The Responsibility of Being Well
“What do you want?” At first it seems a strange question that Jesus would ask a man who had been lame for thirty-eight years…a man who had laid every single day beside a pool with healing waters. “Do you want to be healed?” I think those were his exact words.
The man’s response might have been similar to ours.
“You don’t understand…it’s not my fault…every time the waters
are right, there is no one to put me in…someone beats me to it.”
We notice that the man never did answer Jesus’ question.
It was obvious to him that Jesus just didn’t understand.
But Jesus did understand. He
understood all too well.
There are advantages to being sick. For
one thing, we always have an excuse…an excuse to fail…an excuse to not
try. You see, we’re sick and
when you’re sick, you’re exempt from trying.
You have a great excuse.
Also, when you’re sick, other people wait on you.
They help you in matters they ordinarily would not.
We escape responsibility. We
don’t have to go to school…someone else performs our job.
This man had not been held responsible for thirty-eight years…its
something he had gotten used to. Look
at his response to Jesus. “Someone
else is to blame, not me.” Even
after Jesus heals this man, he is questioned about carry his mat on the
Sabbath…an act against the Jewish law. His
response? “The man who healed me
told me to carry it.” He
didn’t even know Jesus name. Again,
its not his fault…someone else told him to.
Jesus would again see this man in the temple and confront him with his sins,
but the only thing we are told about his response is that he goes and tells
those in authority that it was Jesus who healed him.
We have no record that he addresses the sin in his life that Jesus
spoke of.
We, too, know the advantages of being sick and avoiding responsibility for our
actions. But when we accept Christ
into our lives, all our excuses vanish…we are called to look inside
ourselves and clean up our act. We
are called to take on the responsibility of carrying our cross and serving
others through Christ. We are to
become more like Him. There are no
excuses.
Wanting to be well comes with much responsibility, but we have a greater power
within us…the power of Christ. It
is through Him we can look inwardly with no excuses and through Him we can
change the world. When Christ
heals our heart, He changes us from the inside out.
Through Him we can stand up and walk and we can try without fear of
failure and without blaming others for our shortcomings.
We are free! Thanks be to God.
In Christ,
Billy