Lessons from a Crippled Man by Emmanuel Philor
Scripture: John 5:1-9 KJV
After this there was a feast of the Jews; and
Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is
at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue
Bethesda, having five porches. In these
lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for
the moving of the water. For an angel
went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever
then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever
disease he had. And a certain man was
there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had
been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made
whole? The impotent man answered him,
Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but
while I am coming, another steppeth down before me. Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed,
and walk. And immediately the man was
made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the
sabbath .
Lessons
from a Crippled Man
The English word
Cripple, which derives from the German word Kroepel,
is defined as being unable to walk or move properly; disabled. We tend to
notice a cripple relatively easily because it is seen by their outward
appearance. Children mock them, people avoid them and the community typically
treats them poorly. All crippled-ness is not physical, because we all show
signs of cripple throughout our lives. Anything can cripple you as long as it
does not allow you to function or move properly. Meaning, that to be considered crippled, in
some ways we are displaying the traits of dysfunction. We are raised in families
that cripple us emotionally, limiting the capacity of our emotional health
based upon their standards. We work in organizations that are crippling of
organizational learning while limiting our ability to move up into the
hierarchy of the organization. We worship in some crippling spaces that limit
our capacity to grow spiritually. These crippling behaviors (along with others)
create cyclical behaviors that further cripple us from reaching our God-given
destinies.
Scholars also teach
us that these individuals were stripped of their opportunity to worship due to
their infirmity. The only people who were treated worse than the crippled are people
with leprosy. They are treated this way all because there is something wrong
with them that we all can see. Those who are crippled are typically people
struggling with an illness that has gotten the best of them. They did not
choose the hand that life has dealt, and if they could, they probably would not
have chosen that hand. Thus far, God has allowed me to work with people in
various settings and this has taught me that in some ways, all of us are a
little crippled. It is quite easy to judge someone with a disability,
especially when their disability is different from yours. However, what about
us who are riddled with crippling behaviors too? What if our crippled nature
pushed us to a place where we are surrounded by likeminded and like-situational
people. My friends, that is where we find ourselves in today’s text. Jesus had
been on a streak thus far in the Gospel of John with miraculous behavior. It
began in John 2 with the wedding at Cana, when Jesus turned water in Wine. It
progresses to the salvific conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus in John 3.
Next, we find Jesus at a well with a Samaritan woman, offering her a drink that
will cause her to never thirst again. Moreover, that leads us to today’s text.
On the surface, today’s text gives us the image of a beautiful day. Imagine it:
A hot day and a festival called for no better response than a pool party.
Unfortunately, this is not a good gathering of good people, with good weather
and good music. The gathered people at this church, I mean pool, are crippled
in some way. The text suggests that this is a gathering of impotent people, of
various kinds.
These people were
considered the outcasts of the community. They would not have been able to get
or keep a job because their disability would get in the way. They would not be
able to afford to live without the support of others. Their support was in the
help of their community and they were the abnormalities in the bunch. Can you
imagine them? It is easier to imagine them as the person on the wheelchair
begging for money at the stoplight, but would not see them as your cousin who
is always asking for a dollar. This is because we do not want to acknowledge
that this type of dysfunction has been sitting right before our very eyes. The
text calls them impotent. Impotent comes from the Latin word potentia from which we get the English
word Potency and Potential. It means to have power or ability. To deem someone
impotent suggests that, they do not have the power or ability. Suggesting that
an impotent person does not have the ability or power to overcome things and
will not have said power or ability in the future. Nevertheless, they are
surrounding this pool. This pool had five porches was out of charity, as it was
built to offer shade and comfort to those who were sick that who would be
there. This place, for some, was the only place of relief because even though
no one could help them get better, they were all broken enough to not judge
them. Thee they found safe space. What happens when your only safe space is
amidst brokenness? This is an entire community of broken people, who gathered
with the hope of being the next person healed. This was a place where people
came to be healed because they had witnessed healing take place there.
The text dictates how
healing took place. It states that an angel comes down from heaven and troubled
the water for one person to be healed. Of the multitude, only one person is
healed through their willingness to wait on the pool. But the issue of the
text, the water is only troubled once a year. What happens when someone else
receives the healing, this year? Will you keep coming back to the pool, even
when it’s not your year to be healed? This is still the place where it happens
for so many but can it be the place for me? This is the struggle that many
people have with church . That so many people came in impotent and few leave in
a better position. For the others, we spend time empathizes with other impotent
people, that there is no longer hope to be healed. They come to the place of
healing just to be around broken people. The occasional healing that takes
place in the church, jump-starts their system and after a period of time they
reset back to the place where he’ll and can no longer take place. This is where
the man is in the text. Jesus saw him and realized that he had been there a
long time. Jesus walks up to him and asks him if he wishes to be made well.
Rather than answering simple yes, he decides what to give Jesus his story. He
says I have been here for 38 years. Once a year the angel comes and Troubles of
water and the first person that gets in was healed. Since no one can help me
get in the water, I have been here for 38 years. Because I need help. Jesus
wasn’t really into the particulars, he just wanted to know if the man wished to
be made well. The man not perceiving it as he begins to complain about you for
this is in the position where he has lost hope.
I can hear them in my
head because I have met people like him on my life. He’s the member that when
everything goes wrong, starts to offer up the Litany of complaint about all
that they do right and they don’t understand why God keeps allowing wrong to
come to their doorsteps. It will typically start just like this: but God, I
paid my tithes, I served when I didn’t want to, I visited the sick when I
didn’t even have the time, I gave the homeless person at the light some money,
and did what all that I thought was right in the sight of the Lord. Why am I
not healed, yet? The issue for the man has never been that he could not be
healed. He knew that God was able. But as far as he was concerned, this was the
only place where God could heal. They came to the pool as individuals, simply
knowing that this was the place of healing. They had witnessed so many people
be healed before this moment and now as they are awaiting their healing he is
complaining at a place where he’s supposed to be healed. What happens when you
come somewhere for one thing and become something else as a result of being
there? He has become sicker in his heart that he is in his body simply because
he is frustrated but how long he has been there. He said I have been there for
38 years. Do you know how long 38 years is? He was in a relationship with his
sickness for 38 years. He was stuck in a place of sadness and depression for 38
years. He was in a place of discomfort for 38 years. What the text fails to
tell us is whether or not he was born this way. Without that information, we
have to assume that upon being born, he was faced with a crisis of being
broken.
That being the case,
we would further assume that through his broken this is his only way of
functionality. His Brokenness would be considered dysfunction, but it is the
only way of functionality. And some of us are just like this where we have
learned to function out of our dysfunction, so much so, that when functionality
comes before us, we don’t know how to respond to it. Because functionality,
looks dysfunctional, with all you know is dysfunction . And Jesus is trying to
fix it, but this man cannot see it. He probably thinks that Jesus is a
sarcastic sharp-toothed person who is just playing on his emotions. And it’s
about to get worse because Jesus is about to say something that’s going to
change his life forever. After listening to his Litany of complaints, Jesus
looks at him and says get up, pick up your mat and walk. He doesn’t say spin
around three times or asks him to purchase some miracle water. Jesus simply
says get up and walk. It seemed so simple to us because we have been getting up
and walking for so long. This man has been in this situation for so long that
the idea of getting up and walking was fearful. He had spent 38 years without
walking and now Jesus just wants him to get up and walk.
When we read the
setting of the text, there was a multitude of people around this pool but Jesus
only healed one man. This man had been there a long time and I would think he
earned his healing but how long he had to wait for it to come. What if the
healing that we need it’s in our midst but we are too afraid to walk into it?
Jesus never touched this man or spoke to his body and made it conform to the
healing that this man needed. All Jesus did was convinced this man to get up.
Some of us are so broken that is difficult for us to get up out of the place
that has us so crippled and broken but Jesus Has Come Today to say get up.
Jesus watches this man rise out of his brokenness and become well but the
conundrum of the text is that he had to take the mat with him. The mat
represented the years of anguish and brokenness that this man dealt with. The
mat was where he spent his time being the man that people knew him to be. Jesus
told him to pick up the mat and walk with him. The mat told the story of his
brokenness for him. His mat was an eye-witness of the testimony of this man’s
life.
Though I seem young, I
grew up in the old school church. I went to church with the old mothers who sat
in the front row of the church with doilies on their head and stockings thick
enough that you could not see through. I am so old school, that I remember
transitioning from devotions to Praise and Worship. As a child, I remember having testimony
services at church and having to listen to everyone testify about the goodness
of God. Most of the testimonies had been told before because, through living,
people see more pieces of the story clearer later than they did during the
situation. Sometimes I could tell the testimony of others because I had heard
it so much. But one thing I knew for sure is that among the group gathered,
there would be at least 5 people who would end their testimony with “those who
know a word of prayer, please pray for me”. Every now and then, there would be
some people who didn’t know how to testify. They would come to a few services
without saying a word and would be learning the rhythm of the services. Suddenly,
something drastic would happen in their life and suddenly they would have a
burning testimony. They wouldn’t care about the semantics of the service or the
need to be politically correct. They would begin testifying because now they
have a story to tell. As they began to testify, we would realize that things
that had crippled them brought them to their testimony. And, that when the
crippled began to tell their story, we noticed that they are just like us. That
they are human and suffer from the same insecurities and issues as us. That
they have just as many questions as us, but we have failed to hear them due to
us only listen to what crippled them and not the story of the crippled one.
But I know a story of
a man crippled by sins of the world. Who, on one Friday, walked up the Via
Dolorosa, was beaten 39 lashes and hung between two thieves. A man who hung
from the 6th to the 9th hour, until the earth would shake and rock like a
drunken man. He died and was laid in a borrowed tomb. Laid dead all night
Friday night. Stayed dead all day Saturday, and stay dead night Saturday night.
But, Early! He got up with all power in his hand. Having defeated death, hell
and the grave. And because of all that He’s done for me, I know he will be
there with me throughout all of the crippled places of my life. So I can join
in with the hymn-writer and say:
I’ve
seen the lightning flashing,
And
heard the thunder roll;
I’ve
felt sin’s breakers dashing,
Trying
to conquer my soul;
I’ve
heard the voice of Jesus,
Telling
me still to fight on;
He
promised never to leave me,
Never to leave me alone.
No,
never alone,
No,
never alone,
He
promised never to leave me,
Never
to leave me alone;
No,
never alone,
No,
never alone,
He
promised never to leave me,
Never
to leave me alone.
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