Chapter 3: "Wilt Thou Be Made Whole?"
Chapter 3: "Wilt Thou Be Made Whole?"
John 5:6
IN ONE OF the five porches of the Pool of Siloam, for thirty-eight years this man had lain until hope had died out. He had made so many ineffectual attempts to reach the troubled water when it was impregnated with healing virtue! Time after time-so often that he had long lost count-he had dragged himself almost to the edge, but there was always someone else, either nimbler of limb, or better provided with a little band of helpers, whose love had made them dexterous. Always some other man had stepped down before him! Always the hope was deferred! So the eyes grew weary of watching for the mysterious motion of the water; and even if healing should come, life was too far gone to make it specially valuable. To him Christ had come with the appeal, "Wilt thou be made whole?"
He was suffering from paralysis, which had affected his motor nerves. He knew exactly what he wanted to do, and the limbs with which to do it; his brain was perfectly able to issue its commands, but there was no power of transmitting the nervous energy so as to react upon the muscles and through them on the limbs. To know how to do was present with him; but how to perform that which was good he found not. He often lay and pondered with himself some swifter means of reaching the pool; but when the moment arrived for executing his purpose the deep-seated paralysis put an arrest on his plan.
We all suffer more or less from a similar paralysis. Have you never sat in a public conveyance, and desired to speak to some lonely girl or lad, and felt the message petrified upon your lips? That is the paralysis of speech. Have you never felt that you ought to give to some crying case of need, but the opportunity has passed and the unfortunate drifted away into the dark? That is the paralysis of benevolence. Have you never felt the conception of an unselfish act beckoning you to a life or an act of self-giving, but the vision has died away, leaving you wrapped up in the pursuit of your own aims and delights? That is the paralysis of well-doing. Withered is a very accurate epithet for much of our life. The sensory nerves convey the impressions from ·without, but the motor nerves of the moral nature fail to obey the promptings of the will. To us, too, Jesus says, "Wilt thou be made whole?"
Whole! That would mean that the life should obey the noblest ideas that pass across our inner vision; that would mean that there should be no break between the divine inspirations and our fulfillment; that would mean that when God called us by name we should, like Abraham, answer, Here am I! and start early in the morning, though it were to the mountain of sacrifice. Whole! That means, the single eye, perfected consecration, the response to the cup and cross without murmuring or complaint.
The primary condition of being made whole is in the will. Wilt thou be made whole? Granted that the will has become enfeebled by constantly yielding its sceptre to passion - like one of the early English kings, a mere puppet in the hands of strong barons-yet Christ must know that its choice is on his side before He will set on foot the health-giving processes. He is prepared to be told that the will is vacillating and weak. This is no disappointment. He is well able to work in us to will and to do, when once the will has made its appeal to Him. The Governor of a province might be overpowered by a revolt, and yet be true in his allegiance to his Suzerain.
Wilt thou, young soul, be made whole? You have been double-minded: will you have the single eye? You have been double-hearted: will you have the single purpose? You have been infirm in purpose, cowardly in confession, paralysed in action: do you choose at whatever cost to be made whole, as those angels that excel in strength, and do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word? Are you willing to be made whole-though it should involve you in obloquy and scorn; though it mean the loss of companionships that have been as the apple of your eye, and the forsaking of those scenes which are familiar as the porch, where this man had sheltered for thirty-eight years? Tell the Saviour so! Discover the one point in your character in which this moral paralysis has worked most disastrously. Tell Christ you are eager to be made whole just there; and He who knows the length of time that you have been in this evil case will not fail to heal and make you every whit whole.
The second step is to claim his healing virtue. That man's faith, opened by the question of Christ, received from Him healing virtue. He did not supplicate or agonize, or even pray. He just looked, received, and was whole. You do not need strong faith for this, but Christ. The whole ocean may flow through a narrow aperture, if you will give it time enough. In fact, the weaker your faith is, the better will be your chance with Christ. Whom would you save first in a wreck - the man in whom life is strong, or the child whose tiny hand is waxing weary? Surely the latter. Weakness has a prior claim than strength. I have known a strong man, the Samson of the countryside, bend to the earth before the thin arms of his sickly child stretched out towards him. He would pass by the healthy lads and girls of the family to give himself to the little helpless cripple. Suppose a fire were to break out in that man's cottage; would he not save that withered nursling before the children who were well able to help themselves? In his earthly life our Lord gave Himself to the woman wasted with twelve years of sickness, to the sheep bleating piteously in the thicket, to the bruised reeds and the feebly smoking flax: So it is now when weakness appeals to Him; the weaker your faith, the more likely you are to get a swift and sufficient answer.
I know very well how hopeless it seems ever to conquer where you have so often failed. Your own energy and natural force can never meet the case; but this is the province of the Saviour. The whole need not the physician, but they that are sick; and He comes to make the sick whole. Believe that in Him is the complement of your need; that He does more than heal, because He can make what used to be your weakness, your strength; and what had been your perpetual failure the most noticeable grace in your character. It seems impossible, but to God all things are possible.
"The most impossible of all
Is that from sin I e'er should cease;
Yet shall it be-I know it shall!
Jesus, look to thy faithfulness!
Since nothing is too hard for Thee,
All things are possible to me."
Then take up your bed and walk. Do not attempt to put forth this limb or the other to see if He has imparted strength enough. This is to distrust Him. Believe that He has healed you. Act faith. Start upon the level on which you would live if you felt entirely whole. He has made you whole if you have truly trusted Him, though you do not as yet feel it. Take up your bed, the emblem of your helpless paralysis; wrap it together-you need it no more. It has carried you; now carry it. You need go to no man to put you into the pool; you have Christ. You require no longer the angel-stirred pool; you are possessed of a life which is independent of the stirrings of God's angels. You are whole; live a whole life in the power of the Spirit of Life which is in Christ Jesus.
This, more than anything else, will convince men, and prepare them to listen to your testimony for your Saviour. That you should stand, where you have so often fallen; and that you should overcome, where you had so often been defeated. But this new life shall be yours through the grace of Jesus communicated to your faith, as you abide in Him, and He abides in you.