The First Sunday of Advent: The Crane

A year ago fall, during a walk on a blessedly abandoned golf course, I began watching the birds that make their home in the reads and bogs of the water hazards. I began pondering them as symbols of medieval heraldry. My meditations resulted in a series of Advent sonnets.

In medieval bestiaries, the crane often represents the one who serves out goods held in common by a community, and watches over the spiritual well-being of the other members. "Close," when used of the crane, means that it holds a stone in one raised claw. The stone is Christ; the claw is the disposition of the mind, so that one who has the care of others must keep Christ always in mind.

Argent: silver, often shown white

Close: of a bird, standing on the ground with the wings closed

Vert: green

Or: gold

Fess: a horizontal stripe across the middle of the shield, occupying about a third of the height

Vermillion: blue

Dexter: right

Bend: a diagonal band across the shield (top left/bottom right as viewed; this is known as a "bend dexter;" a bend to the left would be a "sinister")

He stalks into the clearing crane-head-high,

A streak of argent close against a field

Of vert-and-or fessed with vermillion sky,

Neck dexter bend, unbending purpose wields.

Unrippled image mirrored in the mere,

He presses on with unperturbed pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic, yet draws near,

Preys 'midst the rushes with unrustling grace.

And once again we pray amidst the rush

And hustle to outpace the panting year,

The perning gyre that gyves and will not hush

To let us pause and pray for ploughshared spears.

Oh, clutched by Christ alone, God let me clutch

The corner stone and stop, and wait, and watch.

Standing Before Kings, Proverbs 22.29 - A Chapel Devotional in Triptych, Logsdon Seminar/South Texas School of Christian Studies McAllen Campus, Thursday, November 20, 2014

Collect

Great King of Kings, Your word promises that master craftsmen will be the servants of kings. Grant us grace that we might seek not so much to rise to great places of service as to raise to greatness those whom we serve. And this we pray in the name of the One who rose by descending, Your Son, Our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

Left Panel: The World

            I once heard William Willimon, the great Methodist preacher, admit that he does not especially like the book of Proverbs. He likened it to a long road trip with your mother: a constant barrage of sage advice that you know is generally sound but that you'd rather not hear. He called it the Bible's version of "Hints for Homemakers."

            I get his point. That mighty Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann says that Proverbs is the book of orientation - the place where all the landmarks stay put and the divine cause-and-effect operates predictably. The Psalter, Brueggemann insists, is the book of disorientation that thus holds out hope for growth, for a reorientation based on a richer understanding of God's character. In short, the three friends of Job love Proverbs while Job himself is a man for Psalms.

            Still, Proverbs is in the canon. The Church in her wisdom, and the ancient Hebrews before that, heard the voice of divine inspiration here. If the Proverbs do not tell us the way things always are, they tell us the way things always should be and thus give us at least a baseline from which to judge when things go wrong. If their truth is statistical rather than particular, it at least provides a set of actuarial tables for mapping out general trends. If they do not remove the gamble inherent in facing the future, they at least provide us with an accurate point-spread when placing our bets.

Right Panel: Christ in the Text

            Take for instance the proverb we just read. It is part of a longer collection, so the scholars tell us, that runs from 22.17-23.11. Much of this same material appears in an Egyptian book of wisdom sayings that probably dates back three hundred years before Solomon's court gave it its current form. Those Hebrew scribes organized it into seven sections, a very Israelite kind of spirituality, but the basic message remains: Here's how to comport oneself around the king. It's essentially all those things my mother used to include under the heading of, "Act like you've been somewhere," hissed at my brother and sister and me as we entered someone's home.

            And in that setting we find this single, rather isolated idea: Good workers get great gigs.

            The idea itself is not hard to grasp. "Skilled" comes from the Hebrew maher,  meaning swift or speedy. (It appears in what has to be the greatest name in all the Bible, Isaiah 8.3, where the prophet, acting under divine orders, names his kid Mahershalalhashbaz, "The spoil speeds, the prey hastens.") It is not so much the idea of hurry, however, as of readiness or aptitude. It's opposite appears in Proverbs 18.9 to describe one who is "slack in his work."

            The term "work" contrasts with other Hebrew nouns that mean toil or hardship. This word is work considered from the standpoint of its product and of the knowledge it takes to produce that product. In Exodus 31.3, God uses this word to say that he has filled Bezalel, the architect of the tabernacle, with wisdom in "craftsmanship."

            We all recognize this quality and, as the proverb promises, we all value it. John Steinbeck captures this universal feeling in his novel Of Mice and Men as he describes the first appearance of Slim, the top muleskinner on a California ranch. The narrator tells us that Slim "moved into the room. . .with a majesty achieved only by royalty and master craftsmen."

Right Panel: The Church

            So "skilled in his work" means being good at your job; and your particular job, your calling, your vocation, your craft, is pastoral ministry in some form or other. And you are here at Logsdon Seminary at the South Texas School of Christian Studies to become "skilled" at that "work." In some ways it is an utterly unique calling, but in at least one way, the way described here, it is the same as any calling from preaching to plumbing: It is work that involves knowledge, experience, instincts, and the use of a certain set of tools.

            Do not, to quote a former President of the United States, do not misunderestimate the importance of those skills. Sometimes people think that because the call to ministry comes from God and cannot be generated or denied by human agency, so the skills of ministry come by direct divine download. God may in fact do this - what may God not do? - but that is not the normal process. If ours is indeed a higher calling, why should we, God's pastors, get a free ride where those of "lesser" vocations must struggle to become skilled in their work? When you step into the pulpit or the hospital room, when you lead the coffin to the grave or the groom to the altar, make sure you have paid the price that lets you move "with a majesty achieved only by royalty and master craftsmen."

            But what I really want to focus on is the promise contained in this proverb: "He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men." The meaning seems obvious: Do your work well and you can expect a steady series of promotions until you find patronage among the highest levels of society. That is probably what the verse says at the literal level and I do not want to be guilty of eisogeting it, of leading meaning into the text instead of out of it. I do worry, however, that this reading could do considerable damage to seminarians in the current climate of American evangelicalism.

            Because that climate is a little bit too tropical - overheated with ambition and lush with luxurious vines of fame and power. Megachurch ministries and podcast pulpits have created a class of super-pastors whose clientele include Fortune 500 CEO's, famous athletes, and stars of the silver screen both large and small. This proverb could be used (and no doubt has been used in at least one church-growth school or leadership conference or another) to sanctify the idea that a minister should expect regular advancement from a small seminary pastorate to a stable county-seat First Baptist and ultimately to multi-campus megadom, or perhaps the mustard seed morphing of a living room church plant to a power pulpit. And while I am not condemning these developments as signs of a sold-out ministry, I am dismissing them as the defining marks of successful ministry.

            I want to suggest instead that the mark of successful ministry - and I prefer the term "faithful ministry" - is not that the minister rise to the level of working for royalty, but that the minister raise those with whom she works to the level of kings. Perhaps the goal is not for me to advance in my ministry, but for my congregation to advance under my ministry. Perhaps the people are not the tools of my trade, but those whom my tools shape into the likeness of Christ by skilled craftsmanship.

            I want to interpret this verse in terms of George Macdonald's He that will be a hero, will barely be a man; he that will be nothing but a doer of his work, is sure of his manhood." In the same way, that minister who sets out to be famous will barely be a minister at all, but that minister who will be nothing but a skilled doer of pastoral work is sure of hearing, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."

            I want to interpret this verse in light of C. S. Lewis' observation in his essay, "The Inner Ring:" "If in your working hours you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters. You will be one of the sound craftsmen, and other sound craftsmen will know it." In the same way, the seminarian dedicated to doing well the pastoral work of preaching, teaching, praying, and caring, will be ministerial royalty, and her fellow-royalty will recognize the fact, even though the domination and the newspapers and the business community probably will not.

Conclusion

            In the end, after all, we all wear crowns (Rev 4.4), and in the end, after all, we all take them off (Rev 4.10). On that great and glorious day, the only one left wearing a crown will be the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. May God make us skilled in our work, diligent in our business, craftsmen in our calling, that we might stand before that King on that day, and that on that day we might stand among those before whom we have stood.

No God at the God Store, Mark 11.13-15, 20-23: A Sermon in Tryptich preached at Lexington Baptist Church on Sunday, November 16, 2014

Collect

Creator God who on the third day of creation called the trees into existence, Your Son once saw fit to curse a tree that promised fruit and offered none. Grant that we might live out the promise our faith professes by truly bearing the fruit of the Spirit, so that in us a spiritually starved world might indeed find the presence of Your Son, Our Lord, Christ Jesus, in whose name we pray, Amen.

Right Panel: The World

            A few weeks ago I needed a rental car for a business trip. I arrived at the rent-a-car place which, for reason that will matter in a moment, is located on Ocean Drive right across from the bay front. I arrived in a carpeted office with comfortable chairs and central air conditioning. A polite, well-dressed young man sat behind the counter at what I assume was a state-of-the-art computer. He clicked a few buttons and announced, "Yes," he smiled, "I have your reservation right here, but I'm sorry: We don't have any cars."

            "You mean," I said, "you don't have the model of car I requested, so now I'll get an upgrade for the same money?"

            "No," he replied, "I mean we don't have any cars."

            "You mean," I pursued, "you don't have the model of car I requested or the next size up, so I'll have to settle for a compact at a discount?"

            "No," he replied again, "I mean we don't have any cars."

            "Let me get this straight," I breathed. "You're the rent-a-car store, and you don't have any cars?"

            "Yes, that's right."

           So I leveled my prophetic index finger at his nose, fixed him with my glittering eye and thundered, "May no one rent cars from you again!"  Well, no, I didn't. I did say, I hope politely, "I know this isn't your fault, but I'm never going to rent from your company again, and you should tell someone higher up the food-chain that if you keep this up, your whole business will go under." I could have said - though I didn't - "At this rate, you might as well take this whole place across the street and toss it into the bay!" As an interesting side-note, my prophecy came true: I had occasion to walk by that very office suite just last week and found it cleaned out, completely empty and shut down.

Central Panel: Jesus in the Text

            Put a mental bookmark there and turn with me to the story in our text. This is a bizarre miracle, isn't it? As far as I can figure, this is Jesus' only DE-structive miracle. Everywhere else he makes food; here he destroys the potential for food. Everywhere else he heals the sick; here he sickens the healthy. Everywhere else he raises the dead; here he puts a living thing to death. And why? He acts out of what, in anyone else, we could call a temper tantrum: The one who refused to do a miracle to make food when he was hungry now does a miracle because he was hungry and couldn't find food! What's going on?

            To understand, we have to look at the story in its larger context. This is part of a structure that Bible scholars - we love fancy theological terms - call a "Markan Sandwich." (You won't find THAT on the menu at Subway!) This one is actually about figs so if you prefer, we can call it a Marcan Fig Newton™. This morning we read the cursing of the fig tree and the fulfillment of the curse. In between, in v.16-20, Jesus carries out what I learned in Sunday School to call "the cleansing of the temple." But I don't think that's what's really going on. I think what Jesus performs is a symbolic destruction of the temple. I'll give three reasons, though there are others.

            First, look at what Jesus does: He gets rid of the money changers, the guys selling sacrificial animals, and won't let anyone carry any kind of container. (v.15-16) Now, there was some crooked dealing going on here but these things were not bad in themselves. People came to the Temple at Passover from all over the world to do their religious duty. They had to pay the Temple tax, and you couldn't pay it with foreign money because those coins had a picture of the ruler on them and the Jews considered that a violation of the second commandment, the one against graven images. And you had to haves an animal to sacrifice; since most Jews came from far away and weren't herdsmen, they needed to purchase an animal. The sacrifices also involved flour and oil, things they carried in jars. So Jesus basically shuts down the whole sacrificial system, the mechanism God had given Israel to remain in relationship to God.

            Next, look at what Jesus says: "My house shall be called a house of prayer for al nations, but you have made it a robber's den." (v.17) He's quoting Jeremiah 7.11, where Jeremiah prophesies the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians, an event which took place in Jeremiah's lifetime. Those ancient Jews thought the Temple was magical and could not fall. They believed in the Temple, not the God of the Temple, and it proved fatal. For an entire generation, the Jews had no place to come and seek God. Jesus warns that the same thing is going on here.

            Finally, look at Jesus' vocabulary: "A den of thieves," says the King James, or "robbers" in most other versions. That is a literal translation but it misses a cultural nuance. In Jesus' day there were Jews who advocated a military revolt against the Romans. These groups included the Zealots, the Siccarii or "Daggermen," and some others. They were sort of the Tea Party extreme of Judaism in that time. They would conduct terrorist strikes against the Roman army and then hole up in the limestone caves out in the deserts, as King David once did. The people called them "robbers" because, in the name of funding their revolution, they stole from their countrymen. Jesus hangs on the cross between two "robbers" (Mk 15.27). We know he took the place of Barabbas, whom the Romans had condemned for armed political revolt (Mk 15.7). So probably the two "robbers" were actually revolutionaries who took part in the same uprising. Add all that up and you get Jesus saying that the Jews are using the Temple as a political symbol instead of a place to find God and that as a result the Romans will destroy it. That, by the way, is exactly what happened about thirty-five years later. So, Jesus says, you've turned the House of God into your own private Alamo and it will come to the same end, except there will be no San Jacinto, no ultimate victory.

            Now, go back to the fig tree: Jesus curses it for making false promises, for being a fig store with no figs. Then he symbolically destroys the temple for being the God store with no God. Look carefully at what he says in v.23: "Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him." Notice: "this mountain" and "the sea." For a first-century Jew standing on the Mount of Olives, right across the Kidron Valley from the Temple, the phrase "this mountain" can only mean one thing: Mount Zion, the Temple mount. I've stood where Jesus was standing; you can see the Eastern Gate clearly. And in the same cultural and geographical setting, "the sea" can only mean one thing: the Dead Sea, that lifeless sump just to the south that covers the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah, the most proverbially wicked cities in Jewish thought. And remember Jesus' emphatic language to the fig tree. In the original language it is quite exaggerated. He literally says, "No longer forever ain't nobody going to eat figs from you."

            His teaching here re-enforces his action there; the tree and the temple speak the same truth: "If you believe I know what I'm talking about, then make up your minds that your precious Temple is going into oblivion and never coming back." There will never be another Temple, and even if there is, it will be of no theological significance to Christians. I know all about Ezekiel 41 and the vision of a new temple, but interpret that passage by Revelation 21.22. Jesus is our new temple and Ezekiel's vision helps us understand how he will minister to us.

Left Panel: The Church

            So - a car store with carpet, chairs, air conditioning, computers, and polite, well-groomed employees. . .but no cars. And a fig tree with a sturdy trunk and healthy branches and thick, fragrant leaves. . .but no figs. And a God store with impressive architecture, sacrificial money and animals and materials, a legitimate priesthood descended from the high priest Aaron. . .but no God.

            And here is my question: Are we ever a Jesus store with no Jesus? We have a lovely building - debt-free and with a roof that no longer leaks! We have great music and gifted preaching. We have friendly faces and warm greetings. We have lots of programs and classes. But do we have Jesus?

            Sometime you should read Revelation 2-3. The risen Christ speaks to seven churches, seven literal, historical, local churches in Asia Minor: Ephesus and Smyrna and Pergamos, Thyatira and Sardis and Philadelphia, and Laodecia. And Jesus says to the first of these churches, "I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place -unless you repent." He says something along those lines to almost all of these churches. He's not talking about any individual Christian losing her salvation. He is saying to a church - a specific local church in a given geographical location - "If you are the Jesus store and you are out of Jesus, I will shut you down, blow you up, cave you in and drown you out."

            You know, of all the disciples, I have always envied Philip the most. When Philip goes to his pal Nathaniel in John 1 and says, "We have found the Messiah and it's Jesus of Nazareth," what does Nathaniel reply? "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" Nathaniel was from Bethsaida, where they told Nazarene jokes: How many Nazarenes does it take to light an oil lamp? One hundred: One to light a flame and ninety-nine to squeeze the olive tree. So what does Philip do? Launch into a long argument proving Jesus is a direct descendant from King David? Tell him, "No, no - he's from Nazareth but he was born in Bethlehem, just like Micah says!" Do a full exposition of the Suffering Servant songs from Isaiah to demonstrate that the messiah will be of lowly origin? No; he just says, "Come and see."

            And I've always envied the woman at the well in John 4. When she hot-foots it into Sychar and tells everyone, "I think I've met the messiah," how does she get them to listen? Does she go into 2 Kings 17 and lay out the whole history of the Samaritan race and religion and say, "See? We got it wrong. Their temple in Jerusalem is the right one and ours on Mount Gerazim was a mistake!"? No, she just says, "Come and see!"

            I envied them because when I would share Christ with my friends at school they would bring up all these arguments and questions. I could answer most of them but it seemed so complicated and anyway I got the idea they weren't really concerned about the arguments - they just didn't really want to hear it. And I wished I could just say, "Come and see," and walk with them to Jesus and let Jesus take over because of course he would do everything right. It just didn't seem fair that Philip and the Samaritan woman could say that and I couldn't.

            Then one day it hit me: Jesus says to his disciples, also in the Gospel of John, "It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you." (Jo 16.7) If Jesus was physically nearby and I could take people to him, he would be too far away to be available to people in foreign countries like China or Afghanistan or Oklahoma. But if I let the Holy Spirit control my life, if each believer lets the Holy Spirit control her life, Jesus can always be everywhere and anyone can say at any time to anyone else: Come and see! And, since I'm never going to be enough like Jesus to handle that all by myself, I need a church full of Spirit-filled people so, when I'm off my game, I can still say to someone, "Come with me to church and see Jesus."

            Bottom line: If we're going to be the Jesus store, we'd better have Jesus.

            And what might that look like? It isn't as complicated or intimidating as you might think. Just last week Amanda Alaniz, who is a member here, posted something on her Facebook page for Throwback Thursday and I asked her permission to share it. It was the third anniversary of her coming to Lexington and this is what she wrote:

I stayed because before and after the first service people introduced themselves to me, welcomed me, and when I went back they remembered my name. I stay not because of amazing music (although ours is pretty great), or flashy worship, or a large college/singles group but because I'M WELCOMED. I was seeking community and authenticity and I found it.

That's pretty much it. She came here to the Jesus store and she found Jesus!

Conclusion

            I'm going to wrap this up by suggesting a few different ways to respond. For those of use who are Christians and members of Lexington, I suggest we make a renewed commitment to making sure we have plenty of Jesus in stock. But how does that work? Well, how did it work for Nathaniel and the woman at the well? They could say, "Come and see" because they knew where Jesus was. And they knew that because they'd just been spending lots of time with Him. We need to pledge ourselves, individually and as a community, to doing the same - lots of time in worship, lots of time in prayer, lots of time in God's word and, incidentally, lots of time with poor people, and sinful people, and sick people, and generally unpopular people, because Jesus tells us we find him there (Mt 25).

            Next, I want to offer a response to those of you who are Christians but don't have a church home. I know the church isn't perfect; I know we often run low on Jesus. But I know you aren't perfect either, that you aren't always completely stocked up on Jesus either. But our city needs a Jesus store where people can come and find Jesus and you can help us with that and we can help you. And if it was enough to have your own personal relationship with Jesus then why did Philip go find Nathaniel and why did the woman at the well go find the men of her village? So you can respond to this message by saying, "I want to join this church. I want to help the Jesus store have a little more Jesus."

            Last, I want to offer a response to anyone here who doesn't have Jesus but would like to. You're here at the Jesus store. We haven't shown you Jesus perfectly; we may have given you a pretty warped look at him. But somehow that's still enough that you want to know him. The figs we feed you here may be a little shriveled, a little sour perhaps, but it's still sustenance. Come this morning and let's talk about how you can find Jesus.

The Fool at the Pool John 5.1-15

Introduction

            C. S. Lewis, the master Christian apologist of the twentieth century, became an atheist as a teenager after being raised in a Christian home. In his spiritual autobiography Surprised by Joy Lewis recalls the death of his mother when he was nine years old:

My mother's death was the occasion of what some (but not I) might regard as my first religious experience. When her case was pronounced hopeless I remembered what I had been taught; that prayers offered in faith would be granted. I accordingly set myself to produce by will power a firm belief that my prayers for her recovery would be successful; and, as I thought, I achieved it. When nevertheless she died I shifted my ground and worked myself into a belief that there was to be a miracle. The interesting thing is that my disappointment produced no results beyond itself. The thing hadn't worked, but I was used to things not working, and I thought no more about it. I think the truth is that the belief into which I had hypnotized myself was itself too irreligious for its failure to cause any religious revolution. I had approached God, or my idea of God, without love, without awe, even without fear. He was, in my mental picture of this miracle, to appear neither as Savior nor as Judge, but merely as a magician; and when He had done what was required of Him I supposed He would simply---well, go away. It never crossed my mind that the tremendous contact which I solicited should have any consequences beyond restoring the status quo.

            What Lewis describes is excusable in a child, but fatal in an adult, and it is my belief that much of Christianity, as now preached and practice in pulpits and pews across America, rests on just that unstable theological foundation. The story we have read this morning gives us crucial insight into this false faith and its true alternative.

Text

            This is a strange story, in some ways the strangest in all the accounts of all the miracles performed by Our Lord. The story falls into three distinct parts: We have the man's first encounter with Jesus in v.1-9. We have his final encounter with Jesus in v.14-17. In the center of the story, v.10-13, we have the pivot-point of the narrative: this man's reaction to the healing action of the Savior.

            Our first difficulties come in the first part of the story. To begin with, there is this rather bizarre account of the angelic Jacuzzi, the divine bubble-bath of Bethesda. Somehow, this rings false in light of the way character of God is revealed elsewhere in the Scripture. The healing is random, second-hand, and selective. It is random because the water only moves "at certain seasons," It is second-hand because, instead of doing the healing in person, God jobs it out to a subcontracting angel. It is selective because only the person who enters the water first receives the miracle! Of course, we can take some comfort in the fact that the last part of v.3 and all of v.4 do not appear in the oldest and best-attested copies of John's gospel. However, the man's remarks in v.7 certainly seem to express the same idea so we can reasonably conclude that v.3b-4 were added by a later scribe, some disciple of the Apostle John, to explain a custom no longer familiar after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70.

            The other troubling aspect of this part of the story is Jesus' question: "Do you wish to get well?" The man is lying crippled by a pool that offers the merest chance of recovery from his condition; he's been doing this for nearly forty years. Of course he wants to be made whole!

            The other - and perhaps even more - troubling part of the story comes in the final section where Jesus seems to imply that the man's original illness came as a result of his personal sin. While such an idea fit with much of the Jewish theology of the day, Jesus himself refutes this idea in John 9.1-7, the story of the man born blind. Jesus encounters this individual by the wayside and his disciples want to use the occasion for a theological debate: "Who sinned? This man or his parents, that he would be born blind?" Jesus, in essence, replies, "Neither, and that's not the point: The question is not whether or why God did this to him, but what, in God's name, we intend to do about it." If Jesus here traces physical malady to spiritual malefaction, he contradicts himself.

            As I say, these problems come in the first and last parts of the story. The answer, I believe, lies in the center. The key to this story is not how Jesus acts when he meets this man, but how this man acts after meeting Jesus.

            The religious authorities see him carrying his pallet in obedience to Jesus' orders. Why does Jesus give this rather unusual command? This was his begging-bed and he no longer needed it. True, he gives the same command to the paralytic in Mark 2, but in that case the bed was taking up space in Peter's already-crowded home. More importantly, that was not a Sabbath-day healing as this one is. Jesus knew the Law; he also knew the extra provisions the Jewish rulers had added. They had made the mistake of confusing their interpretation with God's revelation to such an extent that there was actually a rabbinical debate about whether one was allowed to pray for someone's healing on the Sabbath! In giving this command to this person in this city, Jesus deliberately sets him up as a marked man!

            Notice how the man reacts. When rebuked, he shifts the blame: "He who made me well was the one who told me, 'Pick up your pallet and walk.'" When interrogated, he pleads ignorance: "But the man who was healed did not know who it was." It is true, as John notes, that the place was crowded and Jesus left quickly, but if someone heals me after thirty-eight years, I think I would at least want to get his name! The first chance he gets to bear witness to Jesus he blows it! In his fear of religious rejection he passes the buck and plays dumb.

            This, to me, explains why Jesus asked him if he really wanted to be healed, and how Jesus corrects the false idea of God implied by the impersonal miracle of the pool. Jesus says, in effect, "Those impersonal waters of a distant and indifferent deity cannot make you whole, but the personal God revealed to you in Me this moment can. But while that impersonal theology offers and impersonal healing with no strings attached, the problem is that if I heal you, I own you, and I require you to bear witness of who I am."

            It also explains Jesus' words to the man in v.14. It does sound, on a first reading, as if Jesus blames the man for his previous condition and warns him not to relapse. But the grammar of John's original language corrects this misunderstanding. There were two ways to give a command in Greek: One means not to start doing something and the other means to stop something you are already doing. It is the difference between, "Don't you dare do that!" and "Stop doing that!" Jesus command is of the latter kind. A better translation would be, "Stop sinning, so that nothing worse happens to you." This implies that, whatever sin Jesus has in mind, the man was in the act of committing it. I can see only one option to explain that.

            Notice where Jesus finds this man: in the Temple. Why go straight to the Temple? Probably to offer sacrifices and seek reinstatement as a full member of the Jewish religious community. This tells me that he dropped that pallet the second the religious authorities ordered him to do so and is now in the process of fulfilling their religious obligations. His very presence in the temple means that he has bowed to peer pressure and chosen not to bear witness to Christ. Then notice what the man does as soon as Jesus leaves: He hotfoots it back and rats Jesus out to his enemies! Notice the result in v.16: Instead of condemning the healed man, they turn their wrath toward the Healer! This man does not hesitate to lay the action off on the Lord! What, then, is the "worse thing" that Jesus warns him against? Not a return to paralysis, not even physical death, but eternal judgment for denying Christ!

            Indeed, we can contrast this story, as I believe John means us to do, to the story of the man born blind in John 9. THAT man bore faithful witness until they kicked him out of the synagogue. THIS man sells Jesus out for acceptability in religious society.

            This man had the same problem C. S. Lewis described: He was the fool by the pool determined to play it cool. He wanted the healing without the headaches! He wanted the powerful results without the personal relationship! He wanted the water without the witness! He wanted to take up his bed without risking his head! He didn't want a Master, he just wanted a magician!

Application

            So what does this have to do with you and me, here at the St. Matthew Missionary Baptist Church on a Sunday morning in November of 2014? Well, notice one more thing from this passage: Jesus tells him, "Pick up your pallet." It is the same verb Jesus uses in Matthew 16.24, Mark 8.34, and Luke 9.23 when he orders his followers to "take up your cross and follow me." This man's pallet was his cross for two reasons: first, it bore witness to his encounter with Christ, and second, it got him into trouble!

            And the question this text poses to you today is this: Do you wish to get well? Now think before you answer! Because Jesus is not a magician and the Christian faith is not some divine bubble-bath and salvation is not a day spa to pamper the lusts of the flesh!

At the cost of the cross, at the price of complete surrender, do you wish to get well?

            Do you wish to get well?

            Some of us want a mate but we don't want to wait! Are you single and yearning for a spouse? a decent man to love you as Christ loved the church and lay down his life for her? a loving wife to love you with the love of the Lord? Then if you are single, take up the cross of sexual purity and bear it as a witness to this sex-soaked, love-starved world that our desires are not our deity and our glands are not our God!

            Do you wish to get well?

            Some of us husbands want to be boss but we don't want the cross! If you are already married, take up the cross of complete faithfulness in a world where promiscuity is a pastime and divorce is a spectator sport! Men, you want your wife to treat you as the head of the house? Then behave like the head of the church - set your own needs aside in service to her! Take up that daily cross of dying to yourself! You lead your wife as Christ leads the church and your wife will love you as she loves her Lord!

            Do you wish to get well?

            For some of us, the problem isn't that we can't get in the waters of Bethesda but that we won't get in the waters of baptism! Some of us have claimed Christ as our Savior but have shamed him as our Lord! If I have professed Christ but never been baptized, I am refusing to take up my cross and walk. If I own Jesus as my Redeemer but to not commit myself to his gathered body, the church, I disrespect Jesus with a de facto denial and invite a worse thing to come up on me.

            Do you wish to get well?

            Some of us want to fall on our face in church on Sunday but we won't stand up and face the world on Monday! When I have an opportunity to bear witness to my saving faith but stay silent out of fear of rejection from the world, I refuse to take up my cross and invite a worse thing to come upon me.

             Do you wish to get well?

            Some of us want our bodies made whole but don't want God to mess with our soul! Some of you are praying for healing from bodily afflictions and there is everything right in doing that. But let me ask you: When healing comes, will you use it as permission for sin or a commission from the Savior? Will you go about your business or set out on the King's business?

            Do you wish to get well?

            Do we want the results or do we want a relationship? Do we want the healing or do we want the Healer? Do we want the power or do we welcome the Person? Do we want the waters or do we want to bear witness? Are we the church on the move or are we the fools by the pool? Make your choice today: Do you wish to get well?

Conclusion

            I referred earlier to C. S. Lewis and his childhood idea of God as a magician. Some twenty-five years later, as an Oxford scholar and a convinced atheist, Lewis came face to face with the inescapable fact of God's existence. It did not make him happy, because he realized that this was no magician, but a Master. In that same spiritual autobiography Lewis confesses:

Remember I had always wanted, above all things, not to be “interfered with.” I had wanted. . .“to call my soul my own.” . . .I had pretty well known that my ideal of virtue would never be allowed to lead me into anything intolerably painful; I would be “reasonable.” But now what had been an ideal became a command; and what might not be expected of one? . . .Not the slightest assurance on that score was offered me. Total surrender, the absolute leap in the dark, was demanded. The reality with which no treaty can be made was upon me. The demand was not even “All or nothing.” The demand was simply, “All.”

            And that is the same demand that faces you today. Christ does not demand your best, he demands your all! Christ does not require that you give him something but that you give him everything. Christ does not demand that you do your duty but that you die to yourself. Christ does not tell you, "Take up your cross for a while," but "Take up your cross and walk. . .all the way. . .every day. . .in every way, walk, walk WALK!"