Once
again, while looking up another passage of Scripture, something stood out in a
profound way that ministered to my heart as much as I needed. I was looking up
the passage where Jesus told his opponents that the reason he healed people on
the Sabbath (something the religious elite believed to be a kind of “work” that
was forbidden by God), was because his Father was working.[1]
I
have long been affected by Jesus’ expression of doing only what the Father was
doing, and doing whatever the Father was doing. He stated it like this, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do
nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever
the Father does, that the Son does likewise.”[2] As
often as I fail to follow this example, it is still something that profoundly
shapes my daily walk with God.
What
stood out as a much-needed interruption (“interruption” is from my perspective,
not God’s), was the contrast between “a
multitude of invalids,”[3]
and “one man was there.”[4]
Jesus
had entered a building that had “five roofed
colonnades,”[5]
all converging at a pool the people believed could heal them. This is why there
was “a multitude of invalids”
gathered in one place. There was no hope that they all would be healed, but
only that someone would be healed each time “the
water is stirred up.”[6]That
faint hope made these people desperate to be the next one the water-stirring
lottery chose.
Jesus
entered this place of sickness with one thing in mind, looking for whatever the
Father was doing. There is no explanation for how Jesus recognized his Father’s
work in one particular invalid, but he did. And, when he did, he had to join
his Father in this work because his life was about doing “only” what the Father was doing, and doing “whatever” the Father was doing.
Here
is the way this encouraged me. First, that Jesus sees me, and my sickness, in
the midst of a world that is just as sick as I am. Jesus’ work in my life has
been one more way that he did only what he saw his Father doing, and he did
whatever he saw his Father doing. I matter to the Father, so I matter to Jesus. [7]
Second,
that my quest to walk in the things God is doing will sometimes, perhaps often,
look like finding one person God is saving in the midst of a multitude of
people who are looking after themselves. For a long time, I have expressed my
life in Christ with the faith that, if I have been led by the Spirit to testify
in a particular way, that there will always be one person out there who needs
this ministry of my part of the body of Christ.
Third,
if Jesus could be so satisfied in the experience of fully joining his Father in
his work, even while leaving a “multitude
of invalids” that did not recognize the time of his coming to them,[8] I
must learn this satisfaction in my Father’s work as well.
Fourth,
I do not want to miss out on something God is doing around me because I am so
intent on continuing to live the way I was already doing. While I struggle with
the thought of God working in a group of people so that only one person
received his gift, I also marvel that such a work of God could take place in
the midst of such a multitude and not one other person asked if they could have
it as well!
When
I know God is working around me, I want to be in the midst of it, getting the
maximum benefit of whatever he is doing. If I hear that he is blessing someone
in a certain way that I need for myself, I want to use that testimony of his
work to stir up my hunger and thirst to experience the work of God for myself.
I
am sure there are many more lessons from this chapter of Scripture. I have
certainly turned to this Scripture many times to remind myself of how Jesus related
to his Father so that I can follow his example. However, there is a sense in
which God is working through this passage today in a particular and deliberate
way, and I have received the benefit of this word of God as if it had just been
written for me this morning.
I
share this wondering how my experience in the body of Christ would find that
one other person God is working in, and bring us to share in the life of Jesus Christ
together, even if I never hear their story. The fact that God did this
particular work in me, means that there is a blessing for someone else out
there, even as Jesus’ ministry to that one invalid was also a ministry to me,
once again.
© 2014 Monte Vigh ~
Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise
noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible,
English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway
Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)
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