I Believe

Healing The Cripple

A/N (getting sick of the A/N's yet!?) The song on the right is something I heard last Wednesday when we had some singers come to our church. I love the song, it goes well with this chapter, and I thought I'd share it. :)

John 5:5-17.

Vs. 6. When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? 

"The waters are stirred!"

At the shout, probably fifty people jumped into the pool of Bethsaida, but only the first, a blind man, came out with a smile.

A crippled man, bedridden for thirty-eight years, watched all of this go on with longing in his eyes. The pool of Bethsaida, oh, what he wouldn't give to be the first one in when the angel troubled the waters!

"But I would have nothing to give anyway," he told himself sadly. His only possessions were his bedroll and the clothes on his back.

The cripple stared at the clear waters of the pool, and then at the blind man who had been the first to enter. He was now grinning broadly, tears of joy in the once unseeing eyes, as he delightedly called out the names of everything he saw.

"Birds!" he yelled joyously. "Trees, sunlight, buildings!"

The crippled man wept silently. Oh, if he could only walk! But it was impossible. There was no way he could get into that water by himself, and he had no one to help him.

"Why are you weeping?"

The cripple started and looked up at the sound of a gentle voice. Kind eyes stared back down at him and, despite himself, he felt an odd sense of comfort.

"I have been confined to this bed for eight and thirty years," he explained to the kindly man.

The man gazed back at him with an expression of compassion, and suddenly, the cripple felt an overwhelming trust.

"Will you be made whole?" the man asked.

The cripple did not understand.

"I am confined," he tried explaining again. "I have no man to help me into the pool when the waters are troubled."

"Will you be made whole?" the stranger asked a second time.

The cripple was about to give up and turn away, when something told him not to. He could feel it tugging at his heart something small, and yet.... so big. It took him a minute to realize what it was. It was..... faith.

"Yes," was the only response he gave, and yet, it was enough.

"Rise," the man commanded. "Take up thy bed and walk."

The crippled man was stunned. How could he rise? He had been lame for thirty-eight years, but again, he felt that tiny seed of faith, deep down inside his heart. He looked at the still-rejoicing blind man, and found strength he didn't know he had. Almost before he realized what was happening, he was on his feet, walking like he had never been crippled.

"I.... I can walk!" he cried out joyfully. He was so excited, he bent down, picked up his bedroll, and ran off, engulfed in happiness, without a thought to the fact that it was the Sabbath.

Suddenly, the man was stopped by a group of Jews.

"It is the Sabbath," one of them declared sternly. "It is not lawful for you to carry your bedroll!"

The formerly-crippled man, usually so timid, now drew himself up to his full height and spoke boldly.

"The same that healed me, said to me "Rise, take up thy bed and walk."."

"Who healed you?" they asked suspiciously.

The cripple opened his mouth to answer, and stopped. He didn't know.

How could he have not asked? He turned around and went away. He had been going for quite awhile when he found himself banging into a man.

"I'm sorry," he started to apologize, and then realized that this was the man who had healed him.

"I am Jesus."

How could three words hold so much power? The wondering cripple somehow knew that that would be the most important sentence he ever heard in his life and he listened closely to the rest of Jesus' words.

"You have been made whole. Sin no more, that a worse thing may not come upon you."

The cripple turned and ran back to the Jews as quickly as his newfound legs would carry him.

"The man's name is Jesus!" he announced, panting as he reached them..... and, not noticing their scowls, he added softly,

"The Messiah, son of God. And I believe in him."

John 5:5-17.

Vs. 17. But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.