Standing in line at a women’s Christmas party, I sensed I should invite the woman behind me to come with me to Guatemala the next year to translate for the rehabilitation promoter training I would be conducting. Randomly, I turned to her and said, “Would you like to go to Guatemala with me? You could help by translating for me as I do my training next year.”

“I don’t have money to do that,” she said. 

“Would you like to go with me to Guatemala next year?” I repeated. 

“I can’t afford to go,” she replied.

“I don’t think you’re understanding my question. Would you be interested in going with me to Guatemala next year?” I asked again. 

What my friend didn’t realize was that her trip expenses were already covered. I was simply asking if she was interested and available to come with me.

John 5:2-9 (NRSV) reminded me of that conversation with my friend. Here is what the passage says:

Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids – blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to get made well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down and ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. 

Here is a man sick for thirty-eight years and when Jesus asks him if he wants to get healed, he explains why he can’t get better. Just like my friend who wanted to go to Guatemala, he wanted something but his eyes were on why it wouldn’t work. My friend did come with me to Guatemala, and there is more to that story, too, but that is for another time. I know what happened in my friend’s story, but I wonder what happened to this man. Why did he tell Jesus why he couldn’t be healed, but then do what Jesus said when he was told to “Stand up, take your mat, and walk”? What changed? 

Could it be that the ill man’s healing didn’t depend upon what others did or did not do, but on a choice he made to believe that this man Jesus, whom he didn’t know, could actually do what the ill man desired? Did the ill man sense Jesus already knew and had a plan? Had the ill man heard stories about this Jesus before He showed up on the scene so that when He gave the command to stand up the ill man believed? Did the ill man know there was something greater than what he had been putting his hope in that could not only heal him but do greater things than he could imagine in his life? What happened to the ill man after this? What kind of life did he live? 

It makes me wonder, and I hope it does it to you, too. What question(s) might I be misunderstanding? What desire of my heart does He want to answer, but I’m making excuses about why it can’t happen? Where do I need to just “stand up, take up my mat, and walk?”