The Halfway Meditation

"And when he spoke to me, a spirit entered into me and set me on my feet...." Ezekiel

Made me think of the invalid by the pool on the Sabbath (in John) and the sermon I heard about it last Sunday. And now today, the Scripture delivers life.

I identify with the pool man and have written about him before. He showed up to the pool. If he hadn't been there, presumably Jesus would not have spoken to him. I too am perpetually halfway there. I sometimes think I lead a halfway life because of chronic pain and negativity. Sometimes I have to force myself through each next thing; and so imagine this invalid had to drag himself out of bed. "Oh, do I really want to go to the pool today?" 

So the man got there to the pool, and Jesus said, "Get up!" the same thing he said to the little dead girl in--Mark? Matthew? "Talitha qum!"

I'm always fascinated that Jesus didn't help the man into the pool; he just told him to get up. And the outcome was definitely a healing, as proved by the fact that the Sabbath legalists got mad. It's not forbidden to just talk to someone on the Sabbath, to have a conversation. But even Jesus' enemies could see that a healing had occurred.

Last Sunday's sermon on that healing talked about the stirring. The stirring of the waters shifted to a stirring within the invalid. The sermon must have penetrated because I thought about it all week.  Get stirred up, the preacher said.

Hmmmn. Not that I believe obstacles can be swept away by a positive outlook (although Jesus did say that with faith you can make a mountain jump into the sea). Even though my own circumstances are good today, I see and know they can be crushing. For example, when my little sister first came down with her mysterious crippling ailment, my father told my mother,  "No matter what the doctors say, I know she'll recover." Well, she didn't. Not in this life at any rate.

It turns out the above is a digression. The point is love, the things we do for love. Love stirs us up. It is Christ who stirs me. He stirs me with his words; the Spirit enters. How important it is, then, to be present so we can hear the words that heal; How important to drag myself halfway there/here.

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