90 Days With Jesus, Day 18: John 5:1-9: What I Cannot Do Myself

(Uh, I'm either behind a day, or I have numbered somewhere incorrectly. I will investigate and correct the problem. Thank you for your patience.)

John 5:1-9

1Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. 2Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. 5One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6When 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.

Tonight was night three of Vacation Bible School. We had a fantastic night. 34 kids and a ton of helpers. I told the kids last night, "If you have 30 tomorrow (which was tonight) I will let you pelt me with water balloons." We had 34. I told them tonight, "If tomorrow we have 40 kids, I will let you pelt me with water balloons and cram a pie in my face." We’ll see.

We are collecting change for our missions. The kids brought in $69 worth of change tonight. I counted 650 pennies alone. We are more than half way to our missions goal and we’ve only had three nights of VBS. The kids are really thrilled to be here and everyone is having so much fun—especially when they get to pelt the preacher with water balloons.

I tell you all this to set the stage. Most of the kids participating don’t even belong to the church. They have been invited word of mouth by the few kids we do have and by adults who know them. Some of these kids we see only once per year—at VBS. Even all this is beside the point, sort of. I took one of the kids home after the program was over tonight. My son and I gave him a ride to his place down the road. On the way to his house I got to thinking about grace. I got to thinking about all the volunteers who are helping with VBS. I got to thinking about all the kids. I got to thinking that I’ve done more for VBS this year than I have ever done; shamefully. I got to thinking about why we do VBS. I got to thinking about why we serve the Lord at all. I drove past one of the other church buildings in town; they are adding on to their building what looks to be a huge addition. I snarled outside; melted inside. Jealous.

This meditation is too personal. Too close to home. But I got to thinking about why I do what I do. I got to thinking about grace. Let me be honest, I tried for a long, long time to do my work for the Lord: grinding day in and day out, slaving away trying to be all things to all people at all times and in all ways, doing ministry like a fire was in my britches, always trying very, very hard to win the Lord’s approval. Always trying, very, very hard to get as much work done in a day as I could. I thought I had to. I honestly had very little concept, honestly, of grace. I’m serious. Every time I fouled up, read ‘sinned’, I seriously thought I was ‘out’ and that I had to work harder to get myself back ‘in.’ A preacher named Tim Keller wrote a sermon on this very thing. He titled his sermon The Centrality of the Gospel. He wrote this:

We are not justified by the gospel and then sanctified by obedience, but the gospel is the way we grow (Gal.3:1-3) and are renewed (Col.1:6). It is the solution to each problem, the key to each closed door, the power through every barrier (Rom.1:16-17). It is very common in the church to think as follows. "The gospel is for non-Christians. One needs it to be saved. But once saved, you grow through hard work and obedience." But Col.1:6 shows that this is a mistake. Both confession and "hard work" that is not arising from and "in line" with the gospel will not sanctify you--it will strangle you. All our problems come from a failure to apply the gospel. Thus when Paul left the Ephesians he committed them "to the word of his grace, which can build you up" (Acts 20:32) (You can access Keller’s entire essay here: http://www.redeemer2.com/resources/papers/centrality.pdf)

That’s what I got to thinking about tonight. Truth is, many times in life I have simply tried to hard and for scarcely any reason. Here’s why I bring it up. One day Jesus was walking around Jerusalem and he came across a man who had been laying beside a pool of water for 38 years hoping that he would be the first one in the pool when the waters were stirred. Problem is, evidently, he was suffering some sort of paralysis and thus could not get into the waters when they were stirred. So, there he lay. I make a couple of conclusions from this. The man had not friends or family (he says as much in verse7). And, second, he did not really answer the question Jesus asked. Jesus said, ‘Do you want to get well?’ The man said, ‘Sir, I have no one…’ We might reasonably ask if the man did, in fact, wish to get well. You mean to tell me for 38 years this man laid beside this pool with absolutely no one to help him in? No friends? No family? If he really wanted to get well, don’t you think he would have kept someone standing beside him 24-7? I suppose the truth is that some people really don’t want to get well. Some people, I am convinced, are perfectly content to stay sick.

OK, that’s the work-up to a very simple meditation. Do you realize how long this man laid there beside that pool? 38 years!? 13,870 Days. 332,880 hours of doing absolutely nothing but laying there and thinking of ways to not get well, bemoaning having no one to help get into the water, and suffocating any hope of living a normal life. Then one day Jesus walks by. I’m sure there were others laying beside the pool. If there were not, then it would not have been a competition for the man to get in when the waters were stirred. Why do you suppose Jesus focused in on this one man? Why focus on the man who was, probably, at least in his 40’s? Were there no others? Why didn’t Jesus help them all? Why was there a question of whether or not this man wanted to get well? Doesn’t every one want to get well? Would the man have been cured if he had remembered it was the Sabbath and chosen not to ‘pick up his mat and walk’? What if he had refused to ‘get up’? Jesus makes it clear, I believe, that in order to get well the man had to obey Jesus’ commands to: Get up, take your mat, and walk. Apart from this, the man would have continued to waste away beside the pool.

There is a ‘however’ though: Jesus did for this man in one second, with a couple of words, that this man had been incapable of doing for himself in 38 years. The Bible says, ‘immediately the man was cured’ then he obeyed. So, he was not cured because he obeyed. He obeyed because he was cured. He got up and walked because Jesus enabled him to get up and walk. My premise holds true: Jesus did for this man in 1 second what the man could not do for himself in 38 years.

This is grace, my friend. It is the absence of striving and trying to prove. It is the absence of trying to impress or slaving away because we want to be cured. Oh, I fully believe that we have to answer the question of Jesus affirmatively, "Do you want to get well?" must be answered ‘yes’ or else it is a moot point. But once we say ‘yes’ and he cures us I think we get up and walk about in his grace. It doesn’t mean we don’t do anything. It means, however, that we do something for reasons other than our own justification. We work, do VBS, take kids home afterwards, count 650 pennies, roll $69 worth of change, get pelted with water balloons not because we hope to be saved, but because we are saved. (And, furthermore, getting pelted with water balloons is quite fun.) We love, Scripture says, because He first loved us. I hope this puts grace in a proper light for you.

Why did Jesus pick this man instead of anyone else? I think it was simply because he could. I think it was simply to demonstrate his grace. I think also to show that no one, not even someone who hasn’t walked for 38 years, is beyond his reach or grace. So it got me to thinking: How long have you been laying beside the pool, waiting, hoping for the mystical, magical waters to be stirred? How long have you been waiting to walk with no one to help you in to the water? Well, let me introduce you to Jesus. He can and will help you in an instant. He can do for you what no one else will help you do, and what you cannot do for yourself. He asks everyone today the same question: "Do you want to get well?" Then takes it upon himself to make them well. That is grace.

I hope your 18th Day of 90 with Jesus was Blessed!

Soli Deo Gloria!