It’s never too late for a new beginning in your life.
—JOYCE MEYER
WHEN I GREW up in Pennsylvania, most stores did not open on Sundays. People went to church or slept in or went to Pittsburgh to watch the Steelers play. We knew an older man in our neighborhood who got upset if anyone mowed their lawn on Sunday, even a push mower rather than a loud, gas-powered one. In our own family, Sundays were for faith, food, and familia. We would go to church and then enjoy an incredible spread of delicious food my mother, grandmother, and aunts cooked for us.
We would savor an amazing feast featuring many Puerto Rican dishes that remain my favorites today. We would have smoked pork loin or roasted chicken served with arroz con gandules (a traditional dish of rice with pigeon peas), rellenos de papa (fried, stuffed, spicy mashed potatoes), frijoles con tocino (slow-simmered beans with bacon), and tostones (sliced plantains seasoned and deep fried in oil). With such a mouthwatering meal to anticipate each week, you can understand why I remember Sunday as my favorite day!
For many of us Sunday has now become just another day of the week. Maybe we do not have to work in the office or punch our time card, but so much still needs to be done in preparation for the rest of the week. Most stores have regular hours of operation, that is, if you do not want to stay home and shop online. Even if you go to church on Sundays, and I hope you do or that you go sometime during your week, then it can still feel like a busy day.
As a pastor I view Sundays as a special kind of workday. I have always believed that during our congregation’s time to gather for worship and to experience God’s message from the Word, the rest of the week’s work comes together. Like a marathon, when you run on race day, you celebrate all the training and hard work you have put into preparing for that day. You do not wake up on race day and decide to run a marathon.
And when our kids were young, I believe my wife and I sometimes felt as if we were running a marathon. Eva would make sure everyone ate breakfast while I helped get them all bathed and dressed, even as I made last-minute changes to my sermon. Back in those days, getting us all to church on time felt like herding cats in a hailstorm! We can look back nostalgically on those times now that our kids have grown, but at the time, it sometimes stretched our patience beyond our limits. Yes, Sundays will always hold a special place in my life.
As special as Sundays are, however, they can sometimes get in the way of knowing God. Just ask the paralyzed man!
In the previous chapter we explored how we will always attract critics once we begin walking in faith and obeying the voice of Jesus, just as the paralyzed man did after being healed of his paralysis. You will recall the setting: festival time in Jerusalem with thousands of people crowding their way in and around the temple. Consequently the temple priests and religious leaders seemed to have been on the lookout for anything or anyone not adhering to the strict Jewish Law. So when they saw the paralyzed man skipping along and carrying his mat on a Sabbath, a direct violation of their interpretation of the Mosaic Law, they got in his path and quizzed him.
The man did not argue or disagree with them. At first not knowing the identity of the stranger who had healed him and instructed him to carry his mat and walk, the man simply explained as much to the temple patrol posse wanting to give him a citation. A short while later Jesus sought out the man there in the temple and warned him to recognize the fullness of his healing by no longer living a life crippled by sin. The man must have taken the Savior’s words to heart because he immediately found his inquisitors and made sure they knew who had healed him: Jesus Christ!
He started a chain reaction. The Jewish temple priests and religious leaders must have thought they finally had Jesus cornered. I am sure you can imagine them saying, “Aha! We have Him now! That carpenter from Nazareth again, the One claiming to be the Messiah. Well, if He were really God’s Son, He would know better than to heal someone on a Sabbath and tell that person to carry his mat! Yes, we will just see what this Jesus has to say about that!” Basically, as we see here, they looked for any excuse to trip Him up.
So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
—JOHN 5:16–18
Notice what Jesus says in response to their persecution about the Sabbath: “My father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working” (v. 17, emphasis added). Two things stand out here. First, Jesus beat them at their own legalistic game. God exists outside of time as we know it and is always at work. These traits inherently make up in His identity. In other words, God does not stop working on the Sabbath even though He did set a precedent for us humans by resting on the seventh day after creation (Gen. 2:2)—more on that momentarily. So if God never rests and always works, which the religious leaders could not refute, then He obviously worked on that very day.
Second, Jesus spoke the truth of His identity without making that the center of His defense. He told the religious guys that just as God worked all the time, so did He. And by the way, God just happened to be His father. Without necessarily trying to provoke them, Christ surely knew the effect His explanation would have on these self-righteous legalists. They not only hated Him more—they wanted to kill Him even more than before. How dare He claim to be the Son of God! Who would dare make such outrageous claims as to set Himself up as equal to our heavenly Father?
Once again in His ministry Jesus made it clear that He came to upset the usual order of expectations and traditional adherence to past ordinances. No one born on earth had more claim to being a king, and yet Jesus’ birth had been humbler than anything even some of the poorest people would have experienced then. Mary gave birth to Christ our King on the edge of the backwater town of Bethlehem in a cowshed, of all places!
The Bible says nothing of a palace, earthly royal fanfare, or a lavish welcoming party. Instead it speaks of a manger, the heavenly host, and shepherds. The event went against everything a good Jewish person would have expected concerning the arrival of the Messiah. With this arrival into our world Jesus began revealing a pattern that characterized His entire life on earth.
Christ never tried to hide His defiance of conventional expectations either. He not only boldly proclaimed to be the Son of God, but He also made it clear that His presence would disrupt the religious sensibilities of that time. Jesus stated it clearly enough.
Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn “a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.”
Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.
—MATTHEW 10:34–39
Some people hearing Jesus might have assumed He meant He came to bring a military coup against the Roman Empire in order to free Israel and restore it to its former glory. Others would have been troubled by Christ’s words here because even if He planned to conquer the Romans, they would have expected the Son of God to establish peace eventually. Instead Jesus went on and on about how much personal strife His presence on earth would cause!
In mentioning the impact His presence on earth would have on various family relationships, Jesus quoted the prophet Micah, who warned against trusting anyone completely, even close family members in one’s own household (Mic. 7:5–6). In the verse after this reference, however, Micah concluded, “But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me” (v. 7).
The emphasis in both Jesus’ declaration and the passage from Micah stresses the individual’s relationship with God, the need for a Savior, and God’s provision. Many in Jesus’ audience would have recognized the quotation from Micah and would have seen the way Jesus fulfilled the prophet’s centuries-old prayer.
The issue then became a matter of His listeners letting go of their expectations and embracing who Jesus was rather than who they wanted Him to be. This dilemma was at the crux of the conflict ignited by the religious leaders. They had convinced themselves they were so righteous and holy that they would be sure to recognize the Messiah when God sent Him. They could not see their own pride, arrogance, and self-righteousness, which blinded them from recognizing the deity of Jesus.
Many people still have this same struggle today. They cannot imagine God any other way than as they want Him to be. So they close themselves to anything dissimilar to what they already believe and want to see. God is, if anything, mysterious. His ways are not our ways. His power, wisdom, and authority transcend anything we can grasp. We are His creation, and He is our Creator.
If we want to truly experience the abundance of life Jesus brings, we must be willing to let go of our own expectations. Even after we have encountered Christ and walked with Him for a long time, we must never assume God conforms to our way of seeing things or our timetable for answering prayers. Our spiritual growth depends on humility. Just as the man healed from his paralysis could not wait to go find the religious leaders and let them know who healed him, so we too must express the full identity of our Savior.
Human systems, temporal progression, and what we think of as scientific fact do not confine God. While an orthopedic specialist from the twenty-first century might be able to examine the paralyzed man before and after his healing to attempt a medical explanation of what took place, we should not need to understand how God’s miracles happen in order to receive them in our lives.
If we want to truly experience the abundance of life Jesus brings, we must be willing to let go of our own expectations.
I fly thousands of miles each year, choosing to board a giant metal bird hurtling through the sky at hundreds of miles per hour. While I have a basic understanding of how planes work and the engineering aerodynamics of flight, I do not know all the details of what makes a 747 function properly. I simply trust that the plane works adequately and the pilots have enough experience to transport the other passengers and me to our destination. I suspect when you fly, you likely exercise the same kind of trust.
If we can travel nearly forty thousand feet above the earth’s surface based on trusting other humans, should we not be willing to put our faith in God without understanding how—or even why—He does everything He does?
I understand the importance of obeying God’s commands fully and completely. One of the Ten Commandments focuses on this very issue of the Sabbath and our response to it. “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy,” Exodus 20:8 tells us, followed by more specific instructions on what it means to honor God on this special day. The Scripture also says, “But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do” (Deut. 5:14).
Sabbath does not mean Saturday in Hebrew, as one might be tempted to guess. Instead it derives from the Hebrew shabbath, which simply means rest, thereby explaining the dramatic emphasis on rest in the verse above. In biblical times the Israelites set aside the seventh and final day of the week, which we call Saturday, as this day of rest. Consequently Jewish people had to prepare extra food and complete household chores before sundown on the sixth day, when their Sabbath began.
Knowing a little background on honoring the Sabbath helps us to understand why these religious leaders took the Mosaic Law so seriously and expected others to do so as well. I believe God wants us to obey His command even today and observe a day of rest during which we unplug and recharge by focusing only on Him. But as the Bible makes clear, the religious leaders were not motivated by a desire for respectful obedience. No, they had simply discovered a convenient trap to use in their attempts to paint Jesus into a corner. Not only that, adherence to the Sabbath became an issue in other instances as well, as Mark recorded in his Gospel.
One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”
He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.”
Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
—MARK 2:23–28
Once again Jesus beat these Pharisees and religious leaders at their own game. When they confronted Him about the unlawful grain picking His disciples did on the Sabbath, Jesus referenced another historical incident in which someone had ostensibly broken the law under circumstances virtually every rabbi considered justifiable (1 Sam. 21:1–6). David and his men not only violated the law but also did something more unbelievable: ate bread consecrated in the temple, which only priests could eat!
Jesus then summed up the entire issue for these religious leaders just to make it clear: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27, emphasis added). He stated the fundamental problem with legalism in a nutshell. Unswerving obedience and adherence to the Law had become more important than the reason for the Law’s observance in the first place. Ironically the Pharisees violated the Sabbath by being more concerned with confronting and trapping Jesus than with what they should be doing if they truly wanted to honor the Sabbath: resting.
The last word on the matter belonged to Christ as well: “The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath” (v. 28). In other words, God cannot be confined by the laws, expectations, and precedents that human beings hold—even if those observances intend to show Him our respect! The Jewish leaders foolishly placed their authority and righteousness above God’s. They refused to see Jesus for who He was and to hear what He had to say to them. So they tried to restrict Him, but they could not.
When God wants to heal you, you are next—even on the Sabbath!
Jesus dramatically proved His identity as the Messiah, the Son of God, sent to save His people from their sins. But He did not sacrifice Himself and atone for our sins in the way even His closest disciples expected. Whether they thought He would supernaturally install Himself as Israel’s new king or simply establish a more grassroots kingdom based on His growing popularity and dramatic healings, the disciples must have been shocked when their friend, their Lord, their Master, told them what was about to happen.
Not only would He be falsely accused and arrested, but also He would be executed for no good reason. And then wide eyed and terrified, the apostles watched as the One who healed the paralyzed man and calmed the stormy sea died the most agonizing death possible while nailed to a rough crossbeam of wood like a common criminal. How could this have happened? I wonder if they secretly asked the same questions that the Roman guards used to taunt Jesus: “If You are really the King of the Jews, then why do You not come down off that cross and save Yourself?”
Instead the disciples saw Jesus’ lifeless body taken down. They saw His body wrapped in a shroud for burial in a borrowed tomb. He was God in human form! But now, no longer alive, He looked like any other mortal who could not defeat the inevitable frailty of flesh and blood.
Or could He? Because as we know, Jesus defeated death once and for all! They crucified Him and He died on a Friday, which we know because the Jews eagerly made sure He and the two criminals beside Him were dead and disposed of prior to sundown, which signaled the beginning of the Sabbath. Then Jesus’ cold and lifeless body lay still within a stone cave sealed by a giant boulder. In death, Jesus obeyed the Sabbath. His dead body did not move, and He rested.
But not for long. At some point after the Sabbath passed, around dawn of the third day, Christ’s resurrected body exited the tomb for all eternity! Even this revelation went against what we might expect. Instead of making a huge, larger-than-life announcement of His resurrection to His disciples, instead of laughing in the face of the Jewish religious leaders and passive Roman officials who put Him to death, Jesus chose a most surprising audience for His first appearance.
After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.
There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.
The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”
So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
—MATTHEW 28:1–10
Jesus chose two ordinary women, one of whom probably had some baggage from her past before meeting her Savior. Keep in mind that this culture did not have high regard for women. Yet these women chose to go and attend to their beloved friend’s body, intending to anoint it with herbs and balms to impede the stench of decay. Their task served as a grim, humbling reminder of the frail mortality that resulted in the death of the Master they had so believed in.
Imagine their surprise when they arrived, dejected and downcast, perhaps even paralyzed by their own displacement now that the center of their world was gone. Suddenly an earthquake occurred and an angel appeared! The guards, stationed at the tomb to make sure no one attempted to steal Jesus’ body and perpetuate the rumor that He had arisen, passed out like dead men. The women, scared and shaky, followed the angel’s instruction to go and tell the disciples.
Before the women got to the disciples, however, the Lord Himself intercepted them! They immediately fell to the ground and worshipped Him. In many ways we have come full circle in this book, and we end where we began, on the ground looking up at Jesus—only what a difference this time! The paralyzed man did not even know who this stranger was; he simply knew that when he did what this person told him to do, he was healed! He could walk again. So he did as the man asked and picked up his mat and began walking into the temple.
The two women here, Mary and Mary Magdalene, fell to the ground, not because of paralysis but because they too were healed in an instant. Their faith and hope were restored. Jesus was indeed who He claimed to be: the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God now risen from the dead. Their trust in Him was not misplaced.
And neither has yours, my friend.
No matter what your position in life, no matter what you may have done, no matter what disease you may be battling or what addiction you may be fighting, simply look to the Lord. He is alive and filled with power! He wants to heal you and give you the gift of His Holy Spirit to dwell in you, to be your Comforter and Friend, your Advocate with the Father. If you take nothing else from our time together between these pages, I pray you will realize that it is never too late for your miracle!
You may have been waiting seven hours, seventeen days, or seventy years.
You may not be able to imagine how your circumstances could ever change.
You may be so tired of hoping that you no longer try to believe your life will ever be any different.
My friend, I have only one thing to say to you: Do. Not. Give. Up. Do not give up! Your journey will go on, and your healing has already begun! You are next—even if you do not feel like it right now. God has never given up on you. Do not give up on God!
Why am I so sure that God has more in store for you? How do I know He wants to revive you, restore you, heal you, and reveal you? Because God enjoys doing the impossible! He loves doing what no man or woman could ever do; it forces people to recognize His power, His glory, and His goodness.
If the paralyzed man had known who Jesus was, if while lying there on the ground by the pool at Bethesda he had heard the rumors of this man from Nazareth who had been healing others, I wonder if the man would have dared to consider that Jesus might heal him. We have already seen how the paralyzed man, at best, only seemed to hope for what he could imagine—that someone would help him get in the pool faster than anyone else.
But apparently this had not happened in the years—if not decades—that he had been going there. He simply moved too slowly. His legs did not work. He really could not find a way. Still, some spark of hope must have resided in this man’s soul or he would not have remained at the pool, daring to believe it could happen even though he could not imagine how.
The festival had brought many visitors to Jerusalem. And they continued to crowd around and jostle along the periphery of the temple as they waited to enter. But most still avoided doing anything they did not have to do in accordance with the Mosaic Law on the Sabbath. If this Jesus could heal him, the man would assume that Christ would not do it on the Sabbath in accordance with the Law.
But this miracle happened on the Sabbath!
Think about this word but for a moment. Remember the old Schoolhouse Rock! TV spots? If I am referencing something before your time, you can Google it! But one of these short little educational cartoons asked, “Conjunction Junction, what’s your function?” It taught kids the grammatical function of conjunctions—linking up words and phrases and clauses—in a very entertaining way. The wonderful conjunction but sets up contrast. If you want to join two or more words, go with and. If you want to provide different options, then or works very well.
God will work His purposes in your life even when people say He is not supposed to do it.
Using but signals that what follows after it counters what went before it. In this case, saying, “The paralyzed man’s miracle occurred, but it happened on the Sabbath!” indicates that it happened then even though apparently it was not supposed to happen then!
What does this mean? It means God will work His purposes in your life even when people say He is not supposed to do it. It means in the midst of your paralysis God will perform the miracle everyone deems impossible.
God will do it when all of hell says He is not supposed to do it.
God will do it when your flesh says He is not supposed to do it.
God will do it when your circumstances say He is not supposed to do it.
God will do it when your past says He is not supposed to do it.
He will do it on the Sabbath.
He will do it in the midst of the storm.
He will do it in the fiery furnace.
Neither the Sabbath nor anything else can limit our God!
I have experienced God’s power to transcend the Sabbath and do what He wants when He wants so many times. One of the most visible and dramatic instances happened when the executive committee for President Trump’s inauguration asked me to participate in the event. I had not actively supported Trump’s candidacy or any other party’s candidates. As I frequently say, I do not support the donkey or the elephant—I support the Lamb! Nonetheless, many peers and even friends of mine told me that in no way would I be asked to be involved in such a dramatic event without already being an insider.
In fact, because I had been involved in President Obama’s White House Task Force on Fatherhood and Healthy Families, I knew many people might think my political perspective leaned in his party’s direction. While I worked hard to make it clear I was genuinely nonpartisan, because I had also met with President George W. Bush during his time in office, I realized the executive committee for President Trump’s inauguration might not see this and would instead go with more familiar pastors and Christian leaders.
Then the call came asking if I would be willing to offer a prayer from the podium during the actual inauguration ceremony. It floored me! Even if I had been the new president’s campaign manager, I would never have expected such an honor. Once again, I sensed God’s favor upon me. I did nothing to deserve such a platform, yet I would be seen by millions of people around the world in the televised coverage of this event.
I had thought I missed my turn.
I had thought my past had paralyzed me.
I had thought I should not try to do what I could not do before.
But God asked me to obey and not worry about what anyone else said. He asked me to take His hand, rise to my feet, and walk by faith. He told me to pick up my mat, shake off old excuses, and let Him transform my mat into His miracle. And guess what?
You are next!
We cannot call it a miracle if we can make it or predict it on our own.
What God does next in your life will anger hell, upset the legalists around you, send other believers into spontaneous praise, and give you a testimony that will change your life. You will be walking in the Spirit in the fullness of what Jesus has done in your life. You will be telling others as I am telling you: it is your turn! Even if it is not supposed to happen—perhaps especially if it is not supposed to happen! After all, we cannot call it a miracle if we can make it or predict it on our own.
The paralyzed man encountered Jesus, and his life changed forever. His miracle happened when it should not have happened. His miracle happened when the Pharisees said it should not happen. It happened when the culture did not believe it could happen.
And now it will happen for you! No excuses, no turning back. Leave paralysis in the past. Faith in Jesus Christ fuels your future. Do you want to get well, my friend? Then allow me to say it one last time:
YOU ARE NEXT!