Change or Die? Part 1 – Do You Really Want to GetWell?

In John’s gospel there’s this man who has been lying beside a pool for thirty-eight years, waiting for his life to change.

Every day looks the same. He drags himself to the same spot, among the same crowd, watching the same water. They know each other’s stories. They trade the same lines every day like well-worn jokes. The belief was simple: every once in a while, the water moved, and the first person in got healed. That’s it. First one in wins. Everyone else just watches the splash and resets for another day. Now pause there and ask the question that almost never gets asked out loud:

In thirty-eight years, he never tried anything different?

He never got up extra early to camp out at the edge? Never pulled his “pool buddies” together and said, “Listen, we’re all stuck here. How about we take turns going first instead of stampeding each other?” Never made a deal with someone who could walk: “You carry me in once, I’ll give you my spot tomorrow”? Not once did he say, “Okay, this isn’t working, I need a new plan?”

So when Jesus walks into this scene, the first words out of his mouth are “Do you want to get well?” If you were standing there, you might be tempted to whisper, “Of course he wants to get well, Jesus. Look where he is.” But Jesus never asks pointless questions. He’s pressing on something deeper than the man’s legs. He’s pressing on his will.

Because it’s entirely possible to say, “I want to change,” while organizing your entire life around not changing. Listen to the man’s answer. It’s not “Yes.” It’s not “Please.” It’s a speech he’s probably given a thousand times: “I can’t. I have no one to help me into the pool. Someone always gets there ahead of me.”

No mention of trying a new strategy. No mention of asking anyone. No, “I’ve been getting up at 4 a.m. for the last decade and I still can’t beat the crowd.” Just a rehearsed story about why he can’t change. The pool is against him. People are against him. Life is against him. He wants to be different, but the universe is uncooperative. If we’re honest, it sounds familiar.

“I want to get healthy, but my schedule is insane.”

“I want to deal with my trauma, but therapy is expensive.”

“I want a better marriage, but my partner never changes.”

“I want to get my life together, but, you know, the economy, my parents, my wiring, my ex…”

Translation: I want to change, as long as it doesn’t require me to rearrange my habits, my comfort, my friendships, or my favourite excuses. Back at the pool, the man has a whole social ecosystem built around his stuckness. He has people to complain with. People who understand. People who won’t expect too much from him because, after all, he’s “the lame guy by the pool.” If he gets well, he loses that. He might have to work. He might have to carry his own mat instead of lying on it. He might have to show up as a capable adult instead of the guy everyone walks around.

Change isn’t just about losing pain. It’s about losing the benefits that have quietly grown up around that pain: the lowered expectations, the sympathy, the built-in excuses, the familiar routines. Thirty-eight years is long enough for your mat to feel like home. So Jesus doesn’t argue with his story. He doesn’t say, “Well actually, if you’d had a better morning routine…” He cuts straight through it: “Get up. Pick up your mat. Walk.”

Here’s the uncomfortable part: many of us like the idea of miracles as long as they don’t interrupt our lifestyle. We pray, “God, change me,” while keeping the same schedule, the same crowd, the same phone habits, the same secret patterns we don’t tell anyone about. We lie on our own version of the mat, beside our own version of the pool, saying, “I want to change, but I can’t,” and waiting for something external to shove us into the water without us having to do anything differently. Meanwhile, our alarm clock keeps ringing, our calendar keeps filling, and our “pool buddies” keep nodding along because they’re stuck too.

That’s not Jesus shaming the man, and it’s not you shaming yourself. It’s an honest inventory. Because wanting to change, in any real sense, eventually shows up in behaviour. It wakes up earlier. It asks for help. It rearranges. It risks annoying people. It risks losing old comforts. It stops telling the same story and starts writing a different one.

The miracle at the pool is physical, but there’s a deeper one underneath: the miracle of a man who has built his existence around “I can’t” being confronted by Someone who looks him in the eye and says, “You can. Right now. But you won’t be able to keep living the way you’ve been living.” That’s why this story still hits home. It speaks to the part of us that lies on our mat of excuses and half-efforts, surrounded by people who are just as stuck, explaining—very reasonably—why nothing ever changes. It gently, and sometimes not so gently, asks:

Do you really want to get well? Or have you become comfortable at the pool?

Because the moment we say “Yes” to that question, even quietly, we’re not just asking for a change of circumstances. We’re inviting a change of identity, routine, relationships, and responsibility. We’re asking for a life where lying on the mat all day is no longer an option—and, frankly, that’s a lot scarier than just watching the water.

So first question to ask is do I really want to change? The next question is why can’t I? Well certainly Christ could change you as quick as he changed the man’s life by the pool but He doesn’t usually work that way, so what do “you” need to change after you have truly decided you want to?

Stay tuned for Part 2, where we look at why even “change or die” usually isn’t enough to move most of us off the mat.