Thirty-eight years. Thirty-eight years. I turned thirty-seven this year. The man had laid there for longer than I have been alive. He had not been well. Where were his family members? Did he have any friends? Sadly, in our day as well as in ancient days, those who are chronically unwell can be treated as burdens on society, often ignored, sometimes mistreated.
Read MoreThirty-eight years is a long time, and for a long time my self-image mirrored this lame man. I had a “tendency for dependency”, and not the godly kind. For too long I yielded passively to the desires, demands or opinions of others and depended on my own lame excuse.
Years ago I had a job that required all my time and all my attention, or so I thought. By investing those two God-given commodities in a job, I was completely empty when I left that job…
Read MoreThe scene from John, chapter 5, is one of the most evocative in the Gospels. Imagine you are at this place, the Sheep Gate. If you were to actually be in the Old City of Jerusalem, you could visibly see the place where almost certainly the pool was mentioned in this text. The remnants of the colonnades are scattered about and the pool is situated in a low place, collecting water from a small underground stream. It was here that the disabled—the blind, the lame, and the paralyzed—used to lie in wait for the water to be stirred in such a way as to offer them a healing. It was here that they would also hope for alms from caring strangers who were passing by.
Read MoreImagine the scene.
A pool near the Sheep Gate, one of the busier gates into Jerusalem, where sacrificial animals are brought to the market to be bought and sold. It’s a bustling place—noisy and boisterous, with the din of people and animals going into and out of the city. And around the pool lie perhaps dozens of people with all sorts of physical handicaps—some blind, some lame, some unable to move at all without help. All hoping to be the first into the water when it ripples, believing that God will heal them if they are first.
Read MoreChapter 5 of John starts with Jesus having great compassion on a man who’s been paralyzed for thirty-eight years. This leads to the Jewish leaders questioning the man that was healed and ultimately persecuting Jesus for healing on the Sabbath. Jesus responds to their questioning with grace but also with clarity as to what spiritual healing must look like.
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