Written by Uyoyou Christiana Charles-Iyoha
The OXFORD Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of English
defines a healer as a person who cures people of illnesses and diseases using
natural powers rather than medicines. Something that makes a bad situation easier
to deal with, for example times is a great healer. Healing on the other hand is
defined as a process of becoming or making somebody or something healthy again.
A nation of sick and feeble people is akin to the
great multitude of sick people (blind, lame, paralyzed described in John
Chapter 5 verse 3. This great multitude of people that ideally should be
national assets were a great liability, immobilized from any form of active
service and contribution to the development processes of the nation. They were
an impotent and inactive part of the population waiting for the moving of the
water.
While the ailments described here are mainly
physical, the discourse between Jesus
Christ and the man who had been at the pool for thirty eight years indicate
that some of the sick people were also mentally impaired; perhaps on account of
the physical ailments; the fact that they probably had no one like the man who
had been at the pool for thirty eight years, they had waited endlessly for
healing that appeared to be in the stratosphere and would forever be out of
their reach.
To put it mildly, they had also hope and could be
likened to the vast army of I dry bones in the valley described by the Prophet
Ezekiel in Ezekiel Chapter 37. The national psyche of this vast army was one of
hopelessness, despondence and gloom. But God took over the situation by His
Spirit and brought about healing that transformed the despondent army into a
militant army for God and they became national assets. The man who had been at
the pool for thirty eight years was also transformed after his encounter with
Jesus.
