Have you ever felt that you are stuck in a rut and can’t begin to move forward with your life again? It seems you don’t have either the energy or the incentive to get up and get going.
Today we meet a man who was stuck in a rut for thirty-eight years. Imagine that. If he became ill at age twenty, for example, he was almost sixty years old when Jesus came along. His entire “career” had been spent laying on the ground next to the “healing place,” the Bethesda pool (John 5:1-16).
“Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes. In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be well?’”
It is not clear what the man’s illness consisted of. He had become used to the “lifestyle” of laying next to the pool, probably feeling sorry for himself. How did the man respond to Jesus’ question?
“Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on the way, someone else gets down there before me.”
He began by playing the “blame game.” He had the perfect “excuse” for not getting well—no one took responsibility for him. We wonder, if at the start of his illness, when he was young, he had the energy to fight his way down to the pool when the water was stirred up, but didn’t want to face the responsibilities of being a healthy person again.
Was Jesus put off by his attitude? Did he say, “Well, if you don’t really want to be healed, then wallow in your misery and I’ll go help someone else” ?
“Jesus said to him, ‘Rise, take up your mat, and walk.’ Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.”
What power existed in the command of Jesus. The water of the Bethesda pool had some occasional healing power; the living water of the Holy Spirit that poured out of the heart of Jesus was not limited by time or location.
Jesus remained anonymous as he slipped back into the crowds. The authorities got on the man’s case for carrying his mat (sleeping bag?) on the sabbath. He told them,
“The man who made me well told me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.” They asked him, ‘Who is the man who told you…?’”
He quickly shifted the blame onto Jesus. Later Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him,
“Look, you are well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse may happen to you.”
We wonder what the man’s sin was. Was it an attitude sin—a “poor me” attitude, or a “blaming” attitude? Did he blame God for his condition and even curse God for making him that way?
As we deal with Lenten repentance, let’s examine our attitudes. Are we stuck in an unhealthy frame of mind? Are we blaming God that things didn’t pan out in our lives the way we wanted? Are we stuck in negative thoughts, even though Jesus is with us to help us stand, take responsibility for our lives, and move forward? Is there something we’ve held on to for thirty-eight years that Jesus wants us to deal with?
