[Dailydevo] Daily Devotion Monday February, 6, 2006

[Barry Ludwig]

Daily Devotion Monday  February 6, 2006

The daily devotions this week are written by Pastor Ludwig. The theme this
week is "Healing."

 

John 5:6-7

When Jesus saw him [a paralytic man] and knew that he had been lying there a
long time,  he said to him, "Do you want to be healed?" The sick man
answered him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool  when the water is
troubled, and while I am going another steps down  before me."  

 

Chronic illness can take away more than our physical stamina, it can rob us
of our hope and our joy. We can easily begin to the miss the point of who we
are and why we have been given this life of ours. That was obviously true of
the paralytic man whom Jesus encountered at the so-called "healing" pool in
Jerusalem. 

 

Jesus asked the man, "Do you want to be healed?"  The man told Jesus why
this was not possible. He had stopped believing in miracles long ago! After
38 years of illness, the man had stopped hoping and dreaming. He had given
up on life and was only going through the motions (perhaps for the sake of
his family?).

 

Jesus was asking about much more than the ability to walk!  The Greek word
for "healing" here means more than physical health. It describes a
"wholeness" which includes the ability to hope in the most desperate of
times and the strength to trust in the promise of each new day. As a pastor
I have known people who had strong bodies but lived with broken hearts and I
have received the witness of those who broken in body continued to life
whole lives that touched others.

 

Jesus has come to bring "wholeness" to those who have given up on life or as
CS&N once sang, those who have become "wasted on the way."  He comes to us
to restore our hope and make us whole. To the paralytic, without pomp and
circumstance he simply says, "Get up, pick up your mattress and get on with
life!"  May we hear those miraculous words of healing again this day, and
then live fully in this new day of grace.

 

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