Before reading this post, you should first read John 5, specifically the interaction between Jesus and the guy that couldn't walk.
To a 22 year old guy that has grown up reading the Bible and having it taught to me, the story of Jesus healing someone that couldn't walk is not surprising, for better or for worse. Jesus, who is God and did all sorts of miracles when he was on earth, healed a guy. Yep. Sounds right.
When I read this passage a few weeks back, something did surprise me about it. Jesus asked the man if he wanted to be healed. The obvious answer would seem to be 'duh,' but it apparently isn't quite that obvious. When Jesus asked the question, the man responded not by saying 'yes, Jesus,' but by saying "well, I can't put myself in the pool and no one will help me." The man's answer was not really an answer for the question asked. Basically, the man was saying "I have been trying to heal myself for 38 years, of course I want to to be healed because I have been trying myself. Why won't you help me do what I think is best?"
Fortunately, Jesus is not above helping people that are hostile toward being helped. In my mind, I think I have strategies worked out to rid myself of sin. I think I can fix myself and fix everything around me, when I am in fact devastatingly crippled by my weaknesses and have literally no way to help myself.
This of course makes it all the more confusing when, after the man is examined by the religious officials, Jesus secretly meets him and tells him to not sin anymore, "so that nothing worse may happen to you." Wait, don't sin anymore? Isn't that impossible? But really, when you think about it, Jesus says the same thing twice: 'you are lame, but I am telling you to get up and walk because I say you can' and 'you are helplessly broken by and addicted to sin, but you must stop because I say you can.'
I'm sure Jesus did not really expect the man to never sin again. 1 John 1 (written by one of Jesus' disciples) says that any mere man that claims to be without sin is a liar. The man definitely sinned again. What Jesus was communicating to the man was that what man cannot do, Jesus can. Jesus calls us to the impossible not by telling us to go and do something and walking away, but by saying, "I know the Father. Follow me and know the Father. I am holy. Follow me and be holy."
To be obedient to God's commands is impossible. Jesus did the impossible. Maybe we should follow Jesus.
