Made Whole

Well, let's dig into the series, seven signs. You can download the notes at tlc.org/notes. I encourage you to do that because on the back there's discussion questions for the reflection, group study with your family. You can do those too. And there's all the announcements about coming events and other ways you can get connected to the church.

Well, I know we're scattered. I know that we've all been watching the news and it can be kind of tough to focus sometimes on, you know, what we're here to do. So here's what I want us to do to focus. Repeat after me. I am ready to receive what the Lord has for me today. Let's say it again. I am ready to receive what the Lord has for me today. Are you ready?

You know, Lent started this past Wednesday. What's Lent? Well, it's the 40 days leading up to Easter, traditionally. If you grew up in a more liturgical Christian church, you're very familiar with this. If you grew up in a church like mine, kind of a non-denominational church, maybe this is kind of new to you. Historically, Christians use this 40 days before Easter to get ready for Easter by fasting or by giving something up for Lent. You hear a lot of talk about that.

I don't know if you heard about the guy who gave up donuts for Lent. Have you heard this story? This was a real challenge for him because he loved donuts. He had several donuts every single morning, so it was quite a challenge for him. But he gave up donuts for these 40 days. About two weeks in, he's having a very tough time and he's figuring maybe it's okay with God if he cheats a little bit. And so he prays, "Lord, give me a sign if it is okay with you that I have a donut this morning. Let there be a parking space right in front of the door to the donut shop when I drive past it this morning."

So he gets in his car and drives to the donut shop and sure enough, eighth time around the block, there's a space right in front of the shop. If you were going to give up something for Lent, I mean like really give it up. Like you could have freed him from it for 40 whole days. What would you give up? Maybe some kind of habit that's gotten its claws into you that you just can't seem to break. Or maybe it's anger. There's a riding tide of anger right now among people and boy you'd sure like to live 40 days without it.

Or maybe there's some bitterness in your spirit about something that somebody did to you once and you can't seem to get over it. Or there's an open wound frankly about something that's been done to you and boy you just like to have that go dark for 40 days right. Or maybe there's an addiction to alcohol or to drugs or to pornography or to something else that you just can't seem to stop. Or an anxiety. You're anxious all the time. You can't sleep. You can hardly think straight. And honestly you don't just want to give it up for Lent. You'd love to give it up for life. But you have tried and tried and tried and tried and nothing has worked.

Well I believe one of the reasons God brought you here today is because he wants you to have freedom from that. And I know that the truths that we uncover in the passage of the Bible that we're studying today can make all the difference in your life. Today what I want to do is zoom in on the third sign in John's Gospel. It's in John 5:1–11. And I just want to tell the story with some explanation so you can understand the culture and understand the real impact of this.

And then what we're going to do very quickly at the end is look at three principles that can help you apply this to your life today if you are ready for what God has for you today. Let's look at it. It starts in John 5:1. It says sometime later Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now John specifies Jerusalem because this is a whole shift in scene. The first two sign miracles in the Gospel of John and just as a recap in the Gospel of John he only talks about four seven miracles of Jesus Christ. The sign miracles he calls them signs and he says he picked those because they're signs. They tell us something about Jesus.

And so we're going through all seven of these in the series leading up to Easter. The first two sign miracles happened up in Cana in Galilee and up here in the north part of Israel. It's a little bit more relaxed and there's a lot of people from a lot of different countries. Now later Jesus is going, John says, down to Jerusalem and it's a completely different cultural scene down there. You know we think of Israel it's all like the same in our minds. It was not the same. Cana, Galilee, very kind of cosmopolitan even though it was rural. There was a lot of different people. Jerusalem, it was kind of monocultural. It was very conservative religiously.

People were all about keeping the religious rules very very into the kind of almost illegalistic interpretation of the Bible and that becomes a plot point in this story. Now next verse. There was in Jerusalem near the sheep gate, a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda. And by the way, you know what Bethesda means in Hebrew or in Aramaic? Beit or Beth always means house like Beit L'hem, Beth L'hem. Beit L'hem means house of bread actually. Beth Ezzdah means house of grace. But this was anything but a house of grace.

And I probably shouldn't say that but it's funny to me sometimes when I drive past churches that are called things like you know, grace church. And I know something about the church and I know it's anything but that. Well that's kind of like what this was. Should I not have said that? Okay. In Aramaic it's called Bethesda which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Now that phrase led many people to conclude that the gospel of John is not historical. Because he says five covered colonnades like a pentagram shaped pool surrounded by five covered. That didn't exist. A lot of people said clearly the gospel of John is not based on history. This is some kind of symbol for John that we've got to interpret.

There was all kinds of crazy theories about what this meant symbolically because you know how many pentagram shaped ancient pools have been discovered by archaeologists in the whole land of Israel ever zero. So clearly that's not historical. Then they discovered the pool with five covered colonnades. In the latter half of the 20th century they found this in the basement of a church and they found some of the remnants of the colonnades. We now know this pool was shaped like this. It was two pools that were rectangular and each one's about the size of half a football field. One, two, three, four covered colonnades surrounding it on four sides and a fifth colonnade bisecting the two pools. Hey five covered colonnades just like John says. What do you know?

So it was filled in over the years but they've excavated some of it. But you can go there today and see the very same 2,000 year old steps that the people in this next verse were laying on. It's so cool. It says here a great number of disabled people used to lie the blind and the lame and the paralyzed. Now in some versions of the Bible you'll see that the next two sentences are in there but with a little asterisk or a little footnote next to them. That's because those verses are not in the original text of the Bible and we know this because we have ancient biblical manuscripts and those next two sentences aren't in there.

But very early on someone, a scribe, put them in there as a footnote to try to explain what's going on in this story. So although they weren't in the original text they're kind of helpful to explain what's going on here. It says "and they waited for the moving of the waters from time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters, the first one into the pool, first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had." Now remember this isn't part of scripture so he's just describing accurately the legend that had grown up around the pool.

Now we're so far removed from this almost 2000 years that we don't remember this anymore right? And for a while people were confused what is he talking about? Well thanks to that archaeological discovery we've got a lot of insight in that. This pool became an asclepion, that's not a phrase that might be a word that might be familiar to you. That is a Latin word, it's a shrine to the Roman god of healing Asclepius. So this is some kind of a pagan area or at least it was syncretistic, that is there were elements of the Jewish faith and elements of pagan religion blending together here.

And here's how they know it was an Asclepius because here's how an Asclepius worked. You would, if you wanted to be healed of something, you would go there and you would buy a clay model of the body part that you wanted healed and vendors sold these things. There were racks of these weird dismembered clay body parts all around this pool and you'd have to buy it, no healing was free, and then you toss it into the pool and wait to see what happened. Maybe the spirits or whatever that was in charge of the pool in your mind would receive your offering and then you'd be healed of your part.

Now it might be kind of funny to look at this and you can see there's not only arms, there's feet, there's breasts, there's other body parts that they found here you know at the bottom of this pool, but when you think about it, doesn't that make you sad? Because each one of these represents a real human being who was alive 2000 to 1900 years ago who was that desperate, who had cancer or something in that body part and they probably had tried everything and now they're reduced to maybe if I buy clay body parts from those people down at the pool, maybe that'll work. It's so sad.

So at this particular pool you'd get healed the legend went if when the pool bubbled you were the first person into the pool. What was that about? Well now they even know what caused the bubbles. There was a mechanism that controlled a valve between the two sides of the pool that let water in through the pipes that they have discovered. It was all controlled by the priests or whoever ran the pool so it wasn't an angel at all. From start to finish this was a scam. This was some kind of a faith healing scam.

As somebody said this was a cruel pool because think about it when the water's bubbling there was a race to see who would be the first to get into the pool right? So who do you think won the race into the pool every single time? The truly needy people? No it was the guy with an ingrown toenail. It was the man with a headache. The actually needy people, the blind person, the lame person, they never got in. For them it was absolutely hopeless.

Now you're probably wondering well you know you told me that in Jerusalem things were like more strict religiously so what in the world were all these people in Jerusalem doing at this weird pool of superstition so close to that super conservative religious temple mount? Well that's a great question but in those days in the city of Jerusalem if you were disabled you were not allowed to go up on the temple mount to worship because the Levitical law said quote "for no one who has a physical flaw shall approach a blind man, a lame man, or he who has a disfigured face or any deformed limb."

Now these were rules that originally were restricted to the Levitical priests at the tabernacle. It was meant at the time to be symbolic of the holiness of God but by Jesus' time 1400 years after these rules were put down for those Levitical priests the ultra-religious people in Jerusalem were applying it to every single person in the country and certainly anybody who wanted to approach the temple. And so disabled or diseased people couldn't go up to the temple not even to pray and so instead they went to the cruel pool, this place of superstition.

And it reminds me of what can happen so often when faith goes toxic. I don't know if it's the right phrase anymore to use for it but when it goes fundamentalist in the wrong direction and becomes super legalistic what happens is it drives away people in need because they feel like I'm not accepted there because I'm not perfect. And so they go to some other place where they think they might find hope and they might find healing and maybe they don't even agree with everything that those people at the other place the bar or the whatever center of spirituality or whatever believe but they're like I'm not perfect so I can't go to church and that must have been how these people felt.

But you know what's interesting? Jesus shows up there and he zeros in of course it's Jesus who do you think he talks to he zeros in on the single most hopeless case there it says one who was there who had been in an invalid for 38 years. Say that out loud with me 38 years. It says when Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he'd been in this condition for a long time he asked him do you want to get well?

Now why would he ask that? Why would find the world with somebody who's been struggling with this for 38 years not want to get well? Well we're going to get to that in a second but here's a little detail I love the word for well here really means wholeness so literally what Jesus is asking is do you want to be made whole? Say made whole out loud with me made whole. Do you see the poetry of that? In a place where he is surrounded by dismembered body parts Jesus is saying how'd you like to be put back together again? And that's what God is asking you and me. Do you want to be made whole?

Are you feeling fragmented? Like you're breaking apart? Often the way people describe it when they're being stuck in a sin or any kind of a destructive habit is I feel like I'm disintegrating like I'm coming apart and Jesus is saying how'd you like to have integrity? How'd you like to have wholeness back? This is so important because so often when we think of change we think of it as subtraction. Have you noticed that? Even when we talk about Lent what are you giving up for Lent right? And Jesus is like no it's not about giving something up it's about being made whole. How'd you like to have your sense of integrity back?

Look at the man's response. "Sir," the man replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred while I'm trying to get in somebody else goes down ahead of me." I think this classic painting by a Spanish artist named Marillo captures the moment so well that guy's like I want to get well but what am I gonna do? It's impossible. I'm literally a lame man trying to win a foot race. There is no way that's ever going to work out for me.

And you know what I love? I love that Jesus doesn't say that was a stupid idea to begin with. This is all a scam. You moron. You know he could have said that. Guess what? It's a joke. It doesn't matter if you're first. And that that would have made this guy feel like so dumb for trying this thing for 38 years. Jesus cuts to the chase and he goes, "All right, get up. Pick up your mat and walk." And I love a little detail here. The Greek verb tense that we don't have in English actually means and keep on walking. Get out of here. You start with one step but then you take the next step and the next step and the next step. Keep moving. Don't give up.

And it says that once the man was cured he picked up his mat and walked. No muscle atrophy. No relearning how to walk. Total instant healing. Now the story's not over. There's kind of a surprising plot twist which we'll get to in a second. But first, why is this story in the Bible, how does it help you and me today? You may or may not be physically disabled like the man in the story, but chances are you are hobbled in some way. Like we said, maybe you're addicted to something or you're in some sin that you want to escape or maybe you're in pieces in some other way. A broken heart or broken dreams or a broken relationship. Want to be made whole?

There's three principles that jump out of the story for me. First, I need to admit that what I'm doing isn't working. Admit that what I'm doing isn't working. This man's been there trying the same exact solution for how long? 38 years. It's the 12-step definition of insanity, you know, trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And we've all been there. It's when we admit that what I've been doing to help my marriage, what I've been doing to try to get sober, what I've been doing to try to take care of my anger, what I've been doing to try to get close to God isn't working.

That's when I can go to step two and ask myself, do I want to be say made whole with me again? Made whole. That's what Jesus asked this man. So let's go back to the question I skipped earlier. Why? Why wouldn't I want to be healed of my affliction that I've had for 38 years? Well, any therapist or counselor will tell you there's a lot of reasons people really actually don't want to get better. But let me suggest four.

First, I'm familiar with it. Like the man in this story, maybe you've had your deal for 38 years. That's a long time. It's like an old pair of shoes. They're not in the best shape, but they're sure comfortable. And change is hard, especially if some defect or destructive habit has been with you for years. There's a second reason. I'm identified with it. A lot of our flaws we tend to say, well, that's just who I am. And what happens is we confuse our identity with our character defects or our bad habits.

It's kind of like this. Finish this sentence just in your mind, in your mind, as I begin it. It's just like me to be whatever negative tendency you have. It's just like me to be a workaholic. I'm like whatever Enneagram number that is. That's just me. That's just me. Or it's just like me to be angry, man. I'm just like an angry person. That's just the way I'm wired. It's just like me to be worried all the time. I'm just a worrier. I am a worrier. It's just like me to be thin skinned. I don't like criticism. Just like me to drink too much. Some of you are going all of the above.

Okay, well, that's a part of who you... The thing is this. That's a part of who you are in your mind. And what happens is subconsciously you're afraid, if I change that part of me, will I still be me? And I want you to know you are not your trauma. You are not your addiction. So I'm familiar with it. I'm identified with it. Of course, there's a third reason. I'm just discouraged by it. Maybe like this guy, you've had it for 38 years or maybe 5, 10, 15, 20, and nothing has helped. And so you're ready to give up on ever changing.

And then finally, I'm rewarded by it, right? That's probably the first thing that came to your mind. There's always a payoff to any bad habit. In fact, some scholars think that this actually may have been the reason that Jesus asked this question of this man precisely because of this. Maybe he'd actually been making a living by begging. And Jesus might have been saying, "Are you ready for that to change?" So how are you rewarded? This is important to think about because the reward for a bad habit or a sin or a character flaw isn't necessarily pleasure. The reward might be, "It gives me an excuse to fail." Or, "It gets me attention." Or, "It helps me to control people." But there's some kind of payoff.

For example, if you're a habitually angry person, it can feel good to be angry, right? Makes me feel like I'm right. That's a pretty powerful payoff. And your anger can control other people, right? When you're angry, you can get what you want from them. Of course, it damages the relationship long term, but it sure works in the short term. And so there's all kinds of payoffs. So I think it's really helpful to work through this grid whenever you want to change something.

So how did this man respond to Jesus's question, "Do you want to be made whole?" Well, he says, "I do, but my situation's hopeless. I'm a lame man trying to win a foot race. What am I going to do?" And that's actually the moment when he realizes, "Oh, I'm actually powerless to do anything to save myself." That's the moment of clarity when we hit bottom, when we realize, "I can't save myself. I need power greater than myself." That's when we sense the hand of Jesus reaching down to us, and he can help us.

The way they put it in recovery is we were entirely ready to have God remove these character defects. And that's what Jesus is asking this man, "Are you entirely ready?" There's a word, there's a biblical word for this, you know what it is? Repentance. That's a beautiful word. It's a word that's gotten a bad rap, but it's a beautiful word. Repentance means there's hope for you. Repentance means God isn't done with you yet. Repentance means there's a step into a new life that you can take when you're entirely ready to walk away from the cruel pool and take your first step into a new life.

When you are, that's when you can take step number three, act in faith one step at a time. Whatever that step is for you, act in faith one step at a time. You know, I want you to meet somebody here at TLC whose story has a similar arc to this story in the Bible, Paula Spiegel. Paula Spiegel on a Zoom call with me just this past week, she was very honest about what was crippling her. Watch this.

Pretty much my whole adult life, I've been a drinker and as time went on, just started to take over my life where I just think about it all the time. And then it just created problems with just depression and anxiety and not coping with problems that were coming up. So 17 months ago when I was at my bottom, you know, and just didn't know what to do, I just happened to be reading Max Pitot's book. And you mean by that, you mean this very book that we happen to be doing for now as a church in conjunction with this series, right? Yeah.

Yeah. So it was actually life changing because I asked Jesus to in my boat and to help me quit drinking. And I didn't hear audibly, I will help you, but I had that just the sense that I would help you. And I was kind of looked around like, what was that? And it was just this powerful presence that I felt that I knew I was going to be able to quit drinking. And a week to the day later, I did October 1st, 2020. After that Thursday, the following week, I did go see my doctor. I felt it was good to have her on board because I needed accountability. I didn't want to just have an emotional moment.

I figured if I got her on board, you know, it was weird. It was hard. It was my whole, it was my life for years. When Jesus talks to the man, he heals at the pool of Bethesda. He asks him, do you want to be made whole? I love that, that story because I feel like I had to take a step of faith in order for God. He wasn't going to just zap this whole thing out of my life. I had to step out and God get me there. And I felt through this 17 months that he's been making me whole, like I've never really felt before. I have joy that I didn't have before. And my kids want to be around me. My faith is stronger. I was baptized and when we did the beach baptism back in October, I was living my life at Christ and I still face, you know, everyday problems. But I feel whole. I really, I just have peace and I look forward to each day.

Paul, the Twin Lakes Church recovery meetings on Monday nights, of course, they're anonymous, but you volunteered to me that you go to those and you've told me that I could share that with everybody here in church. What kind of, why is that supportive for you? The sharing of other people's stories to know what other people struggle with. And I'm not really all that unique. What do you say to Paula Spiegel two years ago? I would just encourage them to reach out that there's people that love them and that Jesus loves them. Take the next step. It's with the next step.

So what is the next step for you? Maybe you're where she was 17 months ago. And your next step is I'm going to be at the next recovery meeting. We have them Monday morning at 10 for women, Monday night at seven for men and women, Thursday nights, all the details are in the lobby, or I will, I'm going to go to a counselor this week, or I will finally decide to follow Jesus today. Today. Whatever it is for you, I'm going to give you a chance to take that step in a few minutes.

We're going to do this a little bit differently today. Normally we have a prayer team up front. And today I don't want to make this hard for you. So we put the prayer team at the back. We put them at the info desk as you walk out. They're going to be right to the left of that. We've got reps from the recovery group. We've got Stephen ministers and pastors that are going to be there. If you want to pray to receive Jesus Christ into your life or for any other reason. Why? Because they're going to be right there like as you're leaving, how easy can it be? You know, just go there they are. Take the next step today.

But first, before you decide to do that, I want to be totally transparent here. A warning. Don't expect everyone to be happy you're healed. When you make a change in your life, some people are going to be like, I don't know if I'm really comfortable with that. And that happens to this guy. Here's the way the story winds up. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath. And so the Jewish leader said to the man who'd been healed, well, it's the Sabbath that was sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. The law forbids you to carry your mat because the Sabbath said you can't work on the Sabbath carrying your mat was working. And so he was breaking the Sabbath by carrying his mat.

So this guy's been waiting 38 years to get healed. And when he gets healed, he gets healed on the wrong day of the week. The problem was these guys were only focused on what he was doing wrong this little tiny thing, and they skip entirely over the miracle. How easy is it for us religious people to do this? It's kind of like when somebody actually came up to me. Did you know that this happened a few years ago? Did you know that René? Did you know that one of the church greeters is out behind the church smoking a cigarette? And I felt like saying, really? Was it a tobacco cigarette? Because I think I know the guy you're talking about. And for him, that would be progress. But I didn't say that out loud.

What I said was, you know, we're all at different stages in our progress. So stop complaining and rejoice that he's here. Right? Let me be real transparent here about something else that happened here. There was, frankly, there was a big kerfuffle about our recovery groups. Some people, and I get this, were very upset that when honestly sharing struggles with addiction, sometimes some people in the group swore. And people came to me very concerned. They're swearing in church. And in so many ways, I said, listen, I don't think it's good to swear. But you do understand that these are people who've just been set free from life controlling addictions. Maybe they're carrying their mat on the Sabbath, but they're walking. So rejoice.

Right? You know, my wife says our timing for the spiritual progress of others is not necessarily God's timing. Jesus may work in somebody's life in a totally different order than you want him to. So don't be some sort of an accidental Pharisee. God's got God's got different steps and different orders for all of us. Rejoice. We're here. We're walking. We're on the path together.

Now, I always have to do these disclaimers. Obviously, that's not endorsing bad behavior. In fact, later in the story, Jesus sees this guy at the temple and he says, "See, you're well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." What he's saying is there's something worse than a physical disability. Sin destroys life. And maybe you get that. It's sin that as you're feeling fragmented today, well, the good news is Jesus is here now to make you whole.

At the end of the story, Jesus said to them, "My father is always at his work to this very day and I too am working." We have Jesus's word on it. Listen to this. If you've been getting distracted, look up here for a second. This means Jesus is here to this very day, this day, now, this moment, and he sees you being pulled apart by something. And he's asking you that question. Do you want to be made whole? How do you respond? Let's pray together.

Would you bow your heads in prayer with me? I just want you to take a moment to picture Jesus extending his hand to you, asking you that question. Do you want to be made whole? You've been trying what you've been trying a long time. Today could be the day you take your first step back to wholeness. Lord, we're here before you as broken people and we need wholeness and we're utterly unable to save ourselves. Maybe some of us for the first time are saying, "I turn to you today, Jesus. I take my first step of faith. I don't understand it, but I'm taking that step to wholeness." And others are saying, "I'm a believer, but there's something in my life. It's disintegrating me, and I need to be made whole. And I want to take the next step, Jesus. I want to take the next step today. Make me whole. In Jesus' name, amen.