Tuesday 4th Week of Lent
John 5:1-16
It’s hard to believe that for 38 years no one helped this man into the waters. If that was me, I’d sit on the edge of that pool and let gravity take over, just fall in.
Perhaps the man thought of this but decided against it. If no one helped him into the pool, would anyone save him from drowning if he wasn’t the first one in when the angel of God stirred the waters? Think too, of the loneliness in his heart. No family member, no friend, no one with an ounce of compassion came along in 38 years to help him.
Had he sinned in such a horrendous way that people grew to hate him? Jesus did tell him to sin no more. The Lord is teaching us how sin not only isolates us from God but from other people too.
It’s like a fence or a wall that has become so popular in many neighborhoods; “keep out – leave me alone. I’ll open the gate to only certain people I know won’t hurt me”.
Jesus asks us what he asked the paralytic. “Do you want to be well?” He didn’t answer yes; He said “Well you see, no one will put me in the water”. That was his excuse to stay paralyzed.
Do we have similar excuses not to ask forgiveness and healing from what ails our bodies and souls? Let’s not allow sin to so cloud our hope and imagination that we can’t conceive what it would be like to live in the spirit of Jesus? Lay the excuses aside. Pick up your mat and walk in the way of the Lord.