Rise!
Restoration from John 5
Thirty-eight years of suffering. That's an incredibly long time – maybe half a lifetime. Thirty-eight years of poverty. Thirty-eight years of physical and psychological hardship. Thirty-eight years of being ignored, except for criticism, judgment, ridicule, blame, disgust. Thirty-eight years of being ostracized and feeling isolated, alone, lonely. Thirty-eight years of crippling depression, despair, hopelessness.
Suffering. I don't know how it happened--maybe it was an accident. Maybe it was from birth. Maybe it was the result of a cruel prank. Whatever it was, it wasn't from personal choice. It was just, well, the way things turned out. And living with the outcome was miserable.
What I do know is that there was no apparent help for it. Everyone who should have cared was gone or absent, either by fault or default. Hope was just a few feet away, but it may as well have been miles, for the impossibility of getting there without help. To add insult to injury, others got there sooner, and gobbled up all the hope. The ones who arrived late seemed to get a front-of-the-line pass and were cured of all their problems.
It seemed so unfair! So unjust! How could a loving God permit this to happen? Did He see? Did He know? Did He even . . . care? Who is this sufferer? Is it you?
"Do You Want To Get Well?"
Jesus sought out a thirty-eight year sufferer, stranded within a few feet of hope, unable to rescue himself. This person may as well have been me, or may as well have been you, if you can relate to any of his torment. The year was around 30 AD, and the place was a public venue near the city of Jerusalem – the pool called "Bethesda", where some kind of supernatural healing power sprang up periodically. The first one in the pool was healed.
It was never the crippled man.
Jesus came right up to him, without so much as an introduction, and asked him directly, "Do you want to get well?" We see from the man's response that all obvious avenues of healing were void: "No one is here to help me; someone always gets to the pool before me." Funny. He didn't answer Jesus' original question. He was too focused on what he thought he knew, not on the possibilities outside his own experience.
Jesus just spoke the word (like He did at creation in Genesis, remember? Genesis 1; John 1:3), and the thirty-eight year sufferer got up and walked!
"My Father and I Are Working"
Even more interesting than Jesus doing what Jesus does – restoring things to the way He created them to be – is this seemingly off-hand comment He makes when He's criticized for healing on a holy day, as if He were breaking the "no-work" rule. A closer look reveals His normal lifestyle: always keeping the long view, always working on behalf of others, always doing the will of His Father. He went so far as to say in John 4:34, "My food is to do the will of Him Who sent Me and to finish His work."
This thirty-eight year sufferer had been in God's mind and on His heart forever. God had a plan for this person's healing before he was even born. Near the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, He found this crippled person and intervened. You could go so far as to say that Jesus came for him specifically, because Jesus came for you (and for me) like that, too! (Ephesians 1:4, John 15:16)
How Long, O Lord?
It's ok to ask, "Why did it take God so long to come? Why did he let this person, or me suffer for thirty-eight years?" That's a fair question. I don't know what the answer is for you, but looking back, I've identified part of the answer for me:
©2023 Julianne Knapp. First Published 1.17.23
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Thirty-eight years of suffering. That's an incredibly long time – maybe half a lifetime. Thirty-eight years of poverty. Thirty-eight years of physical and psychological hardship. Thirty-eight years of being ignored, except for criticism, judgment, ridicule, blame, disgust. Thirty-eight years of being ostracized and feeling isolated, alone, lonely. Thirty-eight years of crippling depression, despair, hopelessness.
Suffering. I don't know how it happened--maybe it was an accident. Maybe it was from birth. Maybe it was the result of a cruel prank. Whatever it was, it wasn't from personal choice. It was just, well, the way things turned out. And living with the outcome was miserable.
What I do know is that there was no apparent help for it. Everyone who should have cared was gone or absent, either by fault or default. Hope was just a few feet away, but it may as well have been miles, for the impossibility of getting there without help. To add insult to injury, others got there sooner, and gobbled up all the hope. The ones who arrived late seemed to get a front-of-the-line pass and were cured of all their problems.
It seemed so unfair! So unjust! How could a loving God permit this to happen? Did He see? Did He know? Did He even . . . care? Who is this sufferer? Is it you?
"Do You Want To Get Well?"
Jesus sought out a thirty-eight year sufferer, stranded within a few feet of hope, unable to rescue himself. This person may as well have been me, or may as well have been you, if you can relate to any of his torment. The year was around 30 AD, and the place was a public venue near the city of Jerusalem – the pool called "Bethesda", where some kind of supernatural healing power sprang up periodically. The first one in the pool was healed.
It was never the crippled man.
Jesus came right up to him, without so much as an introduction, and asked him directly, "Do you want to get well?" We see from the man's response that all obvious avenues of healing were void: "No one is here to help me; someone always gets to the pool before me." Funny. He didn't answer Jesus' original question. He was too focused on what he thought he knew, not on the possibilities outside his own experience.
Jesus just spoke the word (like He did at creation in Genesis, remember? Genesis 1; John 1:3), and the thirty-eight year sufferer got up and walked!
"My Father and I Are Working"
Even more interesting than Jesus doing what Jesus does – restoring things to the way He created them to be – is this seemingly off-hand comment He makes when He's criticized for healing on a holy day, as if He were breaking the "no-work" rule. A closer look reveals His normal lifestyle: always keeping the long view, always working on behalf of others, always doing the will of His Father. He went so far as to say in John 4:34, "My food is to do the will of Him Who sent Me and to finish His work."
This thirty-eight year sufferer had been in God's mind and on His heart forever. God had a plan for this person's healing before he was even born. Near the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, He found this crippled person and intervened. You could go so far as to say that Jesus came for him specifically, because Jesus came for you (and for me) like that, too! (Ephesians 1:4, John 15:16)
How Long, O Lord?
It's ok to ask, "Why did it take God so long to come? Why did he let this person, or me suffer for thirty-eight years?" That's a fair question. I don't know what the answer is for you, but looking back, I've identified part of the answer for me:
- We live in a fallen, sinful world. I'm a sinner, too, which means I've participated in the fallen-ness. A better question is, "Why did God save me at all?" It's not like I deserved saving.
- In the years of suffering, I exhausted all of my own resources and efforts to make my life better. There's no way I could ever claim credit for God's deliverance.
- Having been delivered from the deep, dark, noisy pit, my gratefulness is proportionately enlarged.
- I gained knowledge and wisdom in my suffering that could not have happened by any other means than the crucible.
- Because of my suffering, I can relate to Jesus' experiences on some small scale.
- Jesus comes alongside and leans into my suffering with me so we have a deeper level of relationship.
- My perspective of eternity and greater purpose is expanded so that my priorities and values are more correctly aligned.
- Because my suffering was/is great, God's goodness and glory in my deliverance is greater.
- Since the purpose of my suffering was to engender my dependence on God, I live in peace and trust to a greater degree than ever before.
©2023 Julianne Knapp. First Published 1.17.23
Subscribe to free weekly articles in your inbox HERE; your information will never be shared. :-)