Do You Want To Be Healed?
Jn. 5:6

Welde Tensae

Praise be to the Lord for He has given us the time to make it to this MESS’AGUE week of the Lent. ‘MESS’AGUE’ could mean ‘infirm, ailing, disabled,… etc’, explaining not just a physical sate of dilapidation a sick person may face but, much more importantly, the state of condemned existence (sickness in the soul) under which man passed for millennia due to Adam’s Transgression. Such a Fall has necessitated the Incarnation of the Lord Christ who has come unto and as one of us, minus our sins, to heal us the, ailing and the infirm, for we lost the divine grace left in complete susceptibility to the attacks of Satan. For God never wanted to forsake the transgressor, man, there were prophecies as to the longed for Healer, Christ. St.David has, for instance, foretold Christ’s divine and humane role as follows:

Blessed is he who considers the poor; the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. The Lord will preserve him and keep him alive, and he will be blessed on the earth; you will not deliver him to the will of his enemies. The lord will strengthen him on his bed of illness; you will sustain him on his sickbed.Ps 41:1-3.

Read at face value, it talks about the spiritual reward a believer reaps for the positive treatment she gives to the poor, those who lack their physical and spiritual wants. It is common knowledge that every one needs basic physical necessities food, clothing and shelter to sustain himself during the period he is destined to stay in this world. The person who has managed to fulfill his own needs shall not see his brother die in lack of the means to sustain his flesh.  He, being  given from God the caliber to fulfill his needs,  is expected to share ,in different forms, with a lacking brother. The sharing could be done through a physical supply to the needy of part of one owns; it could also be made through showing the method to be self- reliant. In other words, assistance could be made on the what, provision of the needed material itself, and on the how, directing to the way(s) of making the material available by the needy person himself. One may, thus, supply the fish and /or the net depending on the circumstances.

Such a benevolent person who aids the poor will get his generosity reciprocated by the Lord. The benevolent person will be aided if he is troubled, will be blessed on the earth, will be delivered from enemies, will be helped on bed, etc.

Much, much more important is the spiritual help. The physical lack may terminate itself once soul and flesh are separated by death. A spiritual lack which is felt in the soul has an eternal effect for it will lead to the everlasting condemnation of the soul. Unless one is well – nurtured in the spirit during his existence in this temporary world given for work, he is never able to win the kingdom of God. Both the falling man who never cared for his spirit and the one who saw his brother carelessly as he dies with poor spirit will be condemned by God.

To set an example of nurturing the poor both physically and spiritually, our Lord and savior Jesus Christ has been with us.His teachings, both in words and in action, have centered on helping the poor. Though he was not that obsessed with availing physically needed food and drinks, treatments, etc. he has made them amidst us to teach how we have to help those who need them. He has fed people; he has healed the sick, etc. while underling His main mission of saving the soul and not the flesh.

One basic purpose of the Lord’s Incarnation is to be a model of spiritual life. Our Lord and savior Jesus Christ has, accordingly, taught and also acted in an exemplary way.

If we read Jn. 5:1-17, we see how the Lord heals a man at Bethesda, who had no one to lend a hand. This man had been living crippled for a little less than four decades, 38 years to be exact. All he needed to be healed was an able bodied person who could put him into the Bethesda Holy Pool as the water is divinely stirred up.

He ailed for those many years in lack of a helping hand, since he had no strength at all to withstand the physical pull and push and become the first to be in the Holy Pool once it is stirred up.

The Lord of Hosts, who could make happen whatever He wills to, in His words, with or without physical involvement, asks the disabled man if he wanted to be healed. He says ‘yes’ and is healed with warning not to sin again.

The thing we can easily notice is we have to heal people or help them get healed. We may be physicians; or, we may have the means to pay for their treatment. Such an understanding of the Lord’s act will demean it to only a physical role, though such a role will have some consideration in life. The Lord has come to treat us from the fetters of the Devil. This bedridden man of Bethesda symbolizes or represents souls who have for ages been harassed by the Devil for they had no one to liberate them. The Lord has come to do this job of liberation and also assign chosen people to do the same.

As we could see from the healing at Bethesda, the Lord’s healing is not imposed; His Provision is only for those who want it. That is why the Lord first asks the disabled person if he wanted to be healed. The choice was up to the person. He said he wanted to be healed, and the Lord healed him. We hear people wondering why God’s Providence is not automatically given to all. The answer is- what if there are people who do not want to be treated by God’s providence?

Religion is never imposed; aids must never be imposed; etc. The accord of the person who is felt to deserve it (be it religion, aid, etc,) imust first be secured before extending religious words or secular aids. Similarly, the Lord has ordered His apostles to leave a place for good if their words of life are opposed.

We live amidst many who are seriously poor and also sick. There is a twofold poverty and sickness-secular and spiritual. In the secular sense, millions are in need of immediate assistance to sustain life. Thy have no food, clothing and shelter. Spiritually, the world is reduced to a battle field. Many have raised their swords to impose their will upon others and deny them the right to uphold individual philosophies of life. This statuesque gives immense work for you, me and all fellow believers. We have to help the poor and the sick. Physically, we have to nurse them in the basic means they need. Spiritually, we have to take the word of God to them. Tortured by spiritually poverty and sickness, they need the word of God very badly. It is the love, peace, fraternity and other virtues that the Lord has demonstrated which could heal such an impoverished and sick world. If we preach peace, selflessness, and other Christian virtues, the return will be the one St. David has talked about in the verses excerpted earlier in this piece.

Once we have got the Lord’s mercy, we shall not resort to the old sinful path we had. That is what the Lord has advised the disabled man at Bethesda whom He has healed. The healed man does, unfortunately, look down upon the Lord’s word when he informs the Jews that it was Jesus who healed him on Sabbath. As we read from Jn. 5:15, the healed man departs from where he was only to tell the Jews that it was Jesus who healed him on Sabbath. Rather than realize that Sabbath would be senseless unless it is devoted for healing the ailing such as him, both physically and spiritually, he sides with the Jews who accuse the healer and later put Him on the cross. The healed man should have decided to do what he could to the poor and the sick for them to partake from the providence he has benefited from. He has, unfortunately, opted for siding with the accusers of the Lord being an instance to those who easily forget what the Lord has done/does for them, and rather stand on His way. They become obstacles for others who deserve to get God’s mercy.

Contrary to this man of Bethesda who has swiftly tramped on the Lord and His benevolence, we read, in Acts 3:1-12, about a lame man being healed by Sts. John and Peter as per the divine authority vested in them by the Lord Christ and following his example who has come to give hope to all who have lost hope. The man was asking for secular alms, the coins which could be consumed so soon leaving him still for the same life of begging. Sts. John and peter make him a physically and spiritually able man. He takes no time to praise God and not accuse Him, thus differing from the man at Bethesda. This man, whom the two saints have healed, leaves an example to us all who have been healed, be it physically or spiritually, by God in one form or another. We have to praise the Lord for what he has done to us and demonstrate God’s wonders in front of others as is the case with this man who became a cause of marvel to many. St. Peter preaches God to such souls taking such an opportunity.

As St. Peter has taken this man by the right hand to make him an able one, our contemporary spiritual fathers need to heal the sick, who are living with different spiritual problems. Lays, on our part, are expected to refer brothers and sisters to fathers. The prayer of such fathers will heal them from their problems, for it is written thus:

Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. /Jm. 5:14-15/.

Following the example of the healed man who made himself busy praising God once he was healed by Sts. Peter and John, and not the one who accused God in front of opposes though he has got the cure he long waited for, we shall praise and serve the Lord to see even more souls cured physically and spiritually. /Gal. 5:1/ let us go to church elders to be healed in the words of God. Let us show mercy to the poor. If we do this, we are in conformity with the ways the Lord, who has come to heal the sick and raise the poor.

Going only for the healthy and the heave’s is not the mark of a spiritual person. Spirituality demands to realize the very purpose the Lord has com for, which is healing the sick and raising the downtrodden. Let us see this happen through our spiritual diligence. Amen!!!

May God Bless us, Amen.