I love the stories in the Bible about Jesus’ encounters with different people and situations while He was on earth and how He responded to each one of them.

That man was, and still is, the real deal!

He had a unique way of dealing with these issues as they came up. He knew how to strike a balance between religious laws and His Father’s love. He was compassionate, reasonable, objective yet unconventional. This attitude earned Him a few enemies, like the people in the story of His encounter with the man who had been sick for 38 years.

Jesus saw him by the pool and, knowing that this man had lived with this infirmity for so long, decided to reach out and help Him, even though it was supposed to be a day of rest, according to the law.

“Do you want to be made well?”, Jesus asked the man.

His response? Well, let’s save that for another day!

Jesus went ahead and healed him. The keepers of the law heard about this miracle, they got upset and went on a search to kill Jesus; not because He healed the man but because He broke the law by healing on the Sabbath.

They didn’t think about the fact that a man had been healed after thirty-eight years of experiencing physical limitations; rather, they focused on the law of “this is not how it should be done. Yes, He can heal people but it is unlawful to do it on a day of rest.”

They didn’t imagine that this action could lead to the beginning of freedom for other people in the community who were suffering from similar kinds of infirmities that caused physical limitations. They didn’t think about the bigger picture and the economic benefits of having sick people back on their feet again. All they saw was Jesus, the law-breaker, and not Jesus, the solution-provider.

This is what happens when we are so set in our ways, when our hearts are ridiculously stubborn, when we reject positive change, when we refuse to think outside the box,  when we hold on to practices that are no longer beneficial to us and the people around us, when we are intimidated by new ideas and innovations introduced by other people and when we feel threatened by the positive impact that accompany these ideas.

Think about this for a minute.

This man had been sick and without help for thirty-eight years. He couldn’t help himself; neither could he get someone to help him, not even the keepers of the law. On the contrary, when they saw that he was healed, their first statement to him was,

“You can’t work on the Sabbath! The law doesn’t allow you to carry that sleeping mat!”

Obviously, their law couldn’t get him out of his condition; then Jesus decides to show up with a different kind of law, that is the law of love, but instead of embracing this new law and giving it a chance to thrive, they preferred to look for Jesus and kill Him.

It happens everywhere – in families, organizations, nations and sadly, in our places of spiritual worship.

This should not be so.

If the old law no longer yields results, then we should be open to the new and give the initiator the space to do what is required, we should be positive-minded and supportive; we should encourage and celebrate positive change, knowing that the result will always be a win for all parties involved. 

Positive change is harmless. It may appear weird, it may disrupt the norm, switch processes and procedures and cause a bit of discomfort at the beginning but the end result is always good.

Dear friend, do not allow the devil use you in the name of preserving outdated cultures, unproductive systems and irrelevant practices and on the flip side, if you are the ‘Jesus’ in your family, organization, church or community, stay focused. Keep your goal in view and if, after everything, you still can’t beat them, don’t join them.

You will be glad you didn’t!