Get Up

Have you ever noticed how Jesus told people to get up? I am particularly drawn to Jesus' interaction with the man at the pool of Bethesda. He first asks the man "do you want to get well"

Well do you? do I? I think sometimes I just want to feel sorry for myself. Have you ever just wanted to be mad? You know that you are being irrational, maybe immature, maybe even wrong? But at that moment you really just want to be mad.

Well so this guy has being laying in this spot for years now just wanting to get into the pool when the Angel's dip their wings so he can be healed. How many people has he watched go into the water? How many people have pushed the old crippled man back out of the way? I see this guy and I think, "Poor guy, nobody will help you in, Bless your heart!" But not Jesus. He looks at the man and asks, "Do you want to get well?" So often we fall in love with our pain, even though it sucks it is what we are used to, it defines us, and how we operate.
In prison when a man has been inside for a long time and gets released, he often finds himself right back in jail, not because he needs to commit crime, but because he doesn't know how to be different.
I wonder what the man thought when Jesus asked him if he wanted to be well. Did he sarcastically think no I'd rather spend another 30 years laying here while others get my blessing. But instead he told the man with the followers, the man that they called Rabbi, "Yes" not really even knowing why he would put his trust in this stranger why he said it. Why after all this time did he still believe, did he still have hope. While he had not received his blessing so far he at least had attention from time to time as he told about his plight. Jesus didn't fuss over him, he said, "Get up, take up your mat and go." He told him to get up!

Were Jesus' words magic? Doubtful I bet that Jesus wasn't the first to tell him to get up, and I know that if anybody else would have said, Hey old dude, get up man. He would have thought them cruel. What about Jesus was different? Is Jesus telling you to get up? Will you? Or you can lay there for another 20 years waiting for a miracle, hoping that someone else doesn't get your blessing or you can... Get Up.