LISTEN: 1-6 Soon another Feast came around and Jesus was back in Jerusalem. Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there was a pool, in Hebrew called Bethesda, with five alcoves. Hundreds of sick people—blind, crippled, paralyzed—were in these alcoves. One man had been an invalid there for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him stretched out by the pool and knew how long he had been there, he said, “Do you want to get well?”
7 The sick man said, “Sir, when the water is stirred, I don’t have anybody to put me in the pool. By the time I get there, somebody else is already in.”
8-9 Jesus said, “Get up, take your bedroll, start walking.” The man was healed on the spot. He picked up his bedroll and walked off.
9-10 That day happened to be the Sabbath. The Jews stopped the healed man and said, “It’s the Sabbath. You can’t carry your bedroll around. It’s against the rules.”
11 But he told them, “The man who made me well told me to. He said, ‘Take your bedroll and start walking.’”
12-13 They asked, “Who gave you the order to take it up and start walking?” But the healed man didn’t know, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd.
14 A little later Jesus found him in the Temple and said, “You look wonderful! You’re well! Don’t return to a sinning life or something worse might happen.”
15-16 The man went back and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. That is why the Jews were out to get Jesus—because he did this kind of thing on the Sabbath. John 5:1-16
CONSIDER: No one comes to Baptism unless another brings them. Some of us were carried in our parents arms or maybe if we are adults, a friend walks us to the water where Christ baptizes us into a new life. Our hearts are changed, we move from isolation into community with God. We are no longer living a life of paralysis but walking in the love of God.
SO WHAT: The paralytic that we read about has been ill for 38 years and was still waiting for someone to help him come to the healing waters. What we need to understand is that it is never too late for us or too late for us to help someone else. As we are in this time and space, we are the hands and feet of Jesus. It's not by accident that we are in this place at this time with the people in our life. You see, we are called to bring those we see with paralyzed hearts to Jesus, so that they may walk with us to the healing water of Jesus. Many times people come to the faith because they have seen a friend live the Christian life with faith and love and as they watch them they think, "I want to live like that, I want what they have."
This Sunday, we will be baptizing one of our youth. She came to the church because a friend invited her. She has watched her friends and church family. She is not the same young lady who first came to our church. Sunday she will be walked to the water by her friends and baptized into a new life. Her heart has been changed and she will proclaim that to her church family on Sunday. She is walking in the love of God.
- Who can you invite to come and join you at church?
- Who is that person that you can walk beside and bring to the waters of life?
PRAY: Dear God, help me bring others to the water. Help me to pay attention to those who are laying at the side of the pool just waiting for help to get into the healing waters. Give me the courage to invite others to join me in the water. Amen
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