Ruled By Time

If something needs to be done, do you do it, or wait until the appropriate time?

After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids-- blind, lame, and paralyzed.    One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be made well?" The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me." Jesus said to him, "Stand up, take your mat and walk." At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, "It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat." But he answered them, "The man who made me well said to me, 'Take up your mat and walk.'" They asked him, "Who is the man who said to you, 'Take it up and walk'?" Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, "See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you." The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath. But Jesus answered them, "My Father is still working, and I also am working." For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God. - John 5:1-18

We have become ruled by the clock and the calendar.

Everything we do has to fit into the time we have allotted for it, and we treat this time as if it is ours to own and command.

Now, I have a bit of a problem with the story John tells of this incident.

First, I find fault with the man who needed to be healed.  He had been ill a long time, and he had managed to get to the pools, but he couldn't make friends with someone who could help him get to the water?

Some things, I think, we need to find a way to do for ourselves.

Second, Jesus managed to get away without being noticed, but then went to meet the man at the Temple so everyone would know it was Jesus who healed him.

Why?

Sure, it makes for great story and it explains why so many would want to kill Jesus, but really?

If Jesus really didn't want people to talk about what he did for them, he should have disappeared in the crowd.

OK.  I seem to be skeptical here, and there is a reason for it.

I believe we need to do all we can for ourselves, but also seek help from others.

We cannot go it alone.  Time is too short to spend the majority of our years in pain and suffering, when asking for help would make all the difference.

We let time control us and deceive us.  We think we have plenty of it, so we fail to act.

Well, we don't have a lot of it.  So, what are we waiting for?

More to come...