may be healed” (James 5:16 KJV).
Henson is minister of outreach and evangelism at Bethel Church, Brandon.
