Wilt Thou Be Made Whole?
By Daniel March
(From Daniel March's "Walks and Homes of Jesus") To you who read these lines, Jesus comes pityingly near as He came to the man in Bethesda. To you He speaks with a voice which blends so quietly with your own thought that it seems like the voice of your own heart. “'Wilt thou be made whole?' Wouldst thou have every faculty of thy spiritual nature restored to a sound and healthful life? Wouldst thou be brought into such a state of intelligent and happy agreement with thyself as that the lessons of experience, the deductions of reason, the monitions of conscience, shall be always and willingly obeyed? Wouldst thou have thy whole moral being so completely renovated and glorified as that to thee all things shall become new; the world shall be full of beauty; the pathway of life shall be strewn with blessing; every loss shall be attended with greater gain; every disappointment shall be the promise of greater good; every affliction shall be crowned with mercy?” All this would Jesus gladly do for every soul. It is not necessary for any one to give up his heart to be wasted with vain conflicts, to be consumed with unanswered desire. There is rest for the weary even here, and Christ will give it to all who ask Him. Many times, in many forms, He puts the question, “'Wilt thou be made whole?'” When you felt yourself drawn to the book of God by a secret and gentle power, and a sudden light flashed upon the page as you read, and it seemed, for the moment, as if it had been all written for you; when the preaching of the divine Word and the ordinary service of the sanctuary made an unusually solemn and persuasive appeal to your heart; when the prayer that went up from human lips seemed, in very deed, to take hold on God, and to bring the awful realities of eternity near,—then Christ was stirring, in your own heart, the startling question which He put to the man in Bethesda, “'Wilt thou be made whole?'” When the failure of worldly plans, the disappointment of cherished hopes, the death of beloved friends, the near approach of the eternal world under the shadow of sickness or danger, made all earthly things seem vain and incapable of satisfying the supreme necessities of the soul,—then Christ was drawing near, and putting the question seriously, tenderly, to your heart: “'Wilt thou be made whole?'” When the love of Christ seemed to put on a new and strange beauty, and drew you to His cross with a resistless power, and conscience declared the sin of neglecting that power to be very great, and you could not repress the longing of your heart for a better portion than earth can give,—then Christ was looking upon you with tenderness and pity, as He looked on the wretched man at Bethesda, saying, “'Wilt thou be made whole?'” When some strange light revealed the hidden depth of sin in your own heart, and you were so alarmed and horror-struck by the discovery that you were ready to cry out, “‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’” —then the Friend of the friendless, the Saviour of sinners, was saying to you with such compassion as He showed to the afflicted on earth: “‘Look unto Me, and be ye saved.’ I was bruised for thine iniquities; and by the stripes laid upon Me thou canst be healed.” So, in a thousand ways, is Christ ever urging upon every hearer of His Gospel the acceptance of the greatest possible blessing, a restored spiritual life, a sound, healthful, and happy exercise of the best and noblest faculties of the soul. Everything which can make existence a blessing, everything for which the soul was created, is staked upon obedience to the word of Christ, when He says, “‘Come unto Me.’” The glory, the blessedness, and the joy of an eternal life are his who looks to Christ, and to Him alone, for help. The conditions upon which He bestows infinite riches are such as to bring the gift of life within the reach of the poorest and the worst.