"The abnegation of reason is not the evidence of faith, but the confession of despair."
- J.B. Lightfoot
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
On a Sabbath day during one of the Jewish feasts, Jesus went to Jerusalem. By the Sheep Gate there was the Bethesda pool, which was said to heal all manner of infirmities if entered when the water stirred. The place was big enough to require five roofed colonnades. All around the pool waited a multitude needing healing. The blind were there, and the lame and paralyzed. One guy waiting by the pool had been an invalid for almost 40 years.
Jesus saw him lying there and knew he'd been there a long time. "Don't you want to be healed?"
The man said, "Yes, but I don't have anyone to put me in the pool when the water starts stirring. And when I try to get in by myself, people push their way in front of me."
Jesus said to him, "Get up, take up your bed, and walk."
And at once the man was healed and he obeyed.
I love that story. It means the world to me for reasons I can't fully explain. That the man was too weak to help himself resonates with me. That he needed help but nobody would help him resonates with me. That he'd been waiting 38 years for healing resonates with me. That everybody was pushing in front of him to get theirs in the pool resonates with me.
That all it took was Jesus resonates with me.
I am finding it harder and harder to put up with self-helpy preachers. I don't get it. I want to be charitable -- and for once I won't name names, but you know who I'm talking about -- and part of that is because these guys at least carry the pretense of evangelicalism. They aren't all-around discounted like the Armani-clad cartoons on TBN. They still maintain supporters as long as pragmatism, Church Growth Movement ideology, and feel-good spirituality entertainment holds sway in American churches.
But that only makes them more gross. For the life of me I can't figure out what makes them so appealing. Because when I watch some preacher talk about the power of me and about being positive and speaking blessings into existence, I have no idea who he's talking to. Am I the first person to say I can't do it? I can't do it by myself. I'm incapable. I'm cynical, sure. Negative, yes. I'm a pessimist. But those aren't my problems.
Sin is. I'm being honest with myself. And until they can be honest about themselves -- and until they can be honest about me -- I have no interest in discovering the champion inside of me. Because he ain't in there. I checked.
I consider myself fairly spiritually mature. I trusted Jesus for salvation, and I keep doing that every day. But spiritually speaking, I'm a lame dude watching everyone else push their way into the foamy waters, waiting on something I can't manage on my own. No amount of rush or maneuvering or special pool-entry techniques are cutting it. I'm waiting on Jesus to show up, to make the pool irrelevant.
Look, either grace is sufficient or it isn't. Either the joy of the Lord is my strength or it isn't. All the rest is b.s.
I wish I was living my best life now, but I'm not. I'm wandering (as if you couldn't tell just by reading this post). And I'm wondering how to continue, day in and day out, loving scavenged manna. I mean, I'm scraping the stuff off the side of rocks and whatnot. But I know the dude in the gigantic arena saying he's got lobster and caviar for me to eat is a liar.
Knowing that is no consolation. But knowing Jesus is.
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Comments on "What to Do When You Can't Do Anything":
2. Raindream
- 07/19/2006 7:02 am CDT
Self-help and self--indulgence. If it's still true that most professing Christians don't give even 5% to their churches and that they don't believe the Lord owns everything they have, which means they truly own nothing, these lifestyle preachers are part of the problem. They are reinforcing our cultural materialism and aiding in the disobedience of some to care for needs in their community and the world.
But I think I understand the appeal of their message. Promise Keepers is talking about unleashing the power within you, the power God gave you to do things for him. That's appealing, but if it amounts to getting excited about trying harder, then it's the same kind of thing you're talking about it.
For me, this is the crux of the Christian life's impossibility. I can't try harder, even though I want to. And if persist in my own strength, the Lord may break me so that he can use me, which is his right.
3. De
- 07/19/2006 8:07 am CDT
Wow Jared. Well said.
It would be awesome if pulpits in America this next Sunday rang with this message. it needs to be said.
4. nhe
- 07/19/2006 9:01 am CDT
Jared,
Have you heard any sermons by Tim Keller? - pastor of Redeemer Church (PCA) in NYC.
You are sounding exactly like him here....you would resonate with him big time - he's completely gospel-centric (understatement) and completely repulsed by the blessings/name-it-claim-it movement.
Here's a site with some free mp3 sermons:
http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/bio/timkeller.html
5. G. Frederick
- 07/19/2006 9:02 am CDT
Everything you said resonates with me. Thank you for saying it. The frustrating thing for me has been that I knew all this, but I didn't know how to express it. You said it:
"But I know the dude in the gigantic arena saying he’s got lobster and caviar for me to eat is a liar.
Knowing that is no consolation. But knowing Jesus is."
6. Glenn
- 07/19/2006 9:14 am CDT
As Tyler Durden says, "Self-improvement is ------------. Self destruction is the answer."
Lose your soul. Die to self. Hmmm, maybe biblical concepts? Fight Club...for those with eyes and ears to perceive the common grace... it is a message for our time.
7. nhe
- 07/19/2006 9:19 am CDT
Glenn, I might have seen that too, if I had been able to get past Meatloaf's "affliction".
8. Raindream
- 07/19/2006 10:40 am CDT
I've listened to several sermons by Tim Keller on Galatians. Powerful! I enjoy his style, and he challenges me to live my faith.
9. F.R.E.D.
- 07/19/2006 12:09 pm CDT
Why do you have to put up with them? Change the channel or put down the book or do whatever is appropriate for your preferred medium. Joel's "sermons" turn my stomach, too. So, I don't listen to them or read them. I know what he teaches and it's junk. I don't want to fill my head with junk, so I don't.
Besides, did that pool mentioned in Scripture really heal "all manner of infimities"? If not, why would you want to wait in line for it? It ain't the real thing. You've got the real thing and he already made the pool irrelevent.
10. Jared
- 07/19/2006 12:53 pm CDT
Fred, as I hoped to explain in the post, my problem is sin. It's the answer to your questions. Aside from that, I'm sort of perplexed as to why you'd admonish me to do the very things I recommend in the post itself.
11. F.R.E.D.
- 07/19/2006 1:31 pm CDT
Can you believe I had to look up the word "admonish"? It means "to warn" or "to caution". I thought it meant "to rebuke" or something like that. And, I'm thinking, "No dude, I'm not rebuking you. I'm trying to help." I'm glad I looked it up or I would have gotten all defensive on you.
When you said, "But spiritually speaking, I’m a lame dude watching everyone else push their way into the foamy waters, waiting on something I can’t manage on my own. No amount of rush or maneuvering or special pool-entry techniques are cutting it." I took that as meaning you want to get into the pool.
And, when you said, "I wish I was living my best life now, but I’m not. I’m wandering (as if you couldn’t tell just by reading this post)." I took that as meaning you feel like you're missing something.
So, don't be perplexed; I just misunderstood.
12. Jared
- 07/19/2006 4:29 pm CDT
I took that as meaning you want to get into the pool . . . I took that as meaning you feel like you’re missing something.
Sometimes I do, sometimes I do.
13. molly
- 07/19/2006 6:39 pm CDT
OH man. This was good. The pool, the scavenged manna, yeah, all that.
But it's not so much the blessings/self-help movement that has me tired (did that one 7-8 years ago and already got WAY over it--lol), but rather it's opposite...the "We Believe in Jesus" but all we do is sit in our pews week after week after week and sing the same tired hymns and expect the pastor to fix all our problems and don't really expect God to show up and yadda yadda yadda...
I want the Real Thing. Alive. LIVING. As in, not dead.
I've been thinking I'd find it in doing certain things...measuring up to the conservative view of how a Christian ought to look/act/talk...blah blah blah. That's been my pool. Which I've been diligently trying to get in (and telling others about).
Well, it hasn't worked. I never get there in time. I don't measure up. I can't make it. And I'm sick of it all...so sick of it all...wondering where in the world the Messiah is because I sure do need One...
And I'm just now looking over because a new Guy's entered the scene, and He's looking at me and asking , if I want out of this long waiting pool-gamble game, if I want to quit having to "try, try, try harder next time," if I want out of this life without legs.
...And I'm thinking I do.
14. Shrode (AKA the anti-Billy Sunday)
- 07/20/2006 5:40 am CDT
It would be awesome if pulpits in America this next Sunday rang with this message. it needs to be said.
You should all come to my church. :)
I preached on this passage a few weeks ago. I've been doing a series through the Gospel of John entitled "getting to know the real Jesus" My premise was that one of the ways that John differs from the synoptics (matt, mark, luke) is that it is more personal. It doesn't have sermons to the multitudes. Rather everything Jesus says in the Gospel of John in dialogue with an individual or a small select group of people. The gospel is very intimate. And it is full of one on one encounters. So my hope was, that by studying how Jesus related to people one on one, we could understand better how he relates to us as individuals...in relationship.
This passage was one of my favorites, of all the ones we did. What I love is that Jesus picks him out. Of all the people lying around the pool, Jesus walks up to this guy! And later when asked by the religious leaders who healed him, he doesn't know. He doesn't appear to have faith in Christ yet. He's been transformed physically, not spiritually. So Jesus comes back later and finds him at the temple.
"Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, "see you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." (John 5:14)
Did you get that? Jesus sought him out TWICE! Jesus went to the Tepmple and found him there. (So the guy wasn't at the pool.) Echoing what Jared said, we don't don't go looking for Jesus, so much as he comes looking for us. And he reminds us that our spiritual condition is far more important than our physical one.
To Jesus, "Your best life now" is to stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.
Another thing that interests me about this passage, and this man that Jesus healed, is that his healing had everything to do with what Jesus wanted to do, and nothing to do with the man's faith in his own faith.
Some scholars think that this dude never became a believer.
15. 31 Hertz » I’m speechless
- 07/24/2006 4:31 am CDT
[...] because it just keeps coming at me from all directions… [...]
Absolutely brilliant. Right now, you are both the writer and the Christian that I wish I were.