Pam's Perambulation

Jesus Heals a Sick Man

5 Later, Jesus went to Jerusalem for another Jewish festival. ² In the city near the sheep gate was a pool with five porches, and its name in Hebrew was Bethzatha.

^3-4 Many sick, blind, lame, and crippled people were lying close to the pool.

⁵ Beside the pool was a man who had been sick for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw the man and realized that he had been crippled for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to be healed?”

⁷ The man answered, “Lord, I don’t have anyone to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up. I try to get in, but someone else always gets there first.”

⁸ Jesus told him, “Pick up your mat and walk!” ⁹ Right then the man was healed. He picked up his mat and started walking around. The day on which this happened was a Sabbath.

¹⁰ When the Jewish leaders saw the man carrying his mat, they said to him, “This is the Sabbath! No one is allowed to carry a mat on the Sabbath.”

¹¹ But he replied, “The man who healed me told me to pick up my mat and walk.”

¹² They asked him, “Who is this man that told you to pick up your mat and walk?” ¹³ But he did not know who Jesus was, and Jesus had left because of the crowd.

¹⁴ Later, Jesus met the man in the temple and told him, “You are now well. But don’t sin anymore or something worse might happen to you.” ¹⁵ The man left and told the leaders that Jesus was the one who had healed him. ¹⁶ They started making a lot of trouble for Jesus because he did things like this on the Sabbath.

Thirty-eight years,
thirty-eight years
I’ve been like this,
and he asks me
do I want to get better,
do I want to change?

For thirty-eight years
I have been waiting
for someone to help me,
to lift me,
to carry me
to where I need to be.
I have tried,
but been shoved
right
out
of
the
way,
beaten to it
by those more able
to get there.

How I long to be in that pool,
to feel its healing touch,
it’s cleansing,
refreshing power.
Then the pool came to me,
the healing power of this man,
‘Get up,
pick up your mat,
you can walk now’.

And I could!

His presence,
His word,
changed my life,
there and then.
My life was no longer crippled,
he had given me the strength
to walk,
with him.

But some weren’t happy.
they preferred me sat there,
unable to live my life,
held back by my
inability to get up.

They don’t want him freeing people,
lifting people,
helping them to walk
in his way.
He has given me
My life back
and all they care about
is what day it is.

They
are
missing
the
point.

But I heard his word.
I am walking in his strength.
I know
what the point is.

I Walk By Faith

There are many things in life that hold us back.  Do we want to be free of them, will we allow Jesus to touch them and heal them?  Can we move on?  In his strength?  This passage is not just about a lame man being able to walk, not only about physical healing, but so much more.