Thought of the day – Tuesday 28th July 2020
My wife and I have recently started watching an afternoon TV quiz programme called Impossible. The host asks a question and three possible answers are presented; one is correct, one is wrong but could be correct and the third is a totally impossible answer. If a contestant chooses the impossible answer they are eliminated from the show for that day and can’t return until tomorrow. If the contestant chooses the correct answer they win a point and after five rounds of questions the contestant with the highest number of points has a chance to win a place in the final round and the winner of the final round has an opportunity to win ten thousand pound coins
I mention this to you because, when talking with people about a Bible story, they often respond that it is impossible. Take for instance the healing of the man who had been crippled for 38 years as we read it in Chapter 5 of St John’s Gospel (NIVUK) –
Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 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. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie – the blind, the lame, the paralysed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 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?’
‘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.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.’ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The people who witnessed that healing couldn’t believe Jesus had the power to overcome the man’s 38 years of being crippled and some people cannot believe the miracles that Jesus still performs even today. This healing miracle has a special meaning for me as, while on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I presided at a service of Holy Communion held at the Pool of Bethesda/Bethsaida. It is a very special place for me as we shared the bread and the wine together.
I wonder whether you ever say that’s impossible. Well with God nothing is impossible when we just place ourselves in His hands, open our hearts to Him and live our lives in the way He wants us to live. Amen