Stuck

                       Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades.  Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.  One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”  At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. (John 5:1-9)

This passage was one of the ones we discussed in Sunday School yesterday, but I wanted to revisit the subject because I am the man. I know some others who are also the man. Max Lucado’s title for this lesson pertains to being stuck, and it’s easy to see that this man was indeed stuck in his situation. Immediately, we start looking for who is to blame, which means we may also become stuck.

It’s normal in a discussion of this passage to criticize the man who had been waiting for 38 years and had never managed to get into the pool. Why didn’t he get help? Why didn’t he get himself right to the edge of the pool, so that when the angel stirred the water, he could just fall in? Was the begging trade a lucrative and easy way for him to live? Supposedly, Jesus cut through the man’s deceit by asking, “Do you want to get well?”

I’ve been stuck. I worked for a company I hated. Why didn’t I find another job? I eventually left that job to take care of my father. Then I was stuck 24/7. Now, I need to find a second job or a replacement job for a job I like, and I need to market my books. I know other people who are stuck. Two have cancer, and another has at least one autoimmune disease. Then there’s the person with ALS. Two others are still seeking a diagnosis. There are the spouses and families of these folks. They’re stuck, too. Another person is facing the end of a marriage, under heartbreaking conditions.

Do you know what Jesus didn’t do? He didn’t tell the man to go get in the pool.  He didn’t ask the disciples to carry him to the  pool. He didn’t lecture the man on how big a failure he was. He didn’t reprimand him by telling him all the things he had going for him but was failing to use: he was a Jew, he was a male, he lived where there was a pool where people found healing, and he might have had people who cared about him. He might have been intelligent and educated.

I know people who would have told him, “Even God can’t steer a parked car.” What they don’t bother to consider is that the car might not be in park. It might be in drive, but there’s no gas or oil; the spark plugs need to be replaced, the axle is broken, and the tires have been slashed. Whatever the problem, it’s outside the range of repair by the owner. In other words, the people who shrug off someone who is stuck using this judgment are Job’s comforters.

“Do you want to get well?” can be read as a reprimand. It can also be read as an offer. Jesus didn’t lecture him about what to do to get better. Jesus healed him. This is not to suggest that God always works this way with everyone who is stuck. But it does suggest that God’s solution to our being stuck is God, not us. We should not be afraid to call out to him when we are stuck.