DELIVERED TO RESPONSIBILITY

DELIVERED TO RESPONSIBILITY

Friday, May 23, 2014

John [NLT] 5:1-9a [While in Galilee He performed miracles.] Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. 2 Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. 3 Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches. 5 One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?” 7 “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.”8 Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”9 Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking!

  The above passage of Scripture puzzled me for years. Then Mark Welch introduced me to e-Sword.

  The thing that puzzled me is why would any person, especially Jesus ask “Would you like to get well?” After being incapacitated for 38 years, why might a person not want to get well?

  Using e-Sword to conveniently access Strong’s and other resources I understood, and then considered some cases of deliverance I’ve observed.

  The word “walk” in verse 8 opened my eyes. Whereas I typically think in English, I believed Jesus was referring to physical movement, putting one foot in front of the other. A core meaning in Greek is “to deport oneself”, which is a whole different story far beyond podiatric plodding.

  Understanding this one word changed how I saw the account recorded in John 5:1-9. It no longer was story of Jesus’ only exercising love by omnipotence. It is largely about His omniscience.

  Deporting oneself can be scary business. Have we not all seen individuals draw back from accepting the responsibilities of deporting oneself? Have you ever been faced with increased mobility and felt like laying back down on familiar bed, or actually done so? I have. (Just this week a sister a few months younger than me reported that she finally deported herself and took open mike in hand and gave testimony at a Celebration of Life.)

  I’ve seen men long for the deliverance of sobriety, but once free, when confronted with expectation and responsibility of deportment, soon go back to bottle and/or needle, or deliberately go back to the safety of incarceration.

  My mind now turns to a favorite verse that both comforts and frightens me: “When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.” (NLT 1Cor.13:11) Comforts when I consider progress away from pallet. Frightening if I angst over the hints of future deportment.

  My final thought before breakfast, a bit of enjoyment in planting tomatoes, and then off to the Amazing Pizza Machine (Peetsa, games, machines, & rides) with grandson Michael and his buddy Titus: “… look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.” NLT Jam.1:25)

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