John 5:1–18; Psalm 103:1–5
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
Psalm 103:2
We often imagine healing as something gentle, orderly, and predictable. We pray, we wait, and we hope that God will work in ways that make sense to us. Psalm 103 invites us to bless the Lord “who heals all your diseases,” and we tend to picture that healing as smooth and serene—like a warm light settling over our lives.
But John 5 tells a different kind of healing story.
Jesus walks into a crowded place filled with people who have been waiting a long time for change. He approaches one man who has been ill for thirty‑eight years and asks a question that cuts through resignation and routine: “Do you want to be made well?” And then, without ceremony, Jesus heals him—on the Sabbath, no less. The healing is immediate, disruptive, and deeply inconvenient for the people who thought they knew how God was supposed to work.
The religious leaders don’t rejoice. They don’t celebrate the man’s restored life. Instead, they focus on the broken rule: “It’s the Sabbath. You shouldn’t be carrying that mat.” Their expectations of how God should act become barriers to recognizing how God is acting.
This story reminds us that healing rarely fits neatly into our categories. Sometimes God’s grace arrives in ways that unsettle our assumptions. Sometimes healing interrupts our schedules, our traditions, even our comfort. Sometimes it asks us to see people—and God—in a new light.
And sometimes, like the man carrying his mat, healing asks us to step into a new life that others may not understand.
As a church, we are invited to stay open to the surprising ways God brings renewal. To resist the temptation to cling to familiar patterns when the Spirit is doing something new. To celebrate healing wherever it appears, even when it stretches us.
God is still working. And grace still has a way of interrupting our expectations so that new life can take root.
(developed from biblehub.org)
Pastor Greg
