In John 5:1-8, we read, “Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.
5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
7 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.”
Recently I was enjoying a delightful culinary experience at a local breakfast joint with a buddy of mine. And as I was swallowing the last bite of a western omelet the size of my head and washing it down with some fresh squeezed orange juice, I noticed our waiter had brought the check, taken it away, and then brought it back again.
He said, “Someone paid for your meal. You’re all set. Have a nice day.” Suddenly, this helpless feeling came over me. It was taken care of. Nothing I could do. To insist on paying would be pointless. All I could do was trust that what He said was true was actually true. And live in that. Which meant getting up from the table and leaving the restaurant.
My acceptance of what he said gave me a choice: to live like it was true or create my own reality in which the bill was not paid.
This is our invitation. To trust we don’t owe anything. To trust that something is already true about us, something has already been done, something has been there all along. To live in the new. To trust that grace pays the bill.
We are like that man by the pool. Helpless. Desperate. And someone saw us and asked about us. Someone paid the price and set us free.
This weekend we celebrate what Jesus did on the cross. Once and for all He paid our bill. All the debt we owed because of our sins? He paid for it. And we can ask Him for forgiveness, accept His healing, and challenge the world to do the same. To hear Him say to each of us as He said on the cross, “It is finished.”
Nothing new needs to be added to it. He shed enough blood for all of us.
Jesus didn’t get up off the cross so that we could get up off the floor…
Get up, because the bill is paid…