One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?” “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.” Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!” (John 5:5-8)Jesus saw a man who had been sick for 38 years and asked him if he wanted to get well. The man had a lot of excuses as to why he couldn’t get well, but the main one was that nobody would help him get into what he felt was the magic water.
Jesus got tired of hearing him whine so he healed him and then left. The man got in trouble because of something Jesus told him to do in the healing. Pick up your mat and walk. But it was the Sabbath day when people were not supposed to carry things around. It was an Old Testament day of rest. Instantly the man got crossways with the church police for going against customs and church law.
But Jesus never told him who he was until after he had gotten in trouble. And after he told him, the guy ran back to the police to tell them who it was that made him break the law.
Sometimes you get in trouble for doing something good. And sometimes you get in trouble for doing what other people don’t want you to do even though it is perfectly good. The kids who have their diplomas withheld because they prayed in the graduation ceremony, the woman who lost her job for wearing a cross, the man who got demerits on his job for reading a Bible during lunch hour.
People are stupid. Jesus knew this and told the guy to carry his mat around anyway, even though it was a law not to carry things on the Sabbath. The man probably figured that if he put the mat down, he would get crippled again and he wasn’t about to do that. But the church police were mad because he had broken one of their laws. He was stuck.
When Jesus talked to him later, he told him not to sin anymore or something worse would happen to him, worse than being crippled. But the man ran back and told the police anyway. A little stool pigeon.
Jesus knew it was against the law and he knew the guy would probably tell. But he did it anyway, even if the guy was afraid and a little ungrateful.
He does the same to us even when we are afraid and ungrateful in our lives. And he didn’t take the healing back when the guy ran and told the police his name.
He really didn’t care what they thought. He was going to do what he was going to do anyway whether they liked it or not.
It doesn’t matter what people think when we try to serve God. We do it anyway. It may break a law, but it was a stupid law and it doesn’t matter, as long as we are serving God. That doesn’t count if we just break laws, but if we are serving God and doing what he wants, we need to do it anyway.
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