“Thrown for a loop”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Thursday, January 9, 2025
John 5: 1-15 (Forward, p. 72) CEV p. 1105
Often, I have queried why Jesus occasionally asked nonsensical questions, like here asking the crippled man, ‘Do you want to be healed?’ (verse 6). The man was crippled and had been so for thirty-eight long years, so of course, he wanted to be healed, right? Well, maybe not. Maybe he was ‘enjoying’ his malady. Certainly, he launched into a massive verbal pity party the moment that Jesus queried him. And maybe he was so accustomed to his ‘issue’ that he knew no other life, and perhaps so accustomed to ‘making hay’ of his infirmity through peoples’ sympathy and gifts that he wasn’t really that motivated to giving it up. Perhaps he had a well-developed, well grounded, sense of entitlement.
Well, here Jesus throws him for a loop. All of this is destroyed in an instant. He is healed and is told to take up his mat and walk. He is to return to his home, yes, but probably also to the relationships that had been strained and distorted and to his gainful employment. What a shock!
What this reminds me of is the way that God, in Christ Jesus, makes everything new—and new in ways that are sometimes unexpected, and even disturbing, ways that sometimes force us to readjust our lives. That is exactly what Jesus is about, then and now. Are we ready for it? Ready for our lives to be ‘thrown a loop’? Indeed, in this new year, that is a distinct possibility. Amen.
Forward notes: “When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’” (verse 6)
“For a long time, I heard blame and judgment in Jesus’s question to the man at the pool. I put the emphasis on the word ‘want,’ as if the man’s continued infirmity was somehow his fault. But when I changed the emphasis to the word ‘you,’ the entire scene changed! Jesus sought this man particularly because of his need and inability. He knew how long this man had been waiting and that he could not get to the pool by himself, so Jesus brought the healing to him.
“Now I hear Jesus saying, ‘I see you, and I know your pain. I’ve chosen you, and I’ve come to heal you. In fact, it’s already happened! Stand up, carry the mat you no longer need, and walk into your new life!’ Jesus does not shame or condemn our weaknesses. He knows that, like the lame man, we cannot make it to the pool on our own, so instead, he lovingly and mercifully comes to us, offering wholeness and life.”
Moving Forward: “Ask yourself, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ If so, Jesus is there, ready and waiting to offer wholeness and new life.”