Some of the saddest words I have ever read — and witnessed others say — appear in the Bible near the Bethesda healing Pool near the Sheep Gate into the Temple. Jesus spots a crippled man who has been lying their for 38 years, and Jesus asks him, “Do you want to be made well?” Then we hear the saddest words spoken by the crippled man: The man responds to Jesus,“I have no one to help me…” John 5: 6-7.
Dear friends, consider this: from the very beginning of civilization, shortly after Adam and Eve sin, they give birth to two boys, Cain and Abel. Abel is the shepherd of the family while Cain is the farmer. One day when both brothers make an offering of their first fruits to the Lord, God is pleased with the generosity of Abel, but disappointed with Cain’s stinginess. Cain becomes furious when God calls him out on his stingy offering to God,
and Cain murders his brother Abel. So the Lord catches up with Cain and asks Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” Cain replies, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?”
The reason why any human being ever feels that “I have no one to help me”
is that you and I often believe that we are not the keeper of, nor are we responsible for, our brothers and sisters. We foolishly and selfishly kid ourselves when we imitate Pontius Pilate, the prefect (governor) of Judea, the man who thought he was not Jesus’ keeper, and so he washed his hands of any responsibility to help Jesus. When Pilate decided that he was not responsible for the blood, the unjust death, of Jesus, “he washed his hands” of the whole matter (Matthew 27:24).
All you and I have to do is to look in the mirror and there we will meet someone who has walked away from many people who are suffering and in need of help because they have no one to help them. Our world and our nation is loaded with refugees and immigrants, people of color and women, kids and criminals, homeless and the poor, and sometimes people in our own churches and families who have no one to help them. And we just walk away, wash our hands of them, or just kill them.
If we err in life, my prayer is that we err on the side of generosity. I pray that you and I will never walk past someone who obviously has no one to help them. Let us pray for one another that we err on the side of generosity.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.
From the Bible:
“Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” Philippines 2:4.
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another”John 13:34-35.
“Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered” Proverbs 21:13.
“Let us not grow weary of doing good” Galatians 6:9.
“And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me’” Matthew 25:40.
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