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June 9th, 2006
No Strings Attached!
John 5: 6 - 9; 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?" 7"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." 8Then Jesus
said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk."
9At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and
walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath,
-NIV
Those guys at Bethsaida had a tough life. They were
stuck on the five porches. Every day they waited for
a miracle and some days it happened, but always for
someone else.
I mean really lets stop and think about it there
were probably a few hundred to a thousand people there
and only one of them would get a healing and then
only every few days. I expect that a few of the richer
people hired small armed guards to clear themselves
a space right by the pool and had servants watching
the waters day and night. The poor knew a miracle
would occur but they also knew that they would always
have to watch the miracle and never participate. So
that day when Jesus stopped to talk to the man on
the porch his bitterness was really to be expected.
I have read many articles about this story and most
are pretty critical of this guy because when Jesus
asked “Do you want to get well?” he didn’t
say “Yes of course” right away. The critics
ignore one important reality of life. The man didn’t
know who Jesus was. In real life we frequently get
asked questions like this by so many people who do
not care about us. This man had probably been offered
a few deals over the course of his time here. People
offering to move him up closer to the pool…
for a fee. Of course we know from having observed
Jesus in the Gospels that he loved and cared about
this man. I believe he also knew the man was hurting
just as much from his bitterness in having no one
to stand by and help him, as his infirmity. Now Jesus
ignored the bitterness from the man and instead he
healed both problems the man had. When we are offering
the love of Jesus to a hurting world we frequently
will encounter the bitterness of this man. We need
to realize why they are hurting. To understand that,
even though we are offering them God’s love,
they may have been hurt by others offering them healing…
with strings attached.
Please do not give up on them, just give them the
truth, pray for them and let Jesus do the healing.
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