Lent 24. Jesus: Merciful

For Lent, let's look at the qualities of Jesus that make him our model as well as our Lord and Savior.

--- JESUS IS MERCIFUL ---

Jesus ... said, “Go home to your own people 
and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, 
and how he has had mercy on you.” Mark 5:19

When others walked by, Jesus stopped and asked a lame man, "Do you want to be healed?" It's the same question he asks us today. 

"Do you want to be healed?"

The man replied with reasons he was still in this state: "I have no one to help me."

But that excuse disappeared when Jesus came by. And the man was healed. 

A fascinating part of the story to me is that the man "tattles" on Jesus to the authorities - and sets up a fight between Jesus and his culture's religious enforcers. It hardly seems a grateful response to life transformation. Even when the man's body became well, he seems obligated by religious rules which had not served him well in the past.

SELF-ASSESSMENT: Are you willing to be healed by Jesus? How would your life and story change if he took away your sickness, sadness, old wounds, and self-definition as broken, neglected or abused?

What would it cost you to leave the past behind to step into the abundant life Jesus offers? (John 10:10) Are you willing?
---

The whole story of the man's healing is in John 5:1-18:

Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda[a] and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”
But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”
So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”
The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.
So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

Popular posts from this blog

Lent Day 23: A life in hiding

Image
" You have been raised up with Christ. So think about things that are in heaven. That is where Christ is. He is sitting at God’s right hand.  Think about things that are in heaven. Don’t think about things that are only on earth.  You died. Now your life is hidden with Christ in God." Colossians 3:1-3 Where are you hiding? And what are you hiding from? What would happen if you believed God had raised you from the dead and you were focused on heaven? What is you hid behind God' power instead of depending on your own?
Read more

Lent Day 31, 2024: Pruning that profits us

Image
It's painful to lose things. Sometimes we have to wave goodbye to a friendship, a job, or a home. Sometimes it seems like God is angry with us or that it's our fault. But Jesus offers a different perspective. Jesus talks about the value of the hard times, when things are pruned away.  “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.   He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful (John 15:1-2) ." Sometimes what you leave behind is something that has outgrown its season or taken energy away from your true purpose: a fruitful life. Other times we don't know why  we are being reshaped.  It can hurt.  The writer to the Hebrews notes: " No  discipline  seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it (Hebrews 12:11)." Challenge: Think of som...
Read more

Lent Day 39: Sentenced for your crimes and mine

Image
When the Pharisees and other national leaders take Jesus to the Roman governor, they are looking for the worst punishment they can inflict, a cruel and painful death . Here are the details, from  John 18:28-19:16: Then the Jewish leaders took Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness they did not enter the palace, because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover.  So Pilate came out to them and asked, ‘What charges are you bringing against this man?’ ‘If he were not a criminal,’ they replied, ‘we would not have handed him over to you.’ Pilate said, ‘Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.’ ‘But we have no right to execute anyone,’ they objected.  This took place to fulfil what Jesus had said about the kind of death he was going to die. > This is hardly a trial that seeks justice. Rather, it is a conspiracy to execute someone who threatens the power base and status quo. The reli...
Read more