Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.

Last night I was enjoying a bit of Scripture reading. I wasn't doing it to learn anything or to study anything but simply to soak up a bit of the Lord's word. Lately my chosen Scriptures are the book of John. I don't know why I have chosen that book, I just felt the need to read a bit in it.

And so there I sat. Slowly reading my way through chapter five when I came to a stop. Christ had gone to the pool that the angel would sometimes stir up the water in Bethesda and He had encountered there a man who Scripture says had been diseased ''thirty and eight years'' (1599 Geneva edition).

There is Scripture was a man that for all intents and purposes seems to have little bearing on anything. We aren't told who he is, what disease he had, or much of anything about him except a brief glimpse into his infirmities-a long disease that left him unable to get himself into the water to benefit from its healing powers. Then along comes Christ and after just a brief conversation with this man He heals him of whatever disease plagued him.

But it was the next part that made me stop and think. A very short comment in a lot of Scripture.

...Jesus...said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee. John 5:14

And that brought me to the end of my Scripture reading for a bit. I found myself contemplating on that single verse.

Here Christ has healed a man of a physical disease and he tells him...sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee. My mind just got stuck on that. For a time I set my Bible aside so I could think on that and even later, when I read a bit more Scripture, I still found myself thinking of that verse. In fact I thought of it even after I went to bed. It was still playing on my mind until I fell asleep and it was there again this morning when I awoke.

In this earthly life there is little we humans consider worse than physical infirmities. Our own or our dearest loved ones illnesses or injuries have the ability to grab hold of us like little else does. I once knew someone that would lie in bed over the mildest cold and wail about how he was dying. This person was not a small child but a grown man. A grown man that made everyone around roll their eyes and leave the house to escape his dramatic wails. I've known others that pushed right through an illness never seeming to slow down.

We all respond to our own illnesses in different ways. If those illnesses should be diseases instead they have an even greater impact on us. We may do little more than take note of a strangers infirmity but let that infirmity befall us or our loved ones and it becomes a different story. Even when we sympathize greatly to that stranger, it is still a much bigger issue when those infirmities hit close to home.

But...

There Christ was, having healed a man of a disease that plagued him 38 years. A disease that took such a toll on him that it sent him to a pool known for miracle healings. It had him attempting to gain healing time and again, it would seem from his statement, '...I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me." And what does Christ do? He heals him, yes, but he tells him, 'sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.'

Several years ago I wrote a post titled Spiritual Prisoners. I haven't read that post in years even though it is one of the few things I have written that I actually have in a physical copy, in the form of a printed book. I should reread it just to reaquaint myself with what I wrote. At the time it was one of the hardest things I ever wrote. I struggled through it, not because the writing of it was hard but because I was learning as I went and it was a very big time of learning for me.

In that learning (and writing), I remember writing of how the Lord is not interested in the physical but in the Spiritual. He came not to save man from physical difficulties or trials but to save him from Spiritual death.

And so there I was, reading the book of John and I got stuck on verse 14. Here Christ has performed probably the greatest miracle in this man's life. With nothing more than an order to arise and 'take up your bed'. Poof. Just like that this poor man, diseased with who knows what for 38 years was able to do something he probably considered impossible. But Christ pays that part little attention. It isn't this wonderful physical healing that Christ shows the least attention to, a physical healing that probably meant the world to that poor diseased man. Instead Christ tells him to 'sin no more' and then he gives him a dire warning...'lest a worse thing come unto thee'.

I have to wonder, and Scripture doesn't say, how much this diseased man, now healed, understood about spiritual things. Did he know anything of them? Did he understand to what Christ was referring? Assuming that Christ was referring to the spiritual.

I can only imagine that after being diseased for 38 years that poor man might have thought there was little 'worse' that could come his way. What would be worse? Death? Sometimes death is seen as an improvement on one's physical condition. We aren't told if this diseased man suffered with pain or other debilitating maladies. We aren't told how bad his disease was, only that it lasted 38 years. That's a LONG time for a disease to linger. Whatever this poor man had, it was bad enough to send him searching for a cure. And once he got it Christ told him, 'sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.'

My thoughts go two directions here. First, if I were told such a thing my mind would automatically jump to the implied statement and I would wonder...was I diseased because of some sin I committed? And if so...what sin was it that had me punished so severely that I suffered through this disease for 38 years? That's the nature of the human mind. At least it's the nature of my human mind. From there my mind would jump to a second thing, I would begin to wonder just what 'worse' thing Christ is referring to.

I know I would think these things because those are the things I thought after reading that verse last night. They are the things I am still thinking this morning. I can only assume that the 'worse' Christ referred to was spiritual and not physical but I really don't know. Maybe the answer is deeper in Scripture, something I have not yet studied on or something I have not yet put two and two together on. Whatever it is, it isn't my intention to study this verse deeper to make anything more out of it than what is here before me and what my mind got stuck on. It isn't my intention to teach anyone anything or even for myself to learn anything.

I did not sit down with my Bible last night because I wanted to study it or to learn something. I sat down with it because I wished to soak in it, to simply enjoy it and absorb whatever of it the Lord saw fit to let sink in. It was comfort reading. It was reading for entertainment. It was...just reading for no reason other than I wanted to read my Lord's word.

And read I did. Only I didn't get to read very much because I found myself soaking not in many verses but in one. I found myself pondering not the entire context of a chapter or even a whole book but a single verse.

'sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.'