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What is Jesus asking the sick man?

After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 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?" The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me." Jesus said to him, "Stand up, take your mat and walk." At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, "It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat." But he answered them, "The man who made me well said to me, 'Take up your mat and walk.'" They asked him, "Who is the man who said to you, 'Take it up and walk'?" Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, "See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you." The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath. But Jesus answered them, "My Father is still working, and I also am working." For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God. - John 5:1-18

Is he asking him what he wants?  Or is he questioning why he hasn't taken action to solve his problem?

Yes, that last question sounds harsh, I know.  But he says, "Do you want to  be made well?"

Place the emphasis on the word, "want."  It is almost as if he is playing the roll of the parent who asks the child, "Is this what you want for yourself?"

What do you want?  And what are you doing to make it happen?

The sick man responds.  Not by saying that he does want to be made well, but he gives an excuse for why he hasn't been able to heal himself.

I have no one to help me, he says.  

He is surrounded by people who are blind, lame and paralyzed.  He is not alone.  He could reach out to someone to help him, and they could go down to teh water together.

But he has suffered this ordeal for a lifetime.

Whether John intends it or not, the message here is that we will not make it through this life living fully if we choose to go it alone. 

We need one another.  

Jesus didn't ask someone to help this man, nor did he bend down to pick him up and carry him.  He told the man to do something to help himself.

It is almost as if Jesusis saying to him, "If you want to be made well, stop looking for excuses and get up and walk.

Do something. Take action.

Maybe we should do the same.

More to come...