Daily Lesson for January 28, 2014

Today's Lesson from John 5:

5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” 7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” 8 Jesus said to him, "Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”

"Do you want to be made well?" The question is jarring and perhaps a little off putting even. "How insensitive," we think. The man has been waiting beside this pool for someone to put him into the healing, mystical waters for 38 years. "Can't you see? Of course he wants to be made well."

But Jesus looks beyond what most people can see. He looks beyond the physical condition down into the very spiritual heart of the man and sees a truth most would have missed, or ignored, or felt too guilty to speak - that the man on the mat before him is wallowing in his own situation.

This world is full of cruel and terrible tragedies. Whether it be from a congenital defect at birth, an accident, an act of violence, or simply from a family or social situation into which one is born, many people are truly handicapped in this world. Feeling sorry for these people is natural and good; compassion is Godly.

But disabled persons need more than others to feel sorry for them. They need people who will encourage them beyond the paralysis of victimhood, and toward whatever quality of life may still be possible. Jesus does that for this lame man. Jesus gets man to see that he doesn't have to keep waiting for others to come and place him in the water so that he can then be healed. Jesus gets him to see that the truly healing waters are already inside him - already welling up and bubbling over to an abundant life.

I have a friend who was paralyzed from the waist down sometime ago in a freak accident. One day we were talking about his life now in the chair and he said, "My body is in a wheelchair, but my spirit is still soaring."

He not only wants to be made well; he is well.