Do you want to get well?

I was reading John 5 the other day in preparation for my Monday group, and saw something in that passage that I don't think I have ever seen before. It is so cool that the Bible is like that. I've probably read this passage a hundred times and never noticed this truth.

In the story, Jesus meets a disabled man sitting by the pool at Bethesda. The thought of the day was that when the water stirred, it was an angel of God, and the first person to get into the pool would be healed. (I'm guessing it really worked that way or people would have figured it out and left.) As you can imagine, this was probably a very popular place for the disabled to hang out. For whatever reason, Jesus picked out this one man, and asked him a rather odd question: 'do you want to get better?'. I've often heard talks detailing the genius of this rather obvious question - and it's true, Jesus knows what he is doing. But I don't think I ever really looked at the man's answer. The man doesn't say yes!! He makes and excuse for why he's not healed saying he can't move himself into the pool quickly enough. That is so human. Jesus asks, 'do you want to be healed from your alcoholism, overeating, anger, lack of love, pornography addiction ... ?', and we respond 'i can't - i've tried and it doesn't work because of blah, blah, blah ...' Why can't we just answer 'yes'? Could it be because we want to be freed from the consequences of our sin but not necessarily the sin itself? We don't want to be changed, we just want to be more comfortable.

Jesus heals the man and a little while later runs into him again saying 'See, you have been healed. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.' At first glance it sounds like a threat - stop sinning or you'll be crippled again sitting back at the pool. But I think it's really a loving warning. Sin has consequences. Don't think that just because you can now walk, you can go around sinning all you want. It will catch up with you. Maybe Jesus was informing him that even though he had taken away the man's pain, the real objective is not comfort, it is transformation.

I know I see this in my life. That is why confession is so hard. Confession flat out works (James 5:16). It changes you when you bring everything into the light. So why don't I do it better. Why do I only share 90% of the truth? Because I'm more concerned with minimizing the consequences and minimizing the pain, than becoming a better person. I choose comfort over transformation.