Lent Day 12: Blessed but not better
There's a miraculous healing at the Pool of Bethesda. Jesus sees an invalid and takes pity on him. The story takes a predictable turn. How so?
Throughout scripture, the blessings of God come with a caution. Moses tells the people, "When you get to the Promised Land, don't forget God who brought you here. Don't worship idols or turn away."
What do they do? They turn away.
In the books of Judges, Kings, and Chronicles, God rescues his people again and again when they call out to him. And he warns them and their kings: "Serve me and I will bless you. Worship idols or turn away, and there will be consequences."
What do they do? They turn away.
So here's what happens when Jesus blesses and cautions someone. (Pay close attention, especially to the end.)
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 and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie – the blind, the lame, the paralysed.
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.’ 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.
> Did you catch that last paragraph? Jesus warns the man who is healed - stop sinning. There are consequences.
> Does he obey? No. He remains unconnected to the one who blessed him. He will make trouble for Jesus, who healed him physically and offers him a different journey: faith and gratitude. Instead, he chooses the same self-interested swamp he lived in before God's miraculous intervention.
> Do you behave similarly? When God blesses you with food, clothing, shelter - and maybe a job? - do you worship and thank him?
> Or are you like the blind man, who chooses the easy way out? Who walks the path of least resistance as a people-pleaser and creates trouble?
