When we are stricken with a serious illness or facing some sort of crippling difficulty, who do we turn to? Some people start looking for the best doctors to try and cure them. When modern medicine or other forms of modern therapy fail to heal or cure, some people start looking for bomohs, medicine men, shamans or some other form of traditional healing; some people begin to listen to practitioners of feng shui or some other form of divination, thinking that these would give them some form of lucky charm, amulet or method which would cure them; some people may even think that their illness is incurable and may begin to despair. But what about us Christians? What should we do?
In today’s Gospel, we come across a building at the Sheep Pool in Jerusalem, called Bethzatha in Hebrew, consisting of five porticos; and under these were crowds of sick people – blind, lame, paralysed – waiting for the water to move. These people had much faith that the water, when stirred or disturbed, would heal whoever was first to get into the water. One man there had an illness which had lasted thirty-eight years, and despite his faith that the water could heal him, he never had a chance to get into the water, since so many people were there and someone else always seemed to get there first. But Jesus came and said, ‘Get up, pick up your sleeping-mat and walk,’ and the man was instantly cured. There was no need for the man to inch his way to the pool with hope of receiving new life, since new life from Jesus came to him.
If Jesus could cure the man instantly, He could do the same for us. Are we willing to put our trust in Jesus instead of running around looking for all those other means, which more often than not would not cure us but may make matters worse? Sometimes we just need to be humble and patient, consistent and persistent in our prayer, and let Jesus heal us according to His time.