Preached at Clyro, 8th Sunday after Trinity, July 17, 1853.
“Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.”—St. John v. 8.
You have heard in the second lesson this morning where our Lord spoke these words. There was a pool near the sheep-market in the city of Jerusalem. The people of the city believed that the water of this pool could heal sick people. They did not think it could heal at all times, but only when there was some stir in it. They thought that an angel or messenger of God caused it to stir. They, therefore, who had anything ailing them lay in crowds about this pool waiting for the moving of the water. It was so one Sabbath day when Jesus was walking in Jerusalem. We are not told that He spoke to the sick people generally; but He fixed His eyes on one who had been ill for thirty-eight years. He said to him, “Wilt thou be made whole?” The man said he could not reach the pool in time to get any good from it. When it began to move numbers pushed forward and bathed. He was very weak, and others were quicker than he was, and there was no one to lift him in. Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked.
I have said that the people of Jerusalem thought that there was some advantage to be gained from bathing in this pool. No doubt they had reason for thinking so. St. John speaks as if they had. One and another had found good from the water, and therefore all of them thought that they might. They were just such men as we are. One tells another of some medicine that has been serviceable to him. Those that are ill and long to be well, desire to try whether it may not serve them also. And if they observe that the benefit comes at one season rather than another, then they wish to seize the very moment, and if they fail, they often fancy they should have been quite cured, if it had not been for some unfortunate accident, or some person who was in the way, and hindered them. The people of Jerusalem believed also that the good which was in the pool did not come from the pool itself; but that it was God’s gift. His angel stirred it. He put the healing power into it. This belief, too, was on the whole a right one. They might have foolish fancies that they saw the angel going down into the pool at certain moments; just as people in our country have had, and may have still. But they were not wrong that everything which is healthful comes from the Giver of all good, they were not wrong in saying, It must be some power from Him which makes any one well who has been sick; able to walk, who has been fixed to his bed and helpless.
Jesus did not come to the couch of that poor man who had been ill for thirty-eight years, to tell him that this was not so. He wished him to believe it more than he had ever believed it before. And yet, you see, he did not assist to put him into the pool; He did not say, wait a little, and the angel will stir it again, then you may profit by it as others have done. But He said at once, “Rise up and walk.” The poor cripple must have wondered. He who spake these words looked like another man. He spoke with a voice like his voice; He had not any signs of being greater than those about Him. The rulers of the Jews thought nothing of Him. And yet He took upon Him to do what the Angel could not do. He addressed the man as if He were his master; as if He knew him thoroughly; as if He understood exactly what his weakness was; as if the power to make him a healthy living man was in Him. And we are told that the impotent man felt it was in Him. The word did not fall dead upon his ears. It gave him what he wanted. He rose, took up his bed, and walked.
It was a good thing for that poor cripple, doubtless, that, after thirty-eight years’ illness, he should be able to feel his limbs again, and do his work freely and usefully. But what is it to us? Why should it be put down in this Gospel of St. John? Why should it be a Gospel or good news to us who live eighteen hundred years since this man has been dead, in a country thousands of miles from his? It could not be good news to us to tell us that there was at that time in Jerusalem a pool which had now and then some healing power; for Jerusalem is altogether changed, and we hear of no such pool now; and, if there were such, what could it concern the poor and sick people of England and Wales? It could not help us much to hear reports of other waters nearer to us that might sometimes be useful to one or another. For they might not do us good in our diseases; or we might not be able to reach them at the right time, as this poor man was not, though he was so close to the spot, and took so much pains. And it could be no great good news to us that there were kind angels who sometimes took an interest in poor mortals, and sent them aid; for we should say to ourselves, What are they against the multitudes of dangers and evils that are besetting us continually? But if we could be told of one who is always alive and always at hand, who is the same to us as He was to the people of Jerusalem, or to any one of those people; one who is not here to-day and gone to-morrow, strong now and weak at another time, kind for a little while, and then hard or indifferent; but who is at hand when we think least of Him, and is mighty when we are least able to help ourselves; and, best of all, who has the same mind to us, however changeable our minds may be; if we could be told of such an one, and that He has tried His strength with our enemies and has prevailed against them, this would be good news; this would be news that every one everywhere might care to hear.
And it is just this news which the lesson to-day preaches to us. It does not tell us that Jesus Christ had a special regard for that man who had been ill thirty-eight years, and was lying beside the Pool of Bethesda, and that, therefore, He cured him. But it gives us this instance, and a number of other instances, that we may know who it is that is the Lord and Master over our bodies and our spirits and the bodies and spirits of all men that are living now, and that have ever lived, who it is from whom we get strength when we are strong, who it is that restores strength to us when we are weak, who gives wisdom to every physician, and virtue to every spring and to every medicine; who it is that raises every sick man from his couch, and enables him to do his work again after he has been tied hand and foot. This lesson says to us, You are not to depend upon one place or another; upon this favourite remedy or another; no, nor upon the gifts of God’s angels. All gifts come from your Lord, all angels are His servants; and therefore it is to Him, and not to them, you are to look in all hours of weakness and suffering. What you want in these hours is not merely some one to cure you, but some one to understand what you feel, and to feel with you. If you find a fellow-creature, a sister or a wife, who can do that, you are more glad than even of some relief from the pain. It is a relief from the pain to have some one who can enter into it. Now, the great Lord of all is He who has borne our weaknesses and carried our sicknesses; who knows what they are, not by report, but by experience; and those secret troubles which you cannot tell to the nearest and dearest companion, that which makes you suffer what other people, perhaps, would not suffer, though they had the same sickness and pain: these He knows of. You can be sure that there is One who has the most entire acquaintance with all your bodily sufferings, and with all that is in your hearts too, with all the weakness, and folly, and sin that is there.
Yes, but that is what we shrink from! We might be glad of a healing pool, glad of a kind physician, or a kind sister, or a kind angel. But should we like one who knew all that we were doing, and wishing, and thinking: all the strange things that are going on in our hearts; all that ever has gone on in them ever since we were born? Should not we say, Oh, hide me from that look! Do not let all the dark desires I have had, and all the bad words I have spoken, and the acts I have committed—do not let my dearest friend know them. I could not bear it; he would certainly turn away from me. Brethren, it is a most natural feeling; it is one which we all of us have had.
And when people have told us how righteous Jesus Christ is, and how hateful all evil is to Him, we have thought that He was the very last person before whom we should like to be laid open. But let us remember it well, brethren, He who is to heal us must be acquainted with all that has made us sick; and He cannot do that if He does not know us, our ownselves, and all that we have done, and all that we have been. Be assured, too, that there is such an one. You know that there is. Your consciences speak of Him. When words you have spoken, and deeds you have done, and thoughts you have thought years ago, come out clear and fresh before you, as they often do; that is a proof that there is some one near you who is acquainted with you, not only with what has happened to you—with what other people have said to you, or done to you—but with all that has ever been in you, right or wrong, fair or foul, good or evil. I know it is a thought that frightens us at first very much indeed, and it ought to frighten us; but we must face it, because it is true. We cannot shrink from this searcher of hearts. We cannot get out of His way. When we try to forget Him, He shows that He remembers us. When we have lost ourselves in all kinds of nonsense and vanity, He comes to us and shows us to ourselves, and makes us tremble.
But who is He? I have told you, it is that Lord Jesus Christ who said to the man who had been sick thirty-eight years, “Rise up and walk.” It is He of whom we read in all the Gospels that He went about doing good, healing the sick, and casting out devils. We know, too, what manner of being He is, for He has made Himself known. We know what He would do to each of us. We know certainly that He is the healer; and that He would heal us of our infirmities, and that He can do it. We cannot tell, indeed, that He will cure the bodily ailments of any particular man at once. Of all that were round the pool of Bethesda at that time, this is the only one who rose up and walked. But we know for certain that His purpose to every man is to make them right, and to reverse whatever makes them wrong. We know for certain that if He lets a man remain sick, it is because there is something else in him that needs to be cured besides, something which must be cured if he is to be a sound man. And this, brethren, is the cure of those most secret evils of our hearts, of that which puts everything else in us out of order. When we find out that we have this friend, this healer, this life-giver, so close to us, and that we may turn to Him and confess all that is oppressing us—all the evil of other men, yes, and all our own—all that we are most ashamed of in the past part of our lives—all that we are most ashamed of in ourselves now;—when we believe that He is such an one, and that He can understand us, and that He can heal us, then our lives become altogether different; then we can become simple, honest, brave men, who do not want to hide anything from our Maker; then we can come boldly to Him every day to ask Him to make us true when we feel false, and brave when we feel cowardly, and strong to act when we feel as if we could do nothing. So this is a lesson for us who are going about the world, as much as for those who are on sick beds. We want healing—continual healing—just as they do. We want strength as much as they do; strength to be right and to do right; strength for the work that we have to do each day.
And this is part of the lesson which we ought to remember. It was the Sabbath-day on which our Lord healed the impotent man. The Jewish rulers were angry; they thought our Lord ought not to have healed on the Sabbath-day. But He declared that the Sabbath-day was the very day for healing: that God means it to be a day of healing and blessing to all His creatures. We come here on Sundays because it is so. We come to Church not to say a few prayers, or to hear a few words from the pulpit, but to learn who the great healer is, and how we are to be healed. We come that we may get strength to walk during the week, to go through the business of it truly and heartily; as if we were God’s children, sent into the world by Him to till the earth and subdue it, and to be like Him, loving and just, and lowly, as His wellbeloved Son Jesus Christ was on earth and is in heaven. May He enable us to be so this week by His good Spirit, and then we shall feel that Christ heals on the Sabbath as He did of old.