An Interruption of Grace

An Interruption of Grace--July 12, 2018

"Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Bethzatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids--blind, lame, and paralyzed.  One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 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?' The sick man answered him, 'Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.' Jesus said to him, 'Stand up, take your mat and walk.' At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk." [John 5:2-9]

It could happen anywhere, apparently.  A sudden outbreak of divine power for life.  An interruption of grace.

Most notably, it could happen without asking... without looking in the right place for help... without even so much as a "Yes" when Jesus offers point-blank, "Do you want to be made well?"  Jesus' power for life comes without prerequisites... which means that his power is decidedly out of our control.

This is one of those miracle stories that ruins people's neat-and-tidy theological systems, because it defiantly depicts Jesus healing someone who didn't ask for him and hadn't even put his trust in Jesus at the time of his healing.  We have a way, don't we, we religious folk, of taking these untamed accounts of the miraculous and wanting to make them into morality tales illustrating how to get God to assist you.  We tend to want there to be a proper order, an official recipe for how to get access to Jesus' special powers.  And so we construct hoops that we assume Jesus will expect people to jump through in order to get divine help.  

For starters, we tend to assume that you have to make the first move with Jesus, that we have to ask him first for help, or else he'll sit up in heaven, forever sitting on his hands, unable to intervene because he hasn't been properly summoned.  We tend to say this, not because that is how the stories in the Bible actually go, but because we have this need to erect walls around access to Jesus.  And so you'll hear religious folks say things like, "You have to take the initiative to ask Jesus for help... to invite him into your heart... to give you your miracle... to save your soul... or else he can't help you.  You have to take the first step."  Never mind, of course, that this is not how the story actually goes.  No, not for this man at  Bethzatha just waiting around without seeking Jesus for help, not for Zacchaeus who is too afraid up his tree to invite Jesus over, and not for Lazarus... who was dead.  No, it turns out that Jesus is perfectly willing and able to take the first step, whether because, like Lazarus, we cannot, or because like this man on his mat, he has gotten so used to accepting being defined as "one of those helpless people panhandling at the edge of the water" that he doesn't think anything else is possible for him.  Jesus doesn't have to wait for our initiative to use his power to heal.

You don't even have to be looking at Jesus, for that matter. This guy at the pool of Bethzatha isn't, at least. Again, we have this way of assuming that a proper miracle requires people to at least show some signs of faith in Jesus, or to be at least turned toward him.  But here this man at the edge of the pool is so focused on getting his healing from the waters that he doesn't even hear the question Jesus has asked him.  Some ancient manuscripts of this passage include a line about an angel who would periodically touch the water, so that whoever touched the waters when they were stirred up would be made well.  But whether that was the reason for this man's hope in the waters or not, it's clear that this guy isn't even paying attention to Jesus here.  Jesus has offered him healing, and he goes into his rote speech about wanting to get to the water. This guy isn't even paying attention to Jesus... and yet the healing is given anyway.  It is an interruption of grace, right into the midst of the limbo-like routine to which this man had grown accustomed. 

My goodness!  This poor schlub doesn't ask for Jesus' help, doesn't pay attention to Jesus when he talks to him, and doesn't even have the faith to look to Jesus for healing rather than a wading pool.  All of our conditional thinking comes undone here.  We would prefer, honestly, a kind of vending machine religion, where the proper prayer, or acceptable offering, or adequate demonstration of faith become the currency for getting miracles dispensed.  And we Respectable Religious folks bicker and argue about what the currency is--do you have to have "invited Jesus into your heart" first, or done some number of good deeds first?  Do you have to believe hard enough, or walk down an aisle in church when the preacher invites?  See, whatever the precise price, we all still assume that there is some first step, some requirement we have to bring first, in order to activate or access Jesus' power.

This, however, is simply not how Jesus operates.  His power is reckless and wild, unrestricted and unbound.  He initiates healings for people who haven't asked for them.  He gives grace to people who don't trust in him yet.  He speaks life into the lives of people who have not called on his name.  The power of Jesus is wonderfully (and frustratingly, from our perspective) free that way.  Wonderfully, in the sense that Jesus can and does help people who don't know what they need or are still looking the other way.  And frustratingly, in the sense that we will have to confess that we cannot control or limit where Jesus' power is set loose.  Jesus reserves the right to heal people we do not think are on the "approved" list.  Jesus reserves the right to interrupt the routines we had grown accustomed to.  Jesus reserves the right to bring answers to people who hadn't figured out the questions yet, to bring help for people who didn't know they were in trouble yet, and to bring life to dead people who couldn't even ask for a resurrection.

Whatever else it means to talk about Jesus as "powerful," remember today that it means Jesus is free to act for good, free to bring life for all, beyond the bounds of what we think is allowable.  

Be on the lookout, today, for the power of Jesus to be unleashed... especially in places and among people you don't think respectable messiahs are supposed to show up.

Lord Jesus, show up as you will, among whom you will, as you will, to bring life where we least expect it.