You Are HEEEAAAAAALLLLLDDDDD!!!!

This week we meet a man in John 5 "who had been an invalid 38 years" . He is laying by a pool along with others in desperate straits. He is ill, he has no friends, and has been in this condition for nearly 4 decades. They were waiting there, according to the text, for a stirring of the waters. (v.7) It seems that, according to local tradition, the first one in the water would be healed, the others were simply left to wait. The Bible nowhere teaches this kind of superstition, a situation which would be a most cruel contest for people who are already suffering..

Interestingly, this is the second of signs in John's Gospel, that involves a healing. So it is appropriate to consider a theology of sickness. The presence of sickness is not hard to explain, we live in a fallen world and the presence of sin brings death. One day, sickness, pain and death will be removed but for today we all live under the scarring of sin. What really stands out to me today is the response to sickness. Consider what this man's view of God must have been. "God's mercy is based on first come, first serve"? It is this kind of confusion that open's the door for others to step in and take advantage of those in desperation because of illness.

I am enraged when I think of "cure" pushers on the radio "Take this pill 3 x's a day ", "other places couldn't cure my cancer but when I went to X they were so friendly, I knew they cared and now my cancer is gone". As disgusted as I am about these folks, the ones that really burn me are the "Faith Healers". "If you just have enough faith" and "If you'd only go to see Y he could heal you". Now I believe that God heals but no where in the Bible do we see such a circus as these "healing services" And if people aren't healed, to pile on top of their pain, they are told "It's because you just don't have enough faith". It's near criminal, especially how through this so called gift these "healers" have enriched themselves in every worldly way. OK, don't get me started. (too late!)

Perhaps we would be better off thinking of such things in the following way. Jesus came, not just to deal with the symptoms of Sin but to deliver us from Sin itself and bring us into a relationship with God. These bodies, like it or not, are dying. What Jesus is most concerned about is your Soul.


What say you?