Time to Get Up (2)

The adjustment and readjustment process is continual and daily, sometimes even hourly. It’s a choice. Sometimes it’s not an easy choice – like a new pair of shoes that need broken in. You might get blisters but keep wearing them and when they are finally broken in they will be the most comfortable shoes you have, and you won’t remember what was, just what is now. Perseverance is the key, and it’s worth it.

In John 5:1-15, Jesus asked about this man. He knew something about him before he spoke to him. When Jesus did speak to him I can imagine the resignation in the man’s face and attitude. It would have shouted ‘the pool’s right there but others are always faster. I’m so slow someone always gets there first..I am a failure’. When Jesus looked at him, really looked at him, he would see all this and more. Jesus sees him for who he is, just as He sees us. He would have heard the resignation and acceptance.

How often have you said?

I go to the doctor and I take all my meds but nothing changes
This situation keeps getting worse no matter what I do
If I could only move faster…
If I hadn’t done…
If only I…
Nobody cares
I am a failure and nothing I do is ever going to change the situation. So what’s the point in even trying?

Have you ever said those words, or ones like them? I know I have. I’m sure the man at the pool has many of these thoughts regularly. His situation was unpleasant to say the least and it’s understandable why he felt that way. He didn’t have access to hospitals, home help, our welfare or health care systems. We have more and better than he had, but we often feel the same way.

Was this man, lying on his pallet, actively praying to God for healing? Was he positioning himself closer to the pool to give himself the best advantage for getting there first? I’m sure he wasn’t. He listened to and accepted the judgement of the people around him, telling him to stay in his place, stay back. So he did. Jesus touched him anyway. He didn’t wait for this man to ‘get right’. He got right to the man.

Compassionate Jesus

Then Jesus came, this rabbi who actually stopped and talked to him. This rabbi who hears more than is actually said. This rabbi who sees something of worth in this abandoned, rejected individual who has been dumped in this place alone. I wonder what passed through this man’s mind initially when Jesus stopped and noticed him – maybe he thought talking to him might ease some of the boredom of lying there waiting for the pool to stir; maybe he thought Jesus was a ‘do-gooder’, maybe he thought Jesus was a nuisance. Would he have looked Jesus in the eye, or would he have been too ashamed to raise his head?

I think, when he finally looked into the eyes of Jesus, he would have seen compassion, understanding and authority. When Jesus asked him ‘do you want to get well’ (Jn 5v6), I can hear him sigh, then try and find the words to respond. This man had a routine, a life, lying beside that pool. He had his own spot and knew who would be near him. He was used to this life. It might not be a comfortable or an easy life but it’s all he knows. Healing, and a life not lived on this pallet in this place, is the unknown. In theory it sounds great but how do you embrace something you’ve never known. There are consequences to change, and they are not always what you expect.

Coping After Healing

The healing part is easy! For this man it was obvious – a physical healing. He went from lying on his mat to carrying it. The adrenaline and joy would have been amazing to behold. But what happens next, when that wears off? When you realise just how different life actually is?

Paralysed from an early age, maybe even from birth, would have meant no education, no synagogue or Torah shul, no learning, no apprenticeship, no responsibilities, no learning to budget or maybe even how to buy food or clothing. People had to look after him. When he was dumped at the pool did his family check up on him or was he truly abandoned?

The muscles in his legs would have been unused and he would not have been used to walking. His arms may have been strong if he was used to dragging himself around. So, he would have been able to carry his mat but walking would have been a strange sensation to him.

This man would have had to learn how to live this new life. He would have had to leave behind the ‘sickness mentality’. No convenient reason or excuse now for not doing something. Now the weight of expectation would be on him to look after himself. His ‘I can’t do this because I’m paralysed’ needed to become ‘I can do this because I am healthy’. It is possible to be healed and still live in the mindset of being disabled.

People who knew this man would have had to readjust how they thought of him. No longer with pity or embarrassment. He wasn’t something to hide away, or be treated as an object of disgust. He was a healthy, normal individual now and should be treated as such, not as glass that is fragile and might break again.

And what was he to do now? How was he to live? The only thing Jesus said to him was to go and sin no more. He didn’t know how to work, he had never been taught any useful life skills. How did he live out his healing when the adrenaline and euphoria had seeped away and reality caught up to him? It’s hard sometimes to live with the changes and not look back with regret as with the Israelites moaning and complaining in the desert after they left Egypt for the Promised Land (Numbers 14:4). He met with Jesus and his life was changed. I hope he lived this out every day God gave him from then on, but I know the challenges this can bring.

Perseverance is the Key

At the end of the day receiving healing is our choice. We can choose to stay in the comfortable, the known – even if it is unpleasant. Or we can step out into the new and the unknown. Challenges come when we step into the new. We have to live a different way and not look back. We have to stop telling ourselves we had it better way back than we do now!