This is the account of Jesus healing a sick man in the pool at Bethesda:
V3. "Here a great number of disabled people ..." Everyone around this pool had some form of sickness--blindness, paralysis etc. All of us too have some form of sickness--problems and frustrations. Waiting for an opportunity a "stirring of the pool" of such where those who wanted it the most get the breakthrough.
V5. The man was ill for 38 years and his first response to Jesus was a reason or two why he cannot get well. In fact, he didn't really answer Jesus' offer "Do you want to get well?"
His first reason: "I have no one to help me ..." Often times we put the blame on other people for the misery we are experiencing. This is not to invalidate other people's fault when we play the innocent victim. But breakthrough starts when we take responsibility of one's situation. And taking responsibility of something that has happened to us because of other people is even a greater virtue. The ball is on our hands.
Second reason: "Someone else goes down ahead of me." An attitude of hopelessness; that someone is always better. "Why do it when someone is doing it better?" It's not a matter of being on the top, but doing your best. It's your obedience, your heart, to follow God's voice.
Jesus: V6. Jesus saw and knew - God sees and knows our suffering.
V7. Kairos moment. "Do you want to get well?" It was a moment of breakthrough. But when that kairos moment comes will I be prepared for that breakthrough? Or are you preparing yourself for disappointment and disbelief, overshadowing His compassion with our inability to receive mercy. For the sick man his sickness has become a comfort zone. Though he was looking for healing, he has set his heart for the worst thing that could happen. He has forgotten what it was like to be on the winning side. He has lowered his expectations. After 38 years of hoping, he didn't want to be disappointed anymore, so he gave up hoping altogether. Proverb says, "Last thing to die is hope."
V8. Jesus answered as if he didn't validate the sick man's reason for not getting healed. He knew better. Indeed nothing can keep God from bringing us toward life's breakthroughs. Our worst enemy is ourselves. He instructs the man in a commanding voice: "Get up, pick up your pallet and walk!" Indeed God's word has the power to bring breakthroughs, make well the things that are once not. It was God's Word that the man immediately got healed.
Get up. Get up in God's strength and not our own.
Pick up. Turn your past into an advantage: They are reminders of God's faithfulness in our life. They are instruments so we could help others rise up to their crises.
Step up (walk). Step out in faith. Never stop trying.
V14. "Behold do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you." His illness was caused by his own sin. Jesus tells the man not to do it anymore or else worse thing might happen. It reveals the cycle we get entangled with. We get spiritual/emotional breakthrough; then if we don't learn from our past mistakes we commit them again, thus we feel guilt and despair and discouragement, needing a bigger breakthrough that the former because our hearts get more calloused everytime. This cycle does not stop until we get off the cycle of sin and bad habits.
Reflections:
1. What current experiences and situations in life have kept me paralyzed and forget that there is something better to reach for?
2. What are my reasons for not reaching out anymore, for not trying more?
3. Am I ready when God's on the work of giving me a breakthrough?
4. What habits are keeping me entangled in the cycle of guilt and discouragement that keeps me from receiving that breakthrough?
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