“No More Excuses”

John 5:1-9

In today’s text Jesus asks a strange question, “Do you want to be made well.” The question in itself is not all that strange. What makes it strange is the person to whom it was directed. The person in question was a man who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. On the surface his answer would be an obvious yes.

What was Jesus thinking? What motivated him to ask a question with such an obvious answer? Reading this text without knowing that it came from the Bible or not knowing who Jesus was, the question could even be interpreted as cruel. This man had been suffering from a debilitating illness for almost forty years. Of course he wanted to get well!

Or did he? When Jesus straightforwardly asked the man if he wanted to be made well, it’s interesting to note that the man did not give Jesus a straightforward answer. He could have said yes. He could even have said no. But he said neither. He gave Jesus an answer that sounded almost like an excuse: “Sir, when the water is stirred, I don’t have anybody to put me in the pool. By the time I get there, somebody else is already in.”

To some extent his excuse was valid. The pool at Bethesda, which means “House of Healing,” was believed to have healing powers. From time to time the pool, fed by an underground stream, would bubble. The common wisdom was that some sort of supernatural being or force caused this bubbling. The further common wisdom was that first one who got in the pool when it started bubbling would be healed.

The man was supposedly too sick to get to the pool first. According to him he had no one who could carry him to the pool in a timely manner. Up to a point that gives validity to the man’s excuse. But only up to a point. In thirty-eight years of lying by the pool, had he not been able to drum up enough sympathy from bystanders to move them to help him? Furthermore, it is doubtful that the man lay by the pool twenty-four hours a day. Someone had to carry him back and forth. Someone had to be taking care of his basic needs. Why had he not asked that someone to help him get to the pool?

There are a lot of unanswered and unanswerable questions about this guy. We don’t know what his illness was. We don’t know how he got to the pool. We don’t know how he had survived for thirty-eight years. We don’t even know whether or not he really wanted to be healed. Some invalids remain invalids by choice. Some folks make a career out of being “poor-pitiful-little-me.” Some people, despite their protestations otherwise, do not want to get well. Getting well means having to take responsibility for oneself.

Granted, it’s easy to read too much into today’s text. We cannot be 100% sure that the man in question was playing the poor-pitiful game. We do know that for whatever reason, he had actively or passively, consciously or unconsciously, remained an invalid.

But then he met Jesus. Jesus very directly asked him if he wanted to get well. When the only answer the man would give him was an excuse, Jesus took the initiative. And what did Jesus do? Did he get down on the mat with the guy and sympathetically listen to his tales of woe? Did he preach a sermon about healing? Did he refer the man to a therapist? Did he, like the so-called friends of Job, engage him in a long theological debate as to the role sin had or had not played in the man’s illness? No, Jesus did none of that. He simply said, “Stand up, take your mat, and walk. If you really want to get well, this is your chance.”

And thus the man picked up his bedroll and walked away. He didn’t make any more excuses. He didn’t ask for time to think about it. He just did it. By faith he accepted the healing power of Jesus Christ. By faith he chose the health Jesus offered him over the sickness with which he had lived for thirty-eight years. No more excuses. No more poor-pitiful.

Years ago there was a movie called Skin Tight. The star of this movie was the late John Ritter. His character was an alcoholic, womanizing Hollywood screenwriter. The scene I remember best from this movie is the one in which John’s character is lying on his psychiatrist’s couch bemoaning his life, being especially pitiful about his excessive drinking. He looks at the doctor and asks, “What can I do?” And this is the part I really like – the doctor says, “Quit drinking.”

Anyone who has ever battled alcoholism or another addiction – anyone who’s ever loved an alcoholic or addict – knows that it is and isn’t quite that simple. Recovery is an intentional one-day-at-a-time process, primarily spiritual in nature. It is not for cowards. It makes no allowances for excuses. Either you want to get sober or you don’t. And getting sober begins and ends with the good movie doctor’s advice: “Quit drinking – or drugging – or whatever.” Not by way of your own willpower or efforts, but by trusting a Higher Power to lead you into and keep you in sobriety.

Part of the journey into sobriety is discovering, sometimes painfully, the forces that led you to drink, drug, or whatever. More and more these days it is believed that there is a genetic factor in alcoholism and other addictions. There are also undeniable environmental factors. Alcoholics tend to beget other alcoholics. Alcoholism tends to engender more of the same. There are reasons why people become alcoholics and addicts.

These reasons, however, are not valid excuses. I’m well aware of the forces, positive and negative, which have shaped my life. I very much understand why some sins are more tempting to me than others. There are self-destructive behaviors in which I could indulge, behaviors for which I can provide some rational explanations. But there are no valid excuses for those behaviors.

For whatever reasons I might indulge in them, they’re still wrong – and I know it. By the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit I choose, one day at a time, not to indulge in them. Doing so would cause me to commit sins, sins for which I and I alone would be responsible. Poor-pitiful-me does not cut it in the eyes of God.

There is forgiveness, but not without repentance. There is, in Christ, healing, but we have to consciously and intentionally make ourselves available to it. There comes a time when we have to say yes or no to Jesus’ question about wanting to get well. There comes a moment when there are no more excuses. There comes a point at which we must by faith, in one form or another, pick up our mats and walk.

Laurie Ferguson, a Presbyterian minister who coaches ministers and church groups through the transformational process of becoming more mission and less maintenance oriented, asserts that we live in a culture that is overly therapeutic. We have a tendency to study our histories and examine our pasts way too much. We spend far too much time analyzing why we are what we are and why we do what we do.

Up to a point some of that is necessary. But after a while it becomes beside the point. The past, for better or worse, is over and done. Unless we want to keep repeating it – unless we want to keep making the same mistakes over and over again - we have to step out on faith. We have to take some risks. We have to make whatever changes are necessary for us to become the whole and healthy people and churches God has called and created us to be. The excuses have to stop. The whiney litanies of poor-pitiful-me have to end. We have to give ourselves over to the healing mercies of Christ, and thus rise above what one commentator has called the lethargy of dull, crushed acceptance.

The man in today’s text had no idea how much meeting Jesus would change his life. Odds are as he lay there on his mat near the pool he did so in that above- mentioned lethargic spirit of dull, crushed acceptance. He had probably given up any real hope of ever being well - resigned himself to being an invalid until the day he died. His valid reasons for such resignation had long ago turned into invalid excuses. Odds are that he believed something like the following: “I’m sick. I’ve always been sick. I’ll always be sick. That’s just the way it is.”

But that’s not how it had to remain. He had the option of wanting to be made well. When Jesus confronted him he had to decide whether or not to exercise that option. By way of the gracious mercies of God he had an opportunity to let go of all his excuses, give up the poor-pitiful-me act, and be healed. The good news is that is exactly what he did. He trusted Jesus’ power and authority. He let go of the past. He walked away a healthy man.

In one way or another each of us is in need of the healing power of God. We all need the gracious and merciful gift of God’s healing change in our lives. At various times in our lives we are all faced with the question, “Do you want to be made well?” Do we? Well, either we do or we don’t. Our reasons for not doing so are ultimately beside the point. Our excuses are no longer valid. If we really trust Jesus, we’ll say, “Yes, I do want to be made well.” And when he tells us to pick up our mats and walk that’s what we will do. Amen.