Do you want to be healed?

"Do you want to be healed?," Jesus asked the crippled man at the pool of Bethzatha (John 5:6). For many of us we seem to enjoy our infirmities. When our faith presents us with the option for healing we shudder and shake our heads, "ah, no; not just yet." We have not only become comfortable with our security blankets of sin, neurosis or illness that we would be lost without them. Deep down we must admit that our very identities have become emeshed with our quirks and abnormalities. We all want to be individuals. Often the very things that are keeping us from being all that God is creating us to be are the very things we hold on to with a death grip. We can't seem to see that all we have to do is let go....
In John 5 we miss the internal turmoil that must have gone on within the mind of the sick man that Jesus approached. Was his failure to be well really due to his inability to get to the water? Or, over the years, had he become accustomed to hanging out with his buddies beside the beautiful fountain at the Sheep Gate? Oh, once upon a time he may have tried unsuccessfully to get into the water. Those faster and younger nudged ahead of him. Eventually he came to enjoy his place, his well-worn spot there beside the pool. He had all of his needs met there. He could hang out with friends, collect a bit of money from passersby on their way to the temple, have his family bring him food and take him home in the evening - it was a decent life, and he didn't even have to go to work! Being healed would change everything!
Yet, here Jesus dared to ask him the question, "Do you want to be healed?" And though our sick friend didn't answer a hearty, "yes," he didn't say "no" either! Jesus took his timid, whiny excuse as a "yes" and told him to get up and walk. A new man was born on that porch early that Sabbath morning, choosing to act, choosing life, choosing healing instead of comfort.
Each of us this Easter week are presented with the same choice as we sit, comfortable in our sin, our sickness, our neuroses, our half-baked excuses for partial faith; "Do you want to be healed?" And here too Jesus doesn't wait for us to give him a yes! As we begin our oft repeated and well rehearsed litany of excuses, Jesus tells us to get up, take our mat and begin the journey toward wholeness. The next step is ours. We discover in this moment of decision that faith is action! Belief really doesn't matter until it is acted upon.
So, what will we do this day? "Do you want to be healed" Jesus asks?