Stop Complaining - Just Pick Up Your Bed And Walk...

Last Sunday, my friends and I attended church together. We all sat together. We all heard the same sermon. But, when we went to brunch, we discovered that we had all taken something completely different from the sermon.

The text was this: Jesus Heals at the Pool of Bethesda John 5:2-9

Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes. In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, waiting for the moving of the waters; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted.  A man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.  When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?" The sick man answered Him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me." Jesus said to him, "Get up, pick up your pallet and walk." Immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk. Now it was the Sabbath on that day.

From this one passage, we derived four very different, but poignant points.

Firstly, we looked at the fact that a the “play on words” was symbolic.  A sheep gate was a place where the sheep are allowed to enter the city.  But, the bible also makes use of the term sheep when speaking of followers of the gospel.  Sheep are sometimes of a communal mindset and these sheep (in either form) have become herded into one area while they sit and wait for a miracle.  

The pastor used this ideology to suggest that the church has been held captive by their own thinking.  People gathered to wait on a healing rather than continue to move forward with  their blessings.  The mentality of those who had gathered was no longer seen as hope, but, instead, as the lack of Faith.  The scene resembles an unfortunate "human lottery" based on the unrealistic expectation of being the one person who could be healed.  In likening that to the flock of the church, the pastor implied that many people who come to church gather only to complain about their afflictions, but have no real intent on ever stepping out on Faith and discovering their true healing.  Has the church become a place to gather and talk more about your transgressions instead of seeking your blessings?