The Healing at the Pool | John 4:43-5:15

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How many of you have seen this footage? How many of you have seen this before? Put a hand up if you haven't. You are no longer American aj. You're just removed. This is like the greatest sports call of all time. Do you believe in miracles? Yes. It's right up there with down goes Frazier. It's right up there with the Giants.

Win the pen and it's right up with air with, I don't believe what I just saw and all of those. Sound better with an American accent, which I can't do, so I'm gonna give it to you as I receive it. Al Michaels makes this amazing call right at this moment, right at the end of the 1980 semifinal between the amateurs of the US versus the professionals of the USSR.

And it's a moment that's come down in. But I'd love to ask Al what about the other kind of miracles. Sure. There's the kind of miracles that are the underdog beating the overdog or whatever the secret is, but what about those miracles that are bigger than that? Those miracles that leave something changed permanently.

What about those kind of miracles? And I might ask us that question, do we believe in miracles? And a ransom might be yes, but we've maybe not quite the same certainty that we believe in those kind of sporting miracles today. We get to enter into a passage that is about miracles. We get to enter into the world.

Of miracles at the end of John chapter four, and we're making our way through this narrative, this biography of Jesus' life. At the end of John chapter four, Jesus encounters a man who has a desperate sudden need. His son is sick, and he, although he is not a particularly religious man, and that might be some of us in the room, comes to Jesus and says, can you help?

And Jesus shows his power over time and distance and heals the man's son. And then Jesus moves on to a second miracle. He moves from the area of Galilee down to Jerusalem and is approached by a man who, it's not a sudden thing here. He's been sick for 38 years. What about those kind of miracles? Do we believe in them?

I wonder if some of our struggle, and I'm gonna assume that there's some struggle in the room somewhere, is that most miracles. They're open to interpretation. And to demonstrate that, I'd love to begin by telling you just a few short stories. The year my wife and I got married 2009, we moved to England.

We lived in a cottage that had been owned by my grandmother. We called it cute. The post office worker that visited called it Derelict, and they are somewhere in between. In between the truth lies in the back there was this beautiful garden full of all sorts of fruit, trees, apples, pears, cherries, and then blackberry bushes, raspberry bushes, and then a damson tree that stretched up to about 30 feet.

That in the four was loaded. With dams and berries. One day my dad came over to help me harvest the fruit and I was doing some things clearing up the yard, and he was up on a scaffolding, reaching for the highest branches, and then suddenly in a moment, I heard a yell. I turned around just in time to see the scaffolding.

Begin to topple. I remember distinctly how small his six foot three frame looked against the 20 foot scaffolding as it to toppled. I remember as he pushed himself away to avoid the falling structure, I remember how long it seemed to take him to fall. I remember the thud as his body hit the ground. I remember my expectation that he would just jump straight up because he's my dad.

He's Superman, right? He can do anything. And I remember running across when he didn't move, I remember feeling you know that feeling you have when you run in a dream and you can never run as fast as you feel like you should be able to run? And I remember how slow I felt, how long it took me to get there.

I remember yelling for Laura to call an ambulance. I remember every single thought and every single prayer that came out of my soul during that time. I remember thinking I would have to call my mother and tell her husband was dead. I'd have to call my siblings and tell them that their father was dead.

I remember getting to him and being absolutely confident to this day that I saw something like Brain Matter on the floor. I remember pulling him close to me, and I remember a couple of things, my desperate prayer that God would save him. That we would get to keep him. And I remember my uncertainty that would happen.

I grabbed him and held him close, and I just kept saying to him over and over again, I love you. I love you. I love you. It was this beautiful, intimate moment between the two of us that he does not remember. 'cause he was absolutely unconscious as he started to come round. He didn't remember anything about what would happen or what had happened.

Didn't know what year it was. Didn't know I was married, didn't know that he had a baby, but all I remember is that somewhere in the gap between no response, no breathing, no heartbeat, nothing, and him starting to come to, there were a lot of desperate prayers. Now, interpretation, miracle or not a miracle.

Couple of years later, my dad started to get sick. He just almost overnight turned yellow, lost a ton of weight. I remember taking him to drop off my thesis. He came with me and I remember how skinny and small he looked to my dad. He's a big, strong guy. I remember the amount of times we prayed there. I remember.

Sitting at a men's breakfast over the table from a doctor friend, as my brother talked about what was happening with my dad, and I remember the look on my friend's face, the diagnosis from a distance, the certainty that this was liver carcinoma, something that serious. I remember the doctors doing tests and coming back with uncertainty.

I remember them asking him to come in for a liver biopsy, and I remember that before the biopsy. Suddenly his color came back. Suddenly, his appetite came back. His weight started to come back. I remember the day he went to the doctor and the doctor said to him, your liver wasn't working. It is working now.

I have no explanation for that. You should probably just go home. Miracle or not miracle. You get to decide. Just the other day, I was walking in the parking lot in my bright white new shoes, and I stepped into some grass that was muddy and wet, and my shoe came out completely clean. Miracle or not miracle, you get to decide.

The problem with miracles or the challenge around this subject is that we're listening to reports and reports sometimes make it hard. We ask a lot of questions that maybe the person doesn't answer for us. Most miracles I would suggest are somewhat open to interpretation. And then on top of that, we have an added problem, our experiences, if we're honest.

Can lead us to some kind of suspicion just out of nature of when you have been born and what country you have been born in. You've been the product of something called the Enlightenment, the age of reason, modernity. So that changes things. This is Craig Keen, a brilliant scholar on the book of John. He says this, so pervasively has Enlightenment's culture's anti supernaturalism affected the Western church.

Especially educated Europeans and Northern American Christians. That's a lot of you guys and me that most of us are suspicious of anything supernatural. We wrestle with it constantly. Add to that, any personal experience you may have had. I grew up in a culture where miracles were regular, and often the church I participated in saw them, believed them.

I experienced them. For myself, and then I experienced the toxic side of that at times. I saw how often miracles could be attached to money and to power, and that sometimes the stories were different to what actually happened. It left me in a state where, if I was honest, when I left that Pentecostal movement, I desperately wanted to ask this one question and it looked like this.

Tell me what was real. Tell me what. Was real because I left with uncertainties, despite the things that I'd seen. I think sometimes our problem is this one, we have no problem mostly, and I'm gonna say mostly believing that the stories within scripture happened in real time. We're good with that. We have no problem that Jesus has the power.

To heal. But the how, the when, the why of that question that raises difficulties and we get to explore that all in this story today. So I hope you come out with a sense of the beautiful healing power of God, and then some of the conundrums around that as well. John chapter five, verse one, sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

For one of the Jewish festivals, John has a different understanding of the relationship between Jesus and Jerusalem to Matthew, mark, and Luke, his fellow writers in Matthew, mark, and Luke Galilee is the place of suspicion. Jesus hometown. They say regularly, no profit is without honor in his hometown and to them, Galilee is that place.

John, is that flipped? He thinks. The Jerusalem is Jesus hometown, his ancestral lineage. That's the place that doesn't believe. That's the place where he's the prophet without honor. And now after performing a miracle in Galilee, he's now heading to Jerusalem for one of the festivals and one of the parties, Jesus makes his way there.

Now there is in Jerusalem near the sheep gate, and I just threw this in 'cause this is like John winking at you as an audience. The sheep gate was where the sacrificial lambs would. At the right season, and now Jesus is in Jerusalem, about to head through the sheep gate after John has called him the Lamb of God.

So it's this little, like wink, Bible nerds, you're gonna love that. Just take that away and just process it a little. Now there is in Jerusalem, near the Sheep gate, a pool. Not in Jerusalem. To be fair, this pool that John describes is actually outside the city walls and the people of the day had a very strong sense of there's the inside the city, which is clean and pure, and then there's the outside of the city.

Which isn't, this is why Jesus is crucified outside of the city and along with everyone else that the Romans crucified. It was an outside the city thing near the sheep gate, a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda, which means House of Mercy, and which is surrounded by five covered colonnade. Now maybe you have a picture.

In your mind, it'd be like swimming pool size, this kind of dirty pool in the middle of some kind of urban area. It was actually much more extensive than that. This is a picture of it. Over there. You can see the red roofs. It's a huge structure comparatively, and for most of the history of understanding scripture, most people believed it didn't exist.

It was actually the best evidence for knowing that John had never been to Jerusalem. Didn't understand the city at all until it was discovered about 120 years ago. I love it when that happens. I love it when for a while there's this kind of suspicion that says none of this stuff was real or really happened, and then a discovery is made, and then there it is, this beautiful structure of pools.

Two of them with five colon aids around them, not shallow 40 feet deep. This is the kind of modern day evidence that the Pool of Bethesda was there. All along. This is where Jesus ends up at the pool of Bethesda and gathered around it of these types of people, the blind, the lame, and the paralyzed people waiting for something, but waiting for what?

Now if you have a copy of the scriptures in front of you, how many of you have a Bible in front of you that's probably 30 years old? Anyone? Anyone? Got 30 years of scriptures in front of them? Yes, at the back over there? I love it. You got a few people there. So in if your Bible's about that age, you may have a verse four in there that tells you something about why they're waiting.

If you don't, if your Bible's newer than that, it will probably give you a footnote. With four and at the bottom it will tell you the verse that used to be there. And most scholars, most interpreters think that the first four that we see in place often is actually from an A later manuscript. It was added, but it gives us a clue as to what's going to happen.

It says that the waiting for a moment when the angel of the Lord will come and stir the waters and the first one into the water will be healed. These are people waiting for hope, waiting for the possibility that something in a moment may come and bring transformation in some ways. John sets this up perfectly every way.

John sets this up perfectly. You've got a festival in the city, the sacred places, the sanctified places. There's a party going on up there. The rich and wealthy are gathered together to celebrate what God has done in the past. And then outside the City Wars a Bethesda. There's those that are desperate, hungry without opportunity, and they're gathered together there in, in some ways it works like a slum works in a modern city.

This is a picture from C SOLE in Haiti. C Sole was the area everyone went after. The earthquake. They set up tents, build makeshift houses, and they just survive waiting for something to happen. One commentator on c Soleil said this city, Soleil is the last place to get anything. If anything, normally people just ignore city.

It sits on the outside of the city and no one really pays attention. At all. I could be multiple places. Could be Ravi in Mumbai, Hoovervilles in New York. The Rook is in 19th century London. All sorts of places where those who have nothing gather and are pushed to the margins. Those who are sickest without hope.

John sets up this picture of those who have something, those who have hope in those that don't, and into the midst of that steps. Jesus. On his way to Jerusalem. Sure. But amongst those who need him the most, it's why in the synoptic gospels, Matthew, mark, and Luke, he says things like this, those who are healthy have no need for a doctor, but those who are sick do.

The picture we get all the way through is that Jesus is the one who sees those who go unseen. And it's no surprise to us if we've read these stories that this is where Jesus is found in amongst those that desperately need him. And so having set up this beautiful scene, John then gives us a character as he so often does.

He focuses on the one, one who had been there, was there who had been an invalid for 38 years. Have you ever waited for something for 38 years? I've been in need for 38 years. Think about that for a second. We just counted down from 10 to this moment where Al Michaels famously said, do you believe in miracles?

Yes, but what about 38 years? 38 years? 30 13. 13,800 days, 333,000 hours. 20 million minutes, 1.2 billion seconds of waiting, eking out an existence, desperate, uncertain. In a climate that wasn't tolerant of people that were sick and broken, that pushed them easily to the margins. What does that feel like?

Maybe some of you can relate. You've been in those spaces, but many of us can't. This is the character that John will champion. This is the one who stands out as it so often does in John, the one that Jesus will encounter specifically. And then we turn to verse six and read these beautiful verses when we know that man's story when Jesus saw him.

The Lamb of God on his way to the sheep gate stops by a pool where the outcasts of society live, and there is Jesus with this one man I just love some of the details of this verse. They just stand out. Beautiful. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, how did Jesus learn that?

Now, maybe he talked to some other people who knows, knew some of his story. Sure. But I love to imagine what this beautiful Jesus did was he stopped by this pool on the wayside with those who were most broken, and he sat with a man 38 years, 1.2 billion seconds of misery, and he heard his story. Have you noticed that about people in suffering?

And when you've perhaps been there yourself, it's fine for other people to know it, but just sometimes there's something beautiful about being able to share it yourself, being able to tell your story and have someone who sits in it with you. And that's what happens here. This man who is at his most broken, most desperate 38 years in sits with the son of God for just a moment.

And Jesus asks him, do you want to get it's not as redundant a question as it seems. I think when you haven't been in those places, you may be making an assumption. Of course, he wants to get well, but I was always surprised by these narratives, especially around healing in some kind of church environment.

We had people back in the church in England who would honestly say, no. I'm actually fine as I am. Don't want to give up the parking pass right now. I get to park. I'm not joking. I get to park wherever I want right now. I get the benefits. I don't have to go to work for some people if they're honest.

There was no healing narrative that felt good to them, but for others, there was this desperate. Yes, of course. Absolutely. I want to get well. I don't want to lose my parking pass. It was genuinely a response, but this man doesn't say yes or no. Interestingly, he doesn't really answer Jesus' question, sir, the invalid replied, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred.

He certainly doesn't think that Jesus will heal him. He thinks at best, Jesus might be the person willing to carry him to the water when the waters are stirred up, but he doesn't make a yes or no request. I have no one to help me into the pool. When the ward restart, while I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.

What do you hear in his voice? I hear frustration, disappointment. Hope deferred. That makes, according to Proverbs, the heart grow sick. This is a prayer from Habakkuk Old Testament book, one chapter, but brilliant for one chapter, verse one, how long Lord must I call for help, but you do not listen? How many times do you think he prayed that in 38 years?

Isaiah 45, verse 15. Truly, you are a God who's been hiding himself. How long do you think he prayed those kind of prayers without hope? And what he's hoping for is somewhere in his deep need, this water, this pool, is his answer. But think about that pool for a second and what it constitutes at best it's this an impersonal force in the arbitrary flow of the water.

Who does this pool work best for? Tho those that are least sick, those that are the fastest. It's like being a kid when someone says first one to that tree wins or something like that's the person that gets healed. It doesn't work for this guy who, as far as we can understand, simply can't move. This is what he's been putting.

He's hoping hope in this pool can never. Give him what he needs may. Maybe he's just simply disappointed that this is how the Guard of Israel works, and all his hopes that are tied in this are now just essentially hopeless many years later. Is the man disappointed? Maybe, but a lot of scholars think it might be worse than just disappointment.

All throughout Rome, the Romans built in their empire that became extensive. All of these conquered towns, they would go and they would build baths. Many of these baths were actually shrines, often shrines to this particular God asclepius. You just say it as you see it, just speak the letters and it comes out.

Asclepius was a god of healing that worked, particularly in water, mineral baths, springs, all those kind of things. As you read, a lot of the commentators on John, a lot of the thing, this pool outside of the city walls was actually dedicated to this guy. He's not going to God, at least the God of Israel for help.

He's just going to anyone he thinks. Might be able to help him. He actually reminds me o of this guy in Prince Cassian, CS Lewis, brilliant Nanni, a world that he creates in Prince Cassian. There's a rebellion. They're trying to overthrow the evil kingdom and bring the kingdom back to what it's supposed to be.

And in amongst that, there's a character called Nicker Brick. Nicker Brick is passionate about Narnia, longs for it to be what it wants was longs to overthrow the evil king. But what you find out about Nicker brick in the end is that he'll go to anyone that can help him. When the kings of the past fail him.

When the legends of the past fail him, he goes to the white witch, the evil queen from the second book in Nia, and he says these words, if you can't help, I'll go to someone who can. I'll go to someone who can. I actually think this might be this guy's problem. He's just gone to anyone he thinks will be able to help him.

And I wonder if we do that as well, if we're honest. I have all sorts of things that I think I can bank my future on that aren't just a reliance on God. He says things like I'll provide for you, and I think my 401k will definitely provide for me in the future, if I'm honest. It's easy for me to wait there.

Than it is to believe God can provide. I can believe that if I build things bigger and better, then that's gonna be the future. It's easier for me to do that than to believe in God. It's easier to believe, if I'm honest, that I can rely on anything other than God. And so I think I'm similar if I'm honest to this guys, this guy in some ways.

And then you get the moment of miracle to this guy that has given up on his God and surprisingly finds himself stood face to face with the God who is hidden in Jesus. Get up, pick up your man and walk. And at once the man was cured in the chosen series videos of Jesus' life. There's a beautiful additional line that I wanna share with you 'cause it's just so poignant in that series.

It has Jesus say these words to, to him, you don't need this pool. It has nothing here for you. I wonder what we might put in the place of pool. What are you relying on? That will give you everything that you ever needed. That you can put in that place. See, pardon. My problem, my struggle with miracles is this.

I am wired to see every side of the conversation, the eight different sides that are in the midst of the conversation. So I believe these things happen, but at the same time, I get to talk to lots of you and people in church is past. And I know the number of you that have prayed desperately for marriages, for kids, for grandkids, for work dramas, for finances, for all sorts of things.

And it felt like heaven is silent, that it's not answering you. But I think some of those things are also things that could quite easily be put in this gap right here. There's all the things that if God would just do this, everything would be good forever. And I'm just not sure that's true, especially if you have to go somewhere else to get it.

It's why I love Psalm 25 verse five. Guide me in your truth and teach me for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. Nothing else just in you. Incredibly in this story. God turns up when he has given up. When there is no hope, and the man walks away from this story leaping, I imagine with perfect gait as though he's just come from yoga on the steps at Red Rock, something like that.

Just a man who walks with just that style that a good Walker walks with. And then the question is, what happens next? What happens next? And we read a few different things. First, the day on which this took place was the Sabbath. And so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, it's the Sabbath.

The law forbids you to carry your mat. They're actually right. There are all these laws around the Sabbath, 39 of them, and the rule, this man has broken is 39 part B. It's that specific. Malco 39 part two, carrying something more than fuel four qubits in a public domain. That's his crime. That's the thing that he has broken, and this is why he's in trouble with the religious authorities, and he replies in brilliant fashion.

And the man who made me well, who healed me, said to me, pick up your mat. And walk and the Pharisees response or the Jewish leader's response is this, who is this fellow who told you to pick up and walk? There's a quote from Walt Whitman, or at least attributed to him that goes something like this. And be curious, not judgmental.

And these guys have no curiosity whatsoever. A miracle is appearing in their midst. God is at work. The God they have waited for a long time is at work. And all they can see is a man who's broken a rule. The man who had, the man who was healed, had no idea who he was for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

Later, Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, see, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may come upon you. I wonder about this story. 'cause my question is the miracle the main point? The fact that Jesus can go to him and warn him that something worse may happen suggests to me that it isn't that, that Jesus has a bigger purpose than a miracle.

And I think something magical happens when you take a couple of stories that are similar and compare them and it starts to elevate. Scripture starts to give us a sense of what God is doing across the whole thing. Firstly, lemme say this do you have a worldview? Do I have a worldview that says that the evidence of God at work is that I find myself leaping.

I find myself where this man is. I find myself healed with a new story to tell. While following Jesus, I would suggest brings life, your life into order. And I'm on board with that Andy Stanley idea that following Jesus should make your life better and make you better at life. It does not guarantee good temporal outcomes.

Jesus express purpose is to draw you to him and form you in his image. And surprisingly, when he does that, you'll be more yourselves than ever. Jesus' goal is not just for the man to be healed it, it's to pull the man into relationship with him that can genuinely be transforming, and I think we know that when we compare it to this story.

This is Genesis 32, verse 22. That night Jacob got up, took his two wives, old Testament character, Genesis patriarch. He's two female servants. This is not recommending either of those things. And his 11 sons and crossed the Ford of the Jabba. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions.

This is like a key to one. He sends the people first, they're the most valuable. Second, he sends the possessions, but most importantly of all, he's now completely along. As he was born simply with a suit of clothes he happens to be wearing. He's just as he is with nothing else to show for it. So Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.

When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. If you have a bad hip, you know of what I speak. Then the man said, let me go for his daybreak. But Jacob replied, I will not let you go unless you bless me. Hold on.

The thing is coming. The man asked him, what is your name, Jacob? He answered. The man said, your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome. You have struggled with God and overcome. Jacob said, please tell me your name, but he replied, why do you ask my name?

And then he blessed him there. So Jacob called the place pen saying It is because I saw God face to face and yet my life was spared. Jacob is under no illusions as to who it was that he encountered here at Pene. He encountered the guard of the universe in much the same way as this man did who had been sick for 38 years.

But look at the end of the story here. The sun rose above him as he passed pen, and he was limping because of the hip. In this story, a man encounters God and goes away limping. He goes away limping. I would suggest that what we can get across the whole body of scripture is this idea whether you leap with God or limp with God.

It's with God that matters in the sentence. In some ways, God is not particularly interested in whether you are limping or leaving as much as he is interested. In who you are walking with. He is desperately interested that you will journey with him often. The good news is that means limping, leaping, and I'm not prophesying any doom over anyone.

You may continue to leap with God for the rest. Of your life, but there are times when limping is the most productive thing that you will experience. Let me tell you really quickly before Aaron comes one short story. A friend of mine, Stevie D, received this horrible diagnosis at 30 years old. He had leukemia.

He was a death sentence at the time. There was no possibility of him recovering. And he realized in that time, one to him, horrifying truth. He was about to meet God and did not feel in the slightest bit prepared to meet him. Now, sometimes that's a natural experience when you're about to encounter the divine, the unknown, the mystery that is God, that is the God of the universe.

But at the same time, he felt this was the perfect invite opportunity for him to become more one with Jesus, to walk with him more specifically and concretely and then. Through a miraculous series of events, he was healed suddenly given an absolute or clear. And my friend Stevie D, for 15 years lived the most passionate, leaping with God life that I have seen in my lifetime.

He loved Jesus desperately and passionately, and everything about his life showed it. And then at 45. The sickness came back and just a few short months later, he passed away leaping limping. Where was God at work in that? In both, right? He was at work in both. And through both of those things, my friend entered a life that was joyful.

To watch Jesus is about to enter a phase of teaching where start to use I am statements and it seems to be that this is his goal. All that the father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me, I will most certainly not cast out. That's his great goal for you and for I leaping and limping.

That's just part of the story. Romans 8 28 and we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him. Who has been caught, who have been caught. According to his purpose. I believe that God heals and we're gonna pray as we end the service. We're gonna have Aaron come up and lead us in worship.

And you, if you are sick and you'd like to be prayed for, we would love to pray for you. But we also know that sometimes in your story. God leads you with limping. I'm gonna finish with one quick quote from a young guy called my dad, who's been around at our food bank and is Ara an Iranian who's lived over here for a while.

Not long ago he was arrested and many of us have been praying for him a lot during that time. This is one of the things he said about his time in prison. I turned it into the first person 'cause that's how he shared it. Jesus has used this time in prison to teach me humility. I have never been humble before in my life, but now I feel really humble, leaping or limping, and yet God seems to work in both of them.

Jesus. You are present with us, present to heal, present to journey with us. Best of all. For my friends, as we sing, I pray that you would speak deep into their hearts, that they would know the season they are in. For those of us that are sick, I pray you would give us the confidence to know that you heal today just as you did 2000 years ago.

For those that are experiencing transforming in the limping, I pray that you will give us the courage to journey with you even there. To not look for all the answers in all sorts of other hopes. We get to work with great doctors. That's a gift we get to work with modern medicine. That's a gift. But sometimes our temptation is to take all sorts of things, all sorts of hopes around relationships and wealth and power, and put them in place of you.

Give us the courage, Jesus, to look to you only. Amen.