part0013

T imothy Cipriani’s idea was simple. He would lower himself into the pizza restaurant from the ventilation duct, rob the cash register, and climb back out. The plan backfired. Either he had been eating too much pizza, or the ventilation duct was too narrow, because he got stuck. He dangled over a deep fryer, his legs hanging out of the ceiling, screaming for help. It took the police thirty minutes to free him.

It’s terrible to be stuck. Just ask the eighteen people who rode a roller coaster in Anhui, China. Inclement weather at the amusement park brought the ride to a halt at the top of the loop, and eighteen passengers were suspended upside down for half an hour! All were rescued, but six had to go to the hospital.

That was the opinion of the man who dropped his cell phone into a commode. Rescuers found him crouched over the toilet, his arm submerged up to his shoulder. Workers had to break the porcelain bowl to get him out. 1

Odds are you’ve never been stuck in a ventilation duct, on a roller coaster, or in a toilet, but you have been stuck. Lodged between a rock and a hard place, unable to escape. Mired in the mud of resentment, bogged down in debt, trapped in a dead-end career, up to your waist in the swamp of an unsolvable conflict. Stuck. Stuck with parents who won’t listen or employees who won’t change. Stuck with a harsh boss or a stubborn addiction.

The man near the pool of Bethesda didn’t use the word stuck, but he could have. For thirty-eight years near the edge of a pool, it was just him, his mat, and his paralyzed body. And since no one would help him, help never came.

Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches. One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. (John 5:1–5 NLT )

They must have made a miserable sight: crowds of people—blind, lame, despondent, dejected, one after the other—awaiting their chance to be placed in the pool where healing waters bubbled up. 2

The pool was large: 393 feet long, 164 feet wide, and 49 feet deep. 3 Five porticos were built to shelter the infirm from the sun. Like wounded soldiers on a battlefield, the frail and feeble collected near the pool.

We see such sights still today. The underfed refugees at the camps in Syria. The untreated sick on the streets of Bangladesh. The unnoticed orphans of China. Unattended indigents, unwelcomed immigrants—they still gather. In Central Park. At Metropolitan Hospital. In Joe’s Bar and Grill. It’s any collection of huddled masses characterized by pain and suffering.

All the gospels’ stories of help and healing invite us to embrace the wonderful promise: “Wherever [Jesus] went he healed people of every sort of illness. And what pity he felt for the crowds that came, because their problems were so great and they didn’t know what to do or where to go for help” (Matt. 9:35–36 TLB ).

Jesus was drawn to the hurting, and on that particular day he was drawn to the pool of Bethesda. What emotions did he feel as he surveyed the mass of misfortune? What thoughts did he have as he heard their appeals? Did they touch his robe as he walked past? Did he look into their faces? It was a sad, piteous sight. Yet Jesus walked into the midst of it.

His eyes landed upon the main character of this miracle, a man who “had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, ‘Would you like to get well?’ ‘I can’t, sir,’ the sick man said, ‘for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me’” (John 5:5–7 NLT ).

I’ve been visiting the sick since 1977. My first ministry assignment was a pastoral internship program that included regular rounds at hospitals in St. Louis, Missouri. Since that day I’ve spoken with hundreds, maybe thousands, of sick people: in churches, hospitals, eldercare homes, and hospice care units. I’ve prayed for migraines and measles. I’ve anointed with oil, held the hands of the dying, whispered prayers, raised my voice, knelt at bedsides, read Scripture, and stood with worried families. But I have never ever—not once—asked the infirmed, “Would you like to get well?”

Why would Jesus pose such a question? Our only clue is the phrase, “When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time” (v. 6 NLT ). The man was two years shy of four decades as an invalid. Thirty-eight years—almost the amount of time the Hebrews wandered in the desert. It was the duration of the condition that prompted Christ to ask, “Would you like to get well?”

What tone did Jesus use? Was he the compassionate shepherd? Did he ask the question with trembling voice and softness? Maybe.

But I don’t think so. The phrase “when Jesus . . . knew he had been ill for a long time” makes me think otherwise. And the response of the man convinces me.

“I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.” (v. 7 NLT )

Really? No one will help you? Someone else always gets ahead of you? In thirty-eight years you couldn’t inch your way down to the pool? Persuade someone to give you a hand? Thirty-eight years and absolutely no progress?

In that context Christ’s question takes on a firm tone: Do you want to get well? Or do you like being sick? You have a good thing going here. Your tin cup collects enough coins to buy the beans and bacon. Not a bad gig. Besides, healing would be disruptive. Getting well means getting up, getting a job, and getting to work. Getting on with life. Do you really want to be healed?

Do you want to get . . . sober? Solvent? Educated? Better? Do you want to get in shape? Over your past? Beyond your upbringing? Do you want to get stronger, healthier, happier? Would you like to leave Bethesda in the rearview mirror? Are you ready for a new day, a new way? Are you ready to get unstuck?

Life feels stuck when life makes no progress. When you battle the same discouragement you faced a decade ago or struggle with the same fears you faced a year ago. When you wake up to the same hang-ups and habits. When Bethesda becomes a permanent mailing address. When you feel as though everyone gets to the pool before you and nobody wants to help you.

If that is you, then pay attention to the promise of this miracle. Jesus sees you. This Bethesda of your life? Others avoid you because of it. Jesus walks toward you in the midst of it. He has a new version of you waiting to happen. He says to you what he said to the man: “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!” (John 5:8 NLT ).

Stand up. Do something. Take action. Write a letter. Apply for the job. Reach out to a counselor. Get help. Get radical. Stand up.

Pick up your mat. Make a clean break with the past. Clean out your liquor cabinet. Throw out the junky novels. Quit hanging with the bad crowd. Drop the boyfriend like a bad habit. Put porn filters on your phone and computer. Talk to a debt counselor.

And walk. Lace up your boots and hit the trail. Assume that something good is going to happen. Set your sights on a new destination, and begin the hike. Getting unstuck means getting excited about getting out.

Heed the invitation of this miracle: believe in the Jesus who believes in you. He believes that you can rise up, take up, and move on. You are stronger than you think. “‘I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the L ORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’” (Jer. 29:11 NIV ).

He certainly gave a bright future to the Bethesda beggar. “And immediately the man was made well” (John 5:9). Jesus did nothing but speak, and the miracle was accomplished.

He did the same for Barbara Snyder in 1981. She hadn’t walked in seven years. She had been a gymnast in her high school. But multiple sclerosis brought an end to that. She began bumping into doors and walls. The next sixteen years brought one crisis after another. She lost control of her bowels and bladder. She was nearly blind. She was given a tracheostomy, confined to a hospital bed in her home, and given six months to live. Harold Adolph performed twenty-five thousand surgeries in his career. He called her “one of the most hopelessly ill patients I ever saw.”

But then came the command of Christ. A friend called the Moody Bible Christian radio station and requested prayers for her healing. Some 450 listeners wrote her church to say they were praying.

Barbara’s aunt selected some of the letters and brought them to share with Barbara on pentecost Sunday 1981. As she was listening to the letters, Barbara heard a man’s voice behind her. “My child, get up and walk!” There was no man in the room. One of her friends, noticing that Barbara appeared troubled, plugged the hole in her neck so Barbara could speak. “God just told me to get up and walk. I know he really did! Run and get my family. I want them here with us!”

They came. What happened next was described by one of her physicians, Dr. Thomas Marshall: “She literally jumped out of bed and removed her oxygen. She was standing on legs that had not supported her for years. Her vision was back . . . and she could move her feet and hands freely.”

That night Barbara attended a worship service at Wheaton Wesleyan Church. When she walked down the center aisle, the people began to applaud, and then, as if prompted by a choir director, they began to sing “Amazing Grace.” 4

Christ did the work. Christ performed the miracle. Christ intervened. But, even so, Barbara had to believe. She had to get up and walk.

When I presented this message to our church, a congregant wrote me a letter. He recalled a Good Friday sermon in which I had shared the story of an elementary school teacher who instructed her students to list all the things they felt they could not do. The lists were placed in a box and buried in the schoolyard. By putting away the things they could not do, the students could focus on the things they could do.

The writer of the letter recalled that sermon. He related that his wife had died of cancer a few months prior to that Good Friday. On Easter weekend the grief was pulling him under. In one of her final acts, his wife had planted some poppy seeds in their lawn. They never grew.

He decided to put the ground that contained the poppy seeds to further use. He went home after the service and made a list of his “I can’t”s. Things like “I can’t get over Janelle’s death,” “I can’t ever love again,” and “I can’t face my work.” On Saturday morning he buried the list in the soil that contained the seeds. In his letter to me he wrote, “The burden was gone. I had an unexplainable feeling of PEACE/relief.”

The next morning, Easter Sunday, I decided to go out to my burial site where I had buried my little box of “I can’t”s. I wanted to meditate there and say a little prayer. As I approached the site, I was taken aback. There, swaying in the light breeze, was a single red poppy! I was awestruck! 5

What will God do for you? I cannot say. Those who claim they can predict the miracle are less than honest. God’s help, while ever present, is ever specific. It is not ours to say what God will do. Our job is to believe he will do something. It simply falls to us to stand up, take up, and walk.

Jesus is serious about this command. When he found the just-healed man in the temple, he told him, “See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you” (John 5:14). To indulge in inertia is to sin! Stagnant, do-nothingness is deemed as a serious offense.

No more Bethesda for you. No more waking up and going to sleep in the same mess. God dismantled the neutral gear from your transmission. He is the God of forward motion, the God of tomorrow. He is ready to write a new chapter in your biography.

The man in John’s story had waited thirty-eight years, but, God bless him, he wasn’t about to wait another day. He could have. To be honest I thought he would have. Listening to his excuse, I would have thought he’d stay stuck forever. But something about the presence of Christ, the question of Christ, and the command of Christ convinced him not to wait another day.

Let’s join him. Ask the Lord this question: What can I do today that will take me in the direction of a better tomorrow? Keep asking until you hear an answer. And once you hear it, do it. Stand up, take up, and walk .