Do We Want To Get Well? (lesson excerpt)

Shawshank Redemption tells the story of Andy Dufrense, a banker charged with the murder of his wife and her lover. Andy spends nearly 2 decades in Shawshank State Prison. While in Shawshank Andy becomes the assistant to the prison librarian, elderly Brooks Hatlen. After 55 years in prison for a murder he committed, Brooks is up for parole and learns that he will be released into a halfway house. But after 55 years in the prison Brooks is more afraid of the outside world than the prison and so in an effort to remain incarcerated for the rest of his life, he attempts to murder another inmate. Brooks’ behavior comes as a shock to everyone in the prison, including the guards. Brooks has a good reputation. He is known as an educated man and holds a well respected position in the prison. It comes to be discovered that the reason Brooks attempted the crime was because he feared release. As a result the authorities have mercy on him and even release him. But after 3 weeks in the outside world Brooks is unable to adjust to freedom and hangs himself in the halfway house.

Word gets back to his friends at Shawshank about his suicide. In one scene Red, the wise sage in the circle of friends, offers his explanation for Brooks’ actions. Here it is. “There is something funny about these walls. First you hate them. Then you get used to them. Then you depend on them. That’s institutionalized…They put you in for life and that’s exactly what they take; the part that matters anyway.” We will come back to this.

In John 5 Jesus is in Jerusalem. He comes to the healing pool called Bathesda and fastens His eyes on a man sitting there who had an infirmity for 38 years. This man had been crippled for 38 years- living longer as a crippled man than many well men lived in that time. He was probably the most senior sick person around the pool.  Likely everyone knew him. He probably had life-long friends that he met at the pool regularly. In fact his longevity as a crippled man may have been the reason Jesus approached Him and no one else. Now we do not know how long he had been frequenting this pool, but what we do know is that he missed the stirring of the waters a number of times.

It is in this context that Jesus asks the lame man a seemingly rude question; “Do You Want To Get Well” (v.6).

‘Hmm. I’m sitting around a healing pool because I like it. I just enjoy hanging out with sick people in my spare time.’ You can imagine what may have gone through the lame man’s mind here.

But in asking this question maybe Jesus knows something we don’t. Maybe He knows “there is something funny about sickness. First you hate it. Then you get used to it. Then you depend on it…” You become institutionalized by it. Psychologists have found that, ‘It’s possible to be in the same condition for so long that at once you thought of your condition as subnormal you now believe it to be normal, even comfortable.’ So the question arises, what if this lame man’s ultimate problem was not his paralyzed body, but his paralyzed will? What if his main problem was not that he could not walk but that he did not really want to walk anymore? After 55 years in Shawshank ask Brooks if he really wanted freedom. And so the cure for a paralyzed will begins with a gut check from Jesus: “Do you want to get well” (v.6)?

On Saturday Mason had his first baseball game in the Franklin Twp, South Bound Brook Little League. Each year the league kicks off opening day with a parade and each team in the league gets to walk in it. As we were walking in the parade I had a conversation with a coach. This coach played in the same league when he was a boy and had grown up in the town his whole life. In fact his wife even played in the league as a young girl. As we walked we talked about his family some. We talked about the league a little. We talked about what we both do for a living. But the best part of our conversation was toward the end of the parade because we talked about how the community has changed in one generation.

He talked about how he used to ride his bike all over town and how the parents trusted each other to look after one another’s kids. He talked about how people used to trust one another instead of fear one another. He talked about how quickly things changed in just 20-25 years. I could sense in his voice a discontentment with the way of the world today but also some uncertainty of how to change the way of the world and even doubt that it could be done.

That conversation is a conversation I could have had with 1,000 other people on Saturday and it would have gone much the same. Everybody notices the change that have occurred in just 1 generation. Everyone is discontent and frustrated with those changes, and everyone is fairly pessimistic that things will ever change for the better. In fact most people I talk to end up complaining about the way of the world instead of talking about solutions because they have no good idea what the solution really is. In fact in my estimation people have lost hope that it can ever change.

My deep concern for my generation is that we will live the way we are living for so long and eventually lose hope that things can ever change. You see when society first gets sick, people hate it. In fact at first they will do anything to change it. But if enough time passes and society only gets sicker people sort of get used to the sickness. And then as more time passes they learn to depend on it. And when we surround ourselves for 38 years with people as hopeless and pessimistic as ourselves then we never get a new vision of the future for we are never around anyone who can offer us hope for the future. And over time we begin to think that our new way of life is normal. Normalcy gets redefined as year after year we associate with people just like ourselves. And it is at this point where it is appropriate for Jesus to come to us and ask, “Do you even want to get well?”

Our Vision

A few years ago in 2010 we came up with a vision for our congregation. But it wasn’t just a vision for our congregation- it was a vision for our community. That vision was birthed out of this same discontentment that my friend and I spoke about on Saturday. It was birthed out of a holy discontent with the sickness of our society and out of a deep conviction that Jesus is the cure for it. What we said was that “We Envision A Whole Community United To Build Life Around Jesus” again. Not around money. Not around career. Not around self-advancement. Not around capitalism. Not even around family. But united around Jesus. For we believe that Jesus is the answer to the sickness of our society.

• He is the Great Physician.
• He is the One who transform
• He is the One who rebirths
• He is the One who regenerates
• He is the One who restores
• He is the One who saves and who revives the human soul.

In Jesus, folks, is found all the power and all the hope mankind needs to turn the world upside down, and it is the church of Jesus that has been forever commissioned to do it. The church is the only one on earth with the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to actually do impossible things. But let me ask us: “Do we still want to get well or has the struggle to unite our community around Jesus defeated our vision of wholeness?”

It is the view of almost everyone that I run into today that a radical, societal transformation is now impossible. But I disagree! In fact I see great hope. But it will not be the politicians or the media or doctors or psychologists who will bring it; it will be the church of Jesus that brings it.

I believe the impossible is possible with Jesus. Nothing is too difficult for our Lord. Nothing! But do we still want to get well or has the struggle to unite our community around Jesus defeated our vision of wholeness?

What are you doing to build life around Jesus today?

• Are you fervent in prayer daily?
• Are you constant in the Word of God daily?
• Are you interceding for your neighbors daily?
• Are you bringing Jesus into every sector of your life- your job, your recreation, your family?
• Are you doing nothing for selfish ambition or vain conceit?
• Are you running away from the pursuit of money?
• Are you running away from the desire to climb the corporate ladder?
• Are you getting to know your neighbors?
• Are you living a holy life by denying yourself the lusts of your flesh?
• Are you sharing your possessions with your church family?
• Are you offering the people you run into the hope of Jesus or are you succumbing to societal pessimism as well?
• Are you ministering to the people who come in your path or are they simply a means for you to get ahead?

Do we still want to get well? I Do!