We are having one of those days where, when you step outside, the breath is literally sucked right out of you.  It is 1 p.m. as I sit and write and the temperature is a balmy minus one degree - on its way down to minus 15 tonight.  Most Minnesotans love this stuff.  They say it is character-building.  Personally, I can think of other ways to build character that don't entail wrapping up to look like an Eskimo.  I expect to see polar bears wandering through our backyard any moment.  A quiet night by the fireside sounds very inviting.  And I even have a good book to read. 

I won't spend much time on world and national news this week.  Of interest: It looks as if the coalition government of Ehud Olmert in Israel is beginning to show signs of stress and is coming apart.  One party left the coalition yesterday and another party is considering leaving the coalition.  Soon we may hear of the call for national elections.  The cause: the "road map" of President Bush, especially the part where Jerusalem is to be divided.  Then there is our economy which many economists are saying is either headed into a recessionary cycle or that we are already in that cycle.  Interesting - the more I read and study the prophetic passages of Scripture that relate to the end times, the more I am coming to understand that economic uncertainty will play a huge role.  Let's keep our eyes upon Jesus.

With that thought in mind, I would draw our attention back to John 5.  The chapter opens with a statement that Jesus had gone up to Jerusalem for one of the feasts.  And while there, He visited a pool called Bethesda which was not far from one of the city gates.  (Today, we take our students to visit the Pool of Bethesda.  It is just a few short steps inside the Lions' Gate, or St. Stephen's Gate).  This was a massive pool complex, really housing two large pools.  Around the pool were gathered a multitude of sick people afflicted with just about every type of physical ailment imaginable.  And why were they there?  There was a belief that an angel would cause the waters in the pool to bubble from time to time and that the first person to fall into the waters at that moment would be healed.  Did it work?  The Bible does not tell us... but, evidently enough people believed it that they remained around the pool. 

With a multitude of needy individuals around the pool, Jesus set His focus upon one individual - a man who had been an invalid for 38 years.  How long he had laid at the pool the Bible does not tell us, but the text would imply that he had been there for many years.  Jesus walks over to this man and asks him a most unusual question: "Do you want to get healed?"  That is almost like going inside a hospital room and asking a patient if he or she wanted to get well.  But I think the bottom-line of Jesus' question was this: "Do you really want to change your situation?"  Too many people today are content where they are so that they do not want to change.

What is this man's response?  "Sir, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred.  While I am tyring to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me." (Verse 7).  We could paraphrase what that man says as, "Yes, I would like to get healed, but it is impossible.  I can never make it happen."  This man never looked up Jesus as a healer.  All he considered was his plight... he would never get to the water first.  This man had limited possible help to his own ideas.  There was only one way to get healed - to get into the waters; and that would not happen for him.  Friends, often when we approach God we need to cast aside our preconceived ideas of how God will work.  How we need to come to an understanding that God's ways are above our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9).  Jesus does not argue with the man.  He does not debate his limited view of God.  He merely commands this invalid to "Get up.  Pick up your mat and walk."  Jesus challenged this man with attempting to do the impossible.  And, although the faith of this man was not great, he acted upon what Jesus had told him.  And he walked for the first time in 38 years.  I imagine the joy was unrestrained.  He told his story to everyone. 

And, on his way out of the pool area, carrying his mat upon which he had laid for these many years, he encountered a group of Pharisees, the religious officials of the day.  Did they celebrate with the man at his remarkable healing?  No!  Instead they criticized him for carrying his mat; in their eyes he was working on the Sabbath Day.  These Jewish leaders were more focused upon keeping the rules than upon seeing an individual set free from an affliction that had plagued him for years.  How many people are driven by rules and regulations today!  And those rules and regulations keep them from experiencing the fullness of what God has intended for them.  In many ways their thinking was more lame than the physical lameness of the invalid. 

Finally Jesus confronts the formerly lame man at the temple.  There Jesus instructed him to "stop sinning."  Here was His final challenge: to be reconciled to God.  Had sin been the cause of his lameness?  The text certainly does not state that.  But Jesus tells him that a continuance in sin could and would have a greater consequence than just being lame.  We know that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).  We are not told how this man responded to these words of Jesus, but I believe that he acted upon them as he had the previous commands of Jesus.  It will be fun to hear this man's story someday in glory. 

What is the lesson to be learned?  I believe it is that we are not to be so tied to rules and regulations that we forget that God's desire is for us to minister to people in their hour of need. 

For your information, I have created a blog titled "Christianity for Today."  It will a random collection of thoughts to help each of us to live closer to the Lord.  You can find it by going to www.villageschoolstoday.blogspot.com or by going to the What's New page and uving the link there.  I will appreciate your feedback.

I trust you will have a wonderful weekend and be richly blessed by God in all you do and say.

P.S.  For those of you would like to reserve a seat on the March 4-17, 2009, tour to Israel, please send a refundable $100 deposit to Village Schools of the Bible, 13815 Ridgedale Drive, Minnetonka, MN 55305, and mark it "Israel Tour."  Brochures should be available in early May.  Marlys and I invite you to join us as we celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary in the Holy Land (our anniversary date is in August 2009, but we will celebrate early).