The American consumer is fortunate today to have at their disposal explicit warning labels that serve to identify potential dangers of nearly everything, from hot coffee to which end of the chainsaw to hold when starting. Of course, some of these warnings are more helpful than others, but in a litigious society, companies find themselves placing warning labels on their products that seem at times to go beyond the obvious.
M-Law, an organization in Michigan that exists to expose frivolous lawsuits, offers a first and second place prize annually to those who submit the most ridiculous, verifiable warning labels on the products consumers buy. In a recent post on their website, they listed previous winners such as:
A label on a baby stroller warns, “Remove baby before folding.’
A popular children’s scooter warns, “This product moves when used.”
A cardboard sunshield that keeps sun off the dashboard warns, “Do not drive with
sunshield in place.”
Stating the obvious has become a defense against those who would exploit any opportunity to abuse the system for personal gain.
In the fifth chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus seems to state the obvious when he encounters a man who has positioned himself by a pool, near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem. John tells us that this pool is a place where the blind, lame, and paralyzed come in hope that when the waters are stirred within the pool, someone might help them into the water to be healed. Some believed that an angel stirred the waters and that healing powers resulted for the one who was first into the water.
Here in this place of misery and hope, Jesus asks this man who has suffered for thirty-eight years a question that seems to have an obvious answer; “Do you want to be made well?” One might think this a foolish question…after struggling with his physical limitations for nearly four decades, it seems obvious that the man would want to be made whole, to stand and walk, yet the action of Jesus in reaching out to him assumes nothing. Here is the wonder of God’s hand at work in the midst of human need. Though he has the power to heal the man, Jesus invites him to join the process, to become a participant, a partner if you will, in his own healing.
The man replies without hesitation that there is no one to put him in the water when it is stirred. The man’s predicament shows the likelihood that left on his own, there would be little or no chance for healing.
His story perhaps mirrors the limitations and challenges we face, for by ourselves we find our efforts unsatisfying, yet with the help of Christ we find, as Paul states, that by his strength we are empowered to do all things. Scottish theologian William Barclay writes, “The first essential toward receiving the power of Jesus is the intense desire for it. Jesus comes to us and says, ‘Do you really want to be changed?’ If in our inmost hearts we are well content to stay as we are, there can be no change for us. The desire for the better things,” he concludes, “must be surging in our hearts.” Once again, here is a great truth of our faith…the One who created us in the very image of God, calls us to partnership; certainly not equal, for the Psalmist reminds us that it is God who has made us and not we ourselves. But the good God desires to do within us is accomplished when God and we work together…when we allow the living Christ to work in and through us. In asking the obvious of this physically challenged man, Jesus invites him to faith, to partner with him in healing, not only his body, but more importantly, his soul.
Having invited the man into this divine partnership of faith, Jesus commands him in John 5:8-9, “’Stand up, take your mat and walk.’ At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.” If the man was hesitant at all because of his limitations, the text does not include this. Having heard the call to healing, he stood up and walked. It is an amazing story of restoration…the transforming power of God at work within God’s human creation.
The table of our Lord tells a similar story. It bears the elements of body and blood, broken and poured out by the Son of God to bring healing and restoration to the human soul. God’s action in Christ calls any who will come to embrace this gift of salvation and in doing so, to find the saving grace and mercy that Christ offers. There, God states the obvious for those who will receive…There, God proclaims God’s love for all the world through the unmatched gift of Jesus Christ…There, we respond by faith to receive this gift anew and to be made whole. With the apostle Paul, we thus proclaim, “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift.” Amen.
Jim Abernathy
Andrey Shirin
Daniel Carro
Daniel Dapaah
Tom Lynch
jkapartee
The John Leland Center
Josh Hayden
melsons2012
Jerry Young
pjohnlee
N. Keith Smith
