When the Living Water Comes to You…

There were so many people with so many needs. Blind. Lame. Deaf. Mute. Paralyzed.

Some looked hopeful. Some looked hopeless.

Some were surrounded by friends and family ready to help. Some were alone.

One thing connected them. The pool. Every single one of them, no matter what the need, tensely waited for the moment that could change their life.

You could tell who had been there the longest. For some of them had this hopeful, almost eager look in their eyes that seemed to say this will be my day. But there were others who blankly stared at the pool, with the just smallest beacon of hope deep back in their eyes that seemed to be hanging by a slender thread.

One man, though, his eyes would haunt everyone who saw him for the rest of their lives. His eyes didn’t hold hope. They held resignation. Resignation to his condition. Resignation to his loneliness. Resignation to spending the rest of his life in this location, seeing others getting the blessing he longed for.

After all, it had been thirty eight years. Thirty eight years. This had been no ordinary trial. This had been a prolonged testing of faith. And his faith was beginning to fail. It wasn’t that he didn’t want it.  It wasn’t that he hadn’t tried before. It wasn’t even that he didn’t believe that the moving of the water could heal him. After all, he’d seen others be healed time and time again. No, he simply realized that he himself had no way of getting it for himself. He was sick and alone. And tired of seeing others have someone help them get the breakthrough he wanted. He was just tired of trying.

Maybe it was his physical condition that caught the Master’s eye. Perhaps he looked worse than the others. Maybe the Master saw that He was alone and couldn’t bear the thought. Maybe He just picked the man at random.

All of these are possible, but something tells me it was more. I can just imagine Jesus walking up to the pool wanting to help someone. And as He looks over the crowd, His eyes catch on this man. I don’t believe it was the man’s physical condition that caught His eye. No, I believe it was the man’s hopelessness. I believe that as the Master looked at this man, He saw a soul suffering from much more than a physical ailment. He saw a soul suffering from loneliness, disappointment, heartbreak and mostly hopelessness. And Jesus, He is no ordinary man, He specializes in hopeless cases.

So, He approached the impotent man and asked him one question, “Wilt thou be made whole?”

Can you imagine this man’s shock. Of course he wanted to be healed. Why else would he have set here for all these years? And so he told the Master, “I’ve tried, but noone is here to help me down. When I start to get up, someone is already there.”

And I can just see Jesus thinking, You don’t need someone to bring you to the water anymore. The Living Water has come to you. 

And so the voice that would calm the winds and the waves spoke and said “Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.”

And just like that, the test of thirty eight years was over. For thirty eight years, he had sat at that darkest moment just before the dawn, and suddenly the Son burst forth.

The Living Water had washed over him and he would never be the same.