Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 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?”Do you remember reading this story from a week ago? Do you remember that Jesus asked the lame man if he wanted to get well? And do you remember that the man gave Jesus an excuse? He didn’t tell Jesus, “Yes.” He didn’t answer the way I thought he should have answered. Instead, he gave Jesus an excuse...and not even a very convincing excuse at that. He blamed somebody else.
“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.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”
But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”
So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”
The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.
John 5:1-15
My grandmother used to use an expression that reminds me of this story. To describe someone who seemed to be sick more than well, she would sometimes say that they “enjoyed poor health.” It took me several years of hearing that and trying to puzzle it out before I got it. She meant that the person used “not feeling well” as an excuse for not being active (usually in church work). That’s what this guy reminds me of. He’d been laying there by the pool for a long time. Everyone assumed he wanted to get well. I wonder if he had wrapped his identity into being “the guy who just couldn’t make it to the pool for healing.” Jesus challenged him to change his ways. He forced him to look inside himself and make a change.
What are the changes we need to make if we are dealing with our own feelings of inferiority? This is a hard one to deal with—it gets personal quickly. If we don’t deal with those feelings, they can quickly become feelings of rejection. To determine what our own changes need to be, let’s look at what Jesus told the lame man. He told him to take action. He said, “Get up, take your bedroll, and start walking.” Action verb after action verb after action verb—get, take, start. Whether we are dealing with our own feelings of inferiority or facing someone who has feelings of inferiority, the first change we/they have to make is to go from passive to active.
Nike has made a great deal of money with their tag line “Just do it.” There is a church in downtown Atlanta that has the tag line “Love God. Love Others. Prove It.” Change requires action. Living rooted in Love First means that we love others consistently and patiently until they can take action. Love First encourages them to take that action and loves them through as many false starts as it takes. Love First means we trust in God and our love for him to make the changes we need in our own lives to combat the challenge of feelings of inferiority.
Your Mission
Make a point of saying something positive during each interaction you have today. Be sincere and kind. At the end of the day, did it make a difference?
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