Wholeness Is Not Free

Honesty is a rare commodity. Do you want to be made whole? It's a serious question. Infirmity can become an identity with distinction. There are limitations and perhaps discomforts, but after many years there are reduced demands in life. "I'm handicapped" is a great excuse; "I'm whole" restores a flood of responsibilities - and expectations. Obedience and faith is required to become "little Christ's". Keep the commandments, take time every day to hear the voice of God and never, ever violate what we know is the right thing to do.

***

Wilt Thou Be Made Whole (Part 3)

CHAPTER 15:  JESUS HEALS A LAME MAN

IN JERUSALEM, by the sheep market, was the Pool of Bethesda.  Beside it lay a great multitude of invalids—the lame, blind, withered, and bedridden—all waiting for the moving of the water; because at certain times an angel went down into the pool and troubled the water.  Then, whoever was the first to enter the water after its troubling, was cured of whatever disease or infirmity he had.

            Jesus, one day, walked beside the Pool of Bethesda and saw a man there who had been infirm and lame for thirty-eight years.  Realizing that he had been so long infirm, Jesus spoke to him, saying;

            “Wilt thou be made whole?”

            The lame man answered:

            “Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool; but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.”

            Jesus said to him:

            “Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.”

            Immediately the man was healed.  He took up his bed and walked away.

            This miracle came to pass on the Sabbath.  The Jews, therefore, stopped

the man who had been cured, saying:

            “It is the Sabbath day.  It is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed.”

            He answered:

            “He that made me whole, the same said unto me, “Take up thy bed, and walk.”

            The Jews asked him:

            “What man is that which said unto thee, ‘Take up thy bed, and walk’?”

            But he who had been healed did not know who his benefactor was, because Jesus had left to avoid the crowd in that place.

            Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him:

            “Behold, thou art made whole.  Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.”

            The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.