The Sin of Settling

The Sin of Settling

Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed.
One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.
‭‭John‬ ‭5:2-3, 5-15‬ ‭ESV‬‬

A number of amazing things take place in this account. One is the amazing length of time this man was living in that area of Bethesda. With supposedly a healing pool that could have healed him so much sooner, why was he still there? What had happened to him to keep him stagnantly remaining in his state when a solution was within his nearly immediate reach?

How he had become an invalid, we obviously don’t know. But we can surmise that it must have affected his outlook very negatively. Safely we can figure he became overcome with doubt, hopelessness and depression. The unfortunate circumstances gave him a focus on his problem, and probably downturned to a selfish focus — a pity me view of life. It was a sinful life. Hard to think so. After all he was an invalid, and our society almost honors the invalid. I am not saying we should not. Such things as Special Olympics have done amazing things for our awareness of the humanness of invalid and challenged people. We are not used to thinking of invalids as sinful. Unfortunate, perhaps, but not sinful, but they are not above that. Jesus would point it out to him later.

We have all gotten in this kind of state for at least a little while, and some of us even for longer. Some never seem to escape it. I notice that by what happened next he never got over it.

Jesus comes upon him and realizes his estate. His question is telling. “Do you want to be healed?”

Let Jesus ask you this question. What would you answer? Do you really want to be healed? Do you really want to see your situation improve, or to escape some problem? Or are you actually comfortable with the way you are—even though you’re miserable? Most of the time it takes getting uncomfortable to reach past where we are at, if we are going to overcome some obstacle or achieve some longed-for goal.

What this man replied to Jesus amounts to some kind of excuse. “Sir, I have no one to help me! Someone always goes in ahead of me! No one just lets me in! No one gives me my fair shake or turn!” Or am I being too harsh to say this about him? Maybe. I am so far away from his situation.

But what can we gather about him by his own answer? Actually we can figure quite a few things that must have been the case for him to make these excuses. For one, he must have had a specific spot in the colonnades that was more comfortable and convenient for him to use as his living area, other than one just next to this pool. Perhaps it was access to food distribution or water that was better in that place. But it was too far from the pool to make it easy for him to get down to it when the water stirred. Yet, he was unwilling to leave the security of that spot for the benefit of getting immediately into that pool. What were the risks of leaving it? Apparently too many for him.

Sometimes, or often times, our focus is on the risks we face in going the direction God wants us to go. We understand he doesn’t want us to stay un-growing in the area he has his finger on. But we feel so many things could happen that we are not comfortable losing. But perhaps this is one of the things Jesus meant by saying we must deny ourselves.

Another thing about this man is he must have held a very selfish focus in the colonnades. Yes, the competition to get into the pool was fierce when it was stirring time! It was every man for himself. No time to help anyone else. Clawing and shoving and even cursing others for beating him to the edge of the pool, every darned time! Did he alienate his fellow invalids? At some point, the focus on his situation no longer allowed him even a shred of hope. His habits left him beyond self-help.

What could he have done so early on and so long before Jesus had found him? I mean, we could brainstorm a number of ideas that would have helped him. He wasn’t immobile; he could move. He could have eventually camped out right in front of the pool, no matter how long the sacrifice of food, water or relief. He could have befriended some other blokes and encouraged them to help each other, starting some sort of Invalid Mutual Aid Society. “We will help you get into the pool next, and then you can help me get in, and we will all stick together until we have each had our turn!” He would have felt better about his neighbor invalids then as well. He could have become a positive influence in that place, and risen to be a respected leader even. The possibilities!

But whatever the possibilities he had before him, he did not choose any of them. Languishing in his self pity and hopelessness, Jesus did another amazing thing and mercifully healed him anyway!

Why Jesus did that we can only guess. Perhaps he was hopeful that this show of mercy was enough to get this man’s eyes off of himself. The next amazing thing is that it didn’t work.

I mean, really. Jesus meets him later and tries to open his eyes further with a gentle rebuke. “See, you are healed now! Don’t you see the blessing you have received? Are you going to continue to be so selfish and sinful? You have the opportunity to change all that before the worse thing possible would happen to you.”

Not in so many words is it stated, but by what this man does, he shows how much he resented Jesus’ warning and exhortation. He went and tattled on Jesus to the Jewish leaders. The next verse in John tells us that Jesus was persecuted because of what that man did.

Hopefully, and it is my prayer for you, that you will see the opportunity of God’s mercy he has graciously extended to you. You may not see it yet, but open your eyes and look. Jesus still stands at the door and knocks.

[Golden] Calf Down the River!

I live by a philosophy that taking in a lot of Old Testament with the New Testament is a good thing. Years ago, at a Lamb concert, I remember one of them (Coghill or Chernoff, I can’t remember who) comparing the Bible to a cake. He said the New Testament is the icing on the cake, but you’re expected to eat the cake (i.e. the Old Testament) under the icing as well. And there’s a whole lot more cake than icing!

Anyway...

That brings me to this one passage in Deuteronomy:

And I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, and ground it very small, even until it was as small as dust: and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount.
Deuteronomy 9:21

After the Israelites had sinned against the Lord with the golden calf, Moses was angry and broke the original Ten Commandments tablets in their sight. He also took direct action with the object of their sin, the golden calf. In the first account, in the book of Exodus, we read, “And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it with fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.” (Ex. 32:20 ASV)

Now, this verse taken all on its own, may sound weird or even mean. I have seen old woodcut illustrations of this scene, with Moses pouring the dust of the golden calf into a pool of water and the disobedient Israelites surrounding it and being forced to drink this now gold dust-polluted water. And that would almost be a death sentence right there, because gold dust is poisonous to the human body. Or at best, these Israelites would have gotten very sick.

Well, after all, they deserved it! They had just sinned a great sin, one that virtually broke God’s heart so much, He was thinking of destroying them all and starting the redemption process for a Messianic line all over. “Leave me alone,” He said to Moses, like a wounded lover.

However, now that I read this line in Deuteronomy there is a different angle to think through, a different reason, perhaps.

First of all, there’s this water source to consider...

Where did it come from? This verse says it flowed from the mountain, Mount Horeb, or Sinai as we know it. Was it always there? Actually, in Exodus 17, there was water provided for the people from a rock at the base of Horeb early on in their desert journey, before the giving of the Ten Commandments. The elders of Israel went with Moses all the way to the base of Horeb and struck a rock there and the water flowed out from there to the camp of the people. This first camp for Israel must have been within sight of Horeb, so it wasn’t a far journey to get there.

So, anyway, the water that flowed from Sinai was from some kind of spring or stream. It was not standing water. Now what happens when something as “small as dust” lands in water running downstream—and the downstream speed needn’t even be very fast? You’re right! That stuff will flow out of sight within seconds. By the time the Israelites got down to lap up water from the stream, they would only be drinking fresh water flowing from the mouth of the rock, the source of the stream. In my mind, no dust from that Calf would have been left swirling at that spot.

An Object Lesson

So what was Moses’ reason for casting the dust of the Golden Calf into the water, and then making the Israelites drink from the stream? After all, if it was just to give them a time of refreshment, they could’ve gotten a drink at any time.

I believe Moses (or God via Moses) was trying to teach the people something very important: and that was a very big part of the whole idea of forgiveness. This event was a teaching opportunity, or object lesson, to show the Israelites that they needed to receive God’s provision for their forgiveness.

You see, their “sin,” as Moses called the Golden Calf, he ground down to powder, so that there would be no visible remembrance of that thing left for them. Are we keeping any “remnants” of our old sins around to give nostalgia or “take us back” to those events or practices? God is saying, here in His Word, to get rid of that. Another way to put this: Is our repentance complete? Have we renounced all known sin? Have we left anything around in our hearts in reserve, just in case this thing with Jesus doesn’t pan out, or just to keep a “little something” for ourselves? Is there something in our lives we know God is not happy seeing still hanging around?

Then Moses threw that dust into the stream so that it would flow away from the Israelite camp forever. You see, we need that kind of spiritual water that will wash our sins downstream, never to return! And what do you think that “water” is?

Here are a few possibilities:

But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
John 4:14

He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
John 7:38

That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
Ephesian 5:26

And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
I Corinthians 10:4

Love is the Key

God, whose primary disposition is love, aims more at reconciling us to himself than to see that we suffer for our sin and rebellion. But our part is to acknowledge our sin with true repentance, and come to his source of forgiveness, which is through his Son, Jesus Christ. His invitation is true and sure:

And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.