Today I met one of our shepherds, Bill Green, at Starbucks. We often get together to pray and study through the passage of Scripture that I'm preaching on. This Sunday I'm preaching on John 5:1-14. Here is the story:

 ⁷ “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

 ⁸ Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” ⁹ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

   The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, ¹⁰ and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”

 ¹¹ But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”

 ¹² So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”

 ¹³ The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

 ¹⁴ Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” ¹⁵ The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.

I really love many things about this story. Here are some interesting things to me:

1. Jesus asks the man if he wants to get well. This is an interesting question--doesn't everyone want to get well? You would think so, but perhaps not. Maybe sometimes we become so defined by our physical, spiritual, or emotional sickness that in an odd sort of way, they are comforting. What if we took away all of our "sicknesses"? Would we really live more fully for God? Would we really become more kind, more compassionate, more loving, more mission-minded?

2. This man was healed even though he did not know who Jesus was! He was simply obedient to him, taking up his mat and walking.

3. The man who was healed was loyal to his healer, not to the religious leaders or their rules. The religious leaders had made a rule that it was illegal to pick up a mat on the Sabbath. When questioned about this, the man said, the guy you made me well told me to do this! He was going to follow his healer, not those who imposed burdensome rules.

While at the Starbucks, Bill and I met a man there (pictured above) who had just moved to this area from Michigan. He was a loan officer at Bank of America, and he was waiting for his wife and family to be able to come down and join him here. He had clearly done a lot of Bible study and was interested in our conversation, so I invited him to join us in our study and he did. It is amazing who God will put in our path when we go out like Jesus and pray for God to use us. This man added a great perspective to our study. In fact, he shared that he had recently witnessed someone who was in a wheelchair being prayed over, and the person started walking again.

Recently, I had a conversation with an elder who had had cancer. He had been prayed over by the other elders, and inexplicably, his cancer went away. This affirmed all of their faith in God's healing power, even those who had not previously believed that God still worked in this way today.

This story shows that Jesus is indeed the great healer of our bodies, minds, and souls.

What do you find interesting or helpful about this story in John 5? Do you think that God can heal people in unexplainable, dramatic ways today?