Life Spark: Christ’s offer of new life applies to you. (John 5:1-15)
When Jesus went to an annual feast in Jerusalem, he went to the pool of Bethesda. The pool was a gathering place for people with serious handicaps. Blind people tapped their way to the pool with their canes. Crippled people came with crutches. Paralyzed people were carried by friends and left by the pool.
One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. (John 5:5, NIV) As I read that verse today, the word ‘invalid’ jumped out at me. To be invalid means to be unsound, infirm, unacceptable.
I can relate to feeling unacceptable. Several years ago I loaned the majority of our retirement money to a friend, a successful businessman who developed property. When the ‘great recession’ hit, I lost all of what I had loaned him. I felt like a financial and emotional invalid, but that is not the end of the story.
Jesus asked the debilitated man: “Do you want to get well?” (John 5:6, NIV) Setbacks can become excuses for not getting better and handicaps can become crutches that we’re afraid to live without. New opportunity means new responsibility. “Are you ready for new responsibility?” The answer is crucial.
The man by the pool informed Jesus that healing – the gift of life at a higher level – was, for him, inaccessible. Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. (John 5:8-9, NIV) Fortunately, Jesus loves and helps people who feel unacceptable.
This story helps me realize that Jesus moves toward broken places in me. When Jesus went to Jerusalem, His compassion caused Him to be drawn toward the pool of Bethesda, the melting pot for damaged people. And although, like this invalid, I may tend to disqualify myself for healing, the Lord doesn’t disqualify me.
When the Word of God talks to us about becoming more and more alive, we have to decide if we will believe that and walk in it or if we will quietly disqualify ourselves from it or blame other people for why we can’t have it.
Life-challenge: Where is one place in your life where you’ve doubted that God could or would heal you? How, specifically, might you ‘pick up your mat and walk?’