4th Epiphany 2021, Get Going

4^th Epiphany

John 5:1-16

Sometime later, there was a Jewish feast, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now

Robert Bateman

there is in Jerusalem, near the Sheep's Gate, a pool called Bethesda in Hebrew, which is surrounded by five covered porches. Here lay a great many invalids, the blind, the lame, the paralyzed, waiting for the water to begin moving. For from time to time, a powerful angel of the Lord descended into the pool and stirred up the waters. The first one in the pool after such a disturbance would be healed of whatever ailment he had.

And there was a certain man there who had been an invalid for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there and became aware that he had been ill for so long, he asked him,

"Do you want [have the will] to become whole?"

The invalid answered him, "Lord [or, Sir], I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me."

Then Jesus said to him, "Rise up, take up your pallet, and walk." At once, the man was healed and picked up his pallet and walked.

However, it was the Sabbath on that day. Therefore the Jewish leaders said to the man who was healed, "It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your pallet."

But he replied, "The man who healed me said to me, "Take up your pallet and walk!"

And they asked him, "Who is the man who said to you, 'take it up and walk'?" But the one who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away, as there was a crowd in the place.

Later, Jesus found him in the Temple and said to him, "Take to heart what I say: Behold, you have become whole. Sin no more, lest your destiny bring you something worse."

The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that Jesus was the one who had healed him. That is why they persecuted Jesus and sought to kill him because he did these things on the Sabbath.

 4^th Epiphany

January 31, 2021

John 5:1-16

Jesus asked the invalid, 'Do you want to become whole?'

The simple answer to this question is either a 'yes' or a 'no.' But the invalid gives the usual human answer—an explanation tied to past failure—‘yes, but . . . it never worked.'

Yet one clear statement from Christ gives the man his future: "Rise up, take up
your pallet and walk!"

Christ's words have the power to create. When he gives what seems like a command, it is no mere directive. It is a description of the way forward in human destiny. At the same time, the creative power of his words gives the strength through which human beings can accomplish what is indicated.

The situation with the man suffering from life-long weakness is a picture for us all. So Christ's words to him are also addressed to us.

'Rise up,' he says. 'Don't just lie there and bemoan your fate. Make the effort to overcome the obstacles and weaknesses that drag you down. I will give you the power.'

'Take up your pallet, your bed,' he says. We have a saying: You made your bed, now lie in it—meaning that we need to accept the consequences of our actions. Some illnesses are meant to be borne; some are meant to be overcome. By encouraging the invalid to pick up the bed he was lying on, Christ is encouraging us all not to try to escape our fate but to carry it along with us by bearing it more actively. Christ gives us the strength to accept our fate, actively take it up and make our fate into a destiny in which we actively and creatively participate.

'Walk,' Christ says. 'Move along, get going. Take that next step. Keep going forward along the path of your own life. I am walking beside you.'

In the past, the Father ordered the karmic consequences of the morality of our deeds. But now Christ gives us the power, the strength, the assistance to shape our fate into a destiny we help create. Rise, take up your fate, create your destiny, walk forward into your future. Now Christ encourages us to take his creating words into our hearts.