Ash Wednesday

Read John 5:1-13
Every once in a while the waters at Bethesda would be disturbed. They would bubble & swirl & when that happened the people thought that an angel was stirring up the water & so the first person into the pool would receive the touch of God & they would be the ones healed. Lying near these waters was a man who had been sick for 38 years, from what is said we assume that he was lame or paralyzed because he was not able to get up and walk into the waters when they were disturbed. Now while we don’t know how long he had been lying in the courtyard, the sense we get is that he had been there for quite some time & the problem he had is that every time the waters were stirred up, someone else would get into the pool first. When Jesus comes along, he knows this man has been sick for years & he knows he has been lying in the courtyard for a long time & he asks the man what seems like an absurd question – do you want to be made well?

It seems strange to ask a man who has been paralyzed for 38 years if he wants to get well, but maybe it is not so absurd because if this man really wanted to healed you think he would have found a way to get into the waters first. He could have asked someone to rush him into the waters ahead of everyone else, or he could have just camped out on the edge of the pool & then rolled into the water at the first sign of their disturbance. So maybe it was a legitimate question, maybe the man, after all these years, had grown comfortable with his situation. Maybe he had given up hope. Maybe he just didn’t care any more.

And look at the response he gives to Jesus. I have no one to put me into the waters. Someone always gets into the water before me. I had a friend in Seminary who called this the story of Jesus healing the whiner because this man does seem to whine a little bit. I guess I’m glad that Jesus does heal the whiner because at times we all whine a little bit. We make excuses about why we aren’t pursuing more of God, or why we aren’t reading the Bible or praying, or attending Sunday School or Bible Studies. But in the midst of our whining and in the midst of our complacency the good news is that Jesus still comes along and asks us, Do you want to be made well?

Let me ask Jesus' question another way, do we want to grow in our faith? Do we want to experience more of God’s power, more of God’s presence, more of God’s truth and love? Tonight is the time for us to stop whining and stop making excuses and seriously deal with that question, because the season of lent is all about growing in our faith. Lent is not about giving up chocolate or coffee, it’s not about eating fish on Fridays or attending an oatmeal breakfast on Wednesday. Lent is about growing deeper in our faith & it’s about being made well & it’s about getting up out of our own paralysis & walking more faithfully with Jesus. So tonight I think Jesus is right here asking each of us, do we want to be made well? Do we want to grow in faith & trust & obedience to God?

Now here’s the difference between the man at the pool & us; Jesus just said the word & the man here was healed. Jesus said, take your mat & walk, & this man who had been paralyzed for 38 years got up & walked. He never had to get into the waters of the pool. He didn’t have to wait for the waters to be disturbed & he didn’t have to rush in ahead of the crowd – Jesus just said the word & he was made well. For most of us, we are going to be made well & we are going to grow in our faith when we venture from the safety of the porch into the stirred up waters of life. We will deepen our faith & trust when we are willing to get up out of our comfort & ease & allow our lives & our faith to be disturbed.

You’ll find on the back of the bulletin a prayer which is attributed to Sir Francis Drake & it was written in 1577, it is amazing that something written 430 years ago can still be so profound. It’s a prayer we need to pray in this Lenten season because it asks God to stir up the water of our life and faith:

Disturb us, Lord,
when we are too pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord,
when with the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord,
to dare more boldly
To venture on wilder seas
Where storms will show Your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask you to push back the horizons of our hopes;
And to push back the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.
This we ask in the name of our Captain,
Who is Jesus Christ.

I fear sometimes that we have become like the paralytic on the porch and have grown so comfortable with our lives and faith that we don’t see the need or have the desire to go any deeper. I fear sometimes that we have become so complacent that we don’t even see our sin or our need for Jesus. It saddens me to think that I am missing out on an adventure with Christ because I’m not willing to have my life stirred up. If we have become content with church just the way it is – we need God to stir us up. If we don’t make time for prayer or worship or the study of God’s word – we need to be stirred up. If we don’t forgive those who have hurt us and if we don’t invite our friends or neighbors to experience a relationship with the God who has loved us and given us life, we need to be stirred up. And if injustice in the world doesn’t move us to act, we need to be stirred up. Are we willing to ask God to disturb us? And then are we willing to act and move when God shake us up?

My prayer for us during the season of Lent is that would willing to be disturbed. My hope is that we would be willing to go rushing forward into the stirred up waters of life and faith so we can experience the touch & the power of God. I invite you in this Lenten season to ask God to disturb you, to disturb your life & your faith in hopes that it will change who we are.

If we go back to the paralytic by the pool of Bethesda, when Jesus told him to get up and walk – he got up and walked, he responded in some way to the call and the invitation of Jesus, but notice that it wasn’t the waters that healed him, it wasn’t even his faith that healed him – we don’t even know that he knew who Jesus was – he was simply healed by the grace of God. If we are willing to have our lives and our faith stirred up, if we will venture out into deep and uncertain waters with Jesus, God’s grace will strength us and God’s grace will heal us and God’s grace will bring us life.

In many ways that’s the message of Ash Wednesday. As the ashes are placed on the head the traditional saying is remember you are dust and to dust you shall return. Ash wed reminds us that we are nothing without the grace of God because it is God alone who brings strength, & courage, & hope & love to the ashes and the dust or our lives and it is in grace alone that we are saved and it is in grace alone that we find life. This season of Lent is the time for us to get serious about following Jesus & do all that we can to grow in our faith, but let’s not fool ourselves; it will be Grace alone that will change us and make us whole.

Because you see:

Every promise we can make, every prayer and step of faith
Every difference we will make, is only by His grace.
Every mountain we will climb, every ray of hope we shine
Every blessing left behind, is only by His grace

Every soul we long to reach., every heart we hope to teach,
Everywhere we share His peace is only by His grace.
Every loving word we say, every tear we wipe away,
Every sorrow turned to praise, is only by His grace.

Grace alone, which God supplies
Strength unknown, He will provide
Christ in us, our cornerstone
We will go forth in grace alone.