Do you want to be well?

John 5:2-6

Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”

Not one to make assumptions

Jesus asks: Do you want to be made well?

While others might think

that question out of place

or hypothetical

or just daft,

Jesus knows only too well

the complexity of human nature.

Not everything is obvious.

And folk make all sorts of choices

that aren't easily understood.

But Jesus respects choice.

Never one to impose

his notion of what is right and proper

Jesus asks the difficult question:

Do you want to be made well?

Do you?