When good things happen to so-so people

Click here to read John 5.

This is one of those times when I read something that I'm sure I've read many times before and just don't ever remember thinking about.

Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. 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?"

"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.

So there was a pool and when the waters were stirred (perhaps by an angel...different translation), people were healed, but this man could never make it first into the water. Along comes Jesus. He asks a simple question: Do you want to get well?

The answer seems simple...yes. Maybe then you tack on " and if you could help me into the water, I'll get right on that" or maybe even a "what's it to you, stranger?" This man has no idea who Jesus is. And I think it says a lot about him that his answer is an excuse. "Well, I would but other people take my place so I can't be." He's been here a long time. He's run out of plans to get into the water first. He's out of creative ideas. He has excuses. And the most important thing he's missing...faith.

In most of the miracles I remember, people are healed after they show evidence of faith. They touch a hem or a father pleads for a son or a sister for her brother or men lower a friend through the roof...these are extreme episodes of the kind of faith that leads to healing.

This man, he was in the right place at the right time, gave an unsatisfactory (to me) answer, and he was healed. Why? One reason I can think of is to show that Jesus' power is His own. It has nothing to do with my faith. This man did not even know who Jesus was until Jesus tracked him down again, and then he didn't hesitate to inform on Jesus.

Then there's the idea of divine timing. When I read this, for some reason, I was reading it like a story. And in my head, I'm thinking, "No, not him. Come on, Jesus, he's just going to get you into trouble. And he doesn't deserve your help because he doesn't even know who you are. If you skip him, then maybe they won't persecute you." I always want a happy ending, even when I know how the story turns out.

And then there's that whole "deserve your help" part of the equation. I can see myself in that man by the pool. And not just before, when Jesus called me to Him, but today, when I pray for things to change in my life, and Jesus says, "Sure, no problem. Here's all you gotta do...pick up your mat and walk." And I launch into my list of reasons why it isn't fair that I have to carry my own mat or someone owes me a better mat or why I think it would just be better for me to drive or any list of reasons why I know better, why Jesus' direction isn't going to work for me. Unlike the man, I stay paralyzed, faith and all.

It's a good story. But it hits a little close to home when I actually pay attention.