It was Passover and a man who was crippled for thirty-eight years waited by the pool of Bethesda to be healed. There were others there that were lame, blind, withered and sick. When an angel stirred the waters, the one that touched the water first was made well from their affliction.

When Jesus saw him He knew this man had been in this condition for a long time. Jesus said to him, "Do you wish to get well?" The man told Jesus that there was no one to put him in the pool when the waters stirred and that someone else always got there first. Jesus said to him, "Arise, take up your mat and walk," and he did. The Jews began telling the healed man, "It is the Sabbath and it is not permissible for you to carry your mat." The man answered, "The One who made me well told me to." They wanted to know who it was but the man didn't know because Jesus had already slipped away from the crowd. Later, when Jesus saw the man in the temple, He told him, "Behold, you have become well. Do not sin anymore so that nothing worse may befall you." The man walked away and told the Jews who it was that healed him. The Jews began to persecute Jesus because He was healing on the Sabbath.

In this story, Jesus teaches us about where our responsibilities should lie. He warned the healed man about going back to his sin.' Yet, the man did anyway by reporting to the Jews who it was that healed him. He didn't have to report anything to them, but did so because he felt obligated and responsible to the people and the traditions more than he did to Jesus. For thirty-eight years this man relied on anyone around him for his needs and their compassion and felt obligated to them. Not that he got that much from them because after all those years, no one came to help him in the pool when the waters stirred. He knew why the people were searching for Jesus and he knew the trouble they would cause Him.

Jesus warns us in these scriptures not to 'go back' but to break away from anything that would bind us or cause us to fall back into judgment, whether they are thoughts, feelings, places or people. If you broke away from a situation or a person or a habit that was harmful, leave your thoughts and feelings about it behind. Sever those ties that would bind you again.

John 21:25 says, "And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written." I suspect, even though scripture does not say this, that Jesus spent time with this man and warned him about not feeling obligated to others or to their traditions, but to God only, and yet, after the Lord warned him, he went back and did the very thing Jesus told him not to do.

In the beginning, when Jesus approached this man at the pool of Bethesda one of the first things Jesus did was to get his attention directed on Him only and not on the pool by asking him, "Do you wish to get well?" He wanted the man to admit to Him that this is what he desired above all else. Jesus was also making a statement . . . "Look to Me."  The man's answer was not "Yes." He was still fixed on the healing pool by saying that there was no one to put him in the water when it stirred. This man didn't understand that God came to him to heal him. After Jesus got his attention, He healed him and then told him what to do. It was up to the man to take his first step in the right direction and leave it all behind.

The first time the man walked away, it was in the right direction. The second time, he went the wrong way, and yet in all honesty, Jesus gave him fair warning and told him what would happen if he did.

© Copyright 2006 Cheryl Taul