The Trouble with Jesus
by Constance Hastings
How Lame Can You Be?
December 17, 2019
Jesus had this insightful and irritating knack of asking people ridiculous questions.
Jesus had this insightful and irritating knack of asking people ridiculous questions, questions that bury the real question. Only real questions can have real answers.
For thirty-eight years he had lain by a pool unable to move on his own. Some said from time to time an angel of the Lord would stir the water. By this heavenly movement, the first person to step down into it was healed. He had no other hope, no treatments or medicine that could help him, ease his pain, release him from this disorder. He didn’t even have a friend who would stay with him to get into the water. So he had lain there all these years among the others who likewise had no other hope. He may have prayed, but all those prayers had done was just keep him there in that miserable condition.
Jesus saw him and innately knew how long he’d been sick. Jerusalem was in one of its busy seasons with a Jewish holy day bringing throngs of the faithful for worship and sacrifice. The man and those others lying by the pool were likely part of a side spectacle for the crowds waiting for a miraculous healing so they could later brag at home what they’d seen. But to Jesus, he wasn’t one of many. He was simply a very sick man.
“Would you like to get well?” Really? He’d been there for how long and now you’re actually asking him if he’d like to get better? For someone who was getting some buzz among the populace, he was a little lacking in bed side manner. You want to rephrase that, Jesus?
He didn’t need to. He knew what he’d said even as the rest of them were clueless. He asked the man, are you beyond wishing, desiring, to the point where you’re absolutely determined and resolved to do what it takes? Do what it takes to get in that pool or whatever else it takes for your life to change? Do you really want it?
If so, you know what it’ll take? It means get to a place where you become and are made all over again. Are you willing and resolved for that to happen in your life?
Finally, this is more than just no longer being paralyzed. Are you ready for that? Do you want to be made well to the point where you are whole? Can you live life whole and complete in body, mind and soul? Do you wish to get well?
Ever hear the saying, “Be careful what you pray for?” You very well may be blessed but in ways that are more than what you knew God could do in you.
The man does some more whining about not having help to get in the pool. Jesus won’t listen.
“Stand up, take up your sleeping mat, and walk!”
Stand up. Notwithstanding the effort for someone who hadn’t moved in thirty-eight years, a power entered him. It was a power that changed his position and perspective. He would not be that sick guy languishing by a public pool. He couldn’t claim or think of himself as disabled, crippled, dependent on anyone again. He rose to be what he didn’t know he could be.
Take up your sleeping mat. Yes, that dirty and despised mat you spent too many days and nights lying on, crying on, shriveled into a helpless and hopeless body. Don’t think you can do this by leaving behind what you were. It’s your story, and you need a story to know what God has done in you. Without your story, you forget or won’t realize the full impact and bearing of this day. Your miracle will drown in that pool you hoped would save you. So carry your mat, no longer now as a burden but as a treasure.
And walk! Go! Move into this new life that’s been given to you! You can’t stay here. This change, the gift of wholeness, needs to be exercised and released in celebration of this new life God will work in you. So lean and move into it as you’ve never been able to do before. (John 5:1-9b)
Now, would you like to get well?
Could it be that faith is not actually a fully convinced mindset? Could it be that to truly have faith an element of doubt, perceptions that rest in possibly not as much as in possibly so, is necessary? Do faith and doubt exist not as opposites but as integral parts of each other?
How do you get out of bed in the morning when the day is still shrouded in darkness? How do you rise when grief, anger, and anxious fear sink deep into your soul? Why should you open your eyes to a pain that pierces whatever faith that is left? Somehow, they did.
Before Jesus even got into town, they lined the road, spreading a carpet of coats and shouting, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.” Expectations were high. If only he had come to fulfill them....With too much popularity and too many attacks on the powers-that-be, Jesus wasn’t making it easy on himself. Sooner or later, someone was going to put a stop to this. As it was, it wasn’t just one.
It’s hard to allow the less attractive parts of ourselves be exposed, let alone the parts which stink, with warts, bunions, and fungus embedded in the nails. Equally difficult is to accept it from one of whom we think so highly, even worship.... Worse yet, maybe they know us better than we think, better than we know ourselves. Their goodness shouldn’t be sullied with our mean stuff, the secret knowledge of ourselves.
Why does God have to come so close?
The Trouble with Jesus: Only by witnessing a power often misunderstood, not a parade, might people realize his purpose.
Judas wasn’t your best guy. Why you brought him in, we’ll never understand. How he ever became treasurer for your disciples’ accounts must have happened with mastered manipulation. As it is, though his intentions weren’t the best, he may have had a good point here. And saying it might have been the mic drop of the night.
Frequently when Jesus was teaching, those of ill-repute were in the crowd, tax collectors and “other notorious sinners.” Reputations are made by who your friends are. True, so why did Jesus seem to prefer, maybe even have a better time with the likes of these? He answers with parables about what gets lost.
The Trouble with Jesus is he advocates for more time by grace while not denying judgement.
The Trouble with Jesus is how he knew what was coming and still went straight into it. He'd call out Herod for the fox he was even as he sobbed over the rejection he'd meet.
All heroes have an antagonist, one who pushes hard against the best parts of who you are and what your purpose is. Fitting then, God’s beloved Son would meet the total antithesis of who he was before he even got out of that hot place, a kind of hell.
