No One to Help?
In this week’s bible studies, we’ve been looking at the story of Jesus healing the ‘invalid’ in John 5. (The phrase ‘invalid’ has always haunted me – that someone could be labelled as “in-valid”. But how often does our world “invalidate” someone, write them off, marginalize them because of a disability, a personality flaw, a public fall from grace, or just because of how they were born? More often than we’d like to imagine.)
Anyway, Jesus asks him, “do you want to get well?”, because as the story reveals, he’s been lying there for a long time waiting to be healed. The issue is that there’s a pool that periodically seems to have healing powers when it’s stirred by an angel, but only for the first person who gets into the pool. I know, a bit of a strange situation…but put that aside for now.
The first problem is that the man has “no one” to help him.
This triggered a thought in someone’s head this morning about today’s “Our Daily Bread” reading (ODB is a small daily devotional reading booklet that we have available…though we’re out of them right now!). The devotional was a short reflection on Psalm 72:12,
For he delivers the needy when they call,
the poor and those who have no helper.
He helps those who have no helper. This is most certainly what Jesus does for this man, not through the magical waters, but by Jesus himself being the healing help in-person. And this is what Jesus shows about God:
God delivers the needy and poor and those who have no help.
Amen to that, but…
The interesting thing about the Psalm, however, is that it’s actually not directly about God. It is, but only indirectly. It’s actually about the king of Israel. Psalm 72 is a prayer to God for the king of Israel (read it for yourself!), that the king would “judge with righteousness and the poor with justice…defend the cause or the poor…give deliverance to the needy…crush the oppressor…deliver those who have no help” and so on. It’s not that God doesn’t do these things, or that God isn’t like this. In fact, the Psalm ends with an affirmation that “God alone does wondrous things”. The fact is, the Psalm is a prayer for the king of Israel to reflect God’s character, and so to reflect God’s rule – and to be the one through whom God does wondrous things. The king is meant to represent God to the people by ruling in God’s way with God’s priorities on God’s behalf and
be the one through whom God does his wondrous things.
And as much as the king is meant to represent God, the king is also meant to represent us – the best of us. The king, as the leader, is supposed to have a character so unimpeachable, so close to God’s own heart, so reflective of God’s rule and reign – that all of his people are supposed to become like the king – and so become more like God.
On the one hand, this is precisely what no human being – king or otherwise – could ever do until Jesus came along. And on the other hand, this is what Jesus did, which is why he could become king, lead us, show us God’s heart – and show us what we were always meant to be like (see Sunday’s sermon!).
And so, to go back to the beginning: if the king is meant to help those who have no helper, and Jesus helps the man who has “no one” to help him, then that means that
we are to do that too.
God does help “those who have no helper”, and if the king, or Jesus, or Jesus the King, is any indication – sometimes we are meant to be the means of that help.
Sometimes you are meant to be that help.
If we are to follow Jesus, follow our King, we are meant to look at our world around for the people who have no help – and be their helper.
Whether it’s the blind man who has no one to help them get onto the train,
or the grief stricken who has no one to comfort them,
or the lost who has no one to guide them,
or the lonely who has no one the be with them,
or the burdened who has no one to unburden them,
or the resentful who has no one to grant forgiveness,
or the broken who has no one to heal them,
or the in-valid who has no one to validate them,
we are called to follow Jesus our King and so be their helper.
Who can you help today?
Who has God gifted to provide you the opportunity to help, and so to follow Jesus, and so to become more the human you were meant to be? Who, like in the parable of the Good Samaritan, has been put in your path to provide you the opportunity to become a neighbor? As Adam and Eve in the garden were called to be truly human by ruling over God’s creation as little kings and queens by reflecting his rule, how can you be like the King by helping someone who is helper-less?
In a world where so often, our kings and leaders simply are out to help themselves, may we be a community that leads by helping others, and so follows Jesus, and so reflects God’s rule and reign and Kingdom, and so validates the in-valid, and so humanizes the dehumanized, and so becomes more truly human ourselves.