No One Cares
James dragged his tired feet up the dusty path. His back ached from picking rocks out of the field all day. “It’s no fun here, without Ben,” he muttered to himself. “No one cares how I feel.”
“Hard work keeps a man from fretting,” Uncle Simon had told him that morning. But each clinkity-clank down the ravine had only reminded James of how lonely he felt since the cousins had left. Ben and Andy had been his best friends.
“If it was safer to go up to Galilee, why didn’t they take me along?” James wondered, as he watched Uncle unyoke the oxen beside the old stone house. Since Papa and other believers had been put in prison a year ago, many families had been leaving Jerusalem. Now Aunt Martha and the cousins had gone to stay with her husband’s family in Cana. Why did James have to be the one to stay behind with old Uncle Simon?
James kicked open the door and stepped into the dark house. It seemed empty without motherly Aunt Martha. Was it only last summer that she had brought them all out to the village to live with Uncle? James looked at the cold hearth and suddenly felt very hungry. He wouldn’t have minded Joanna’s bossing now. At least she was a good cook.
Uncle removed the shade cloth from his gray head and began to build up a fire. “Better get us some water, boy,” he said.
James frowned. Hauling water was girls’ work! But he picked up the water jug without a word. Uncle didn’t tolerate complaining. “Be glad you have muscle to do it,” he would say. He was too old to care how James felt to be the only boy at the village well. “I wish Joanna were still here!” James kicked a pebble and sent a flock of pigeons fluttering to the roof. Their mournful cooing matched the self-pity in his heart.
The summer night was closing in around them as the old man and the boy climbed to the roof that evening. James spread his sleeping mat in the corner that he had shared with Ben and Andy. “Mind if I join you on this side?” Uncle asked. “It’s kind of lonely with the just the two of us, isn’t it?” James didn’t answer, but he swung his legs over to make room.
The old man stretched out with a long sigh. “Funny how good it feels to lie down when you’ve been working hard,” he said. A whispery laugh came from his throat. “After thirty-eight years on a bed, I’d never have thought so.”
James turned over and shut his eyes. He had heard how Uncle was healed by Jesus many times. Tonight he wanted to be left alone. Or did he? Thoughts of the cousins, his old life in the city, of Papa preaching in the market filled his mind. A sob caught in his throat. Why did they have to take Papa away? James didn’t know he was crying until he felt Uncle’s hand on his shoulder.
“Something bothering you, son?” Uncle’s strong arm pulled him close and James felt his rough beard against his wet cheek. He remembered sitting on Papa’s knee when he was small. Good, kind Papa!
“Could you tell me a story, Uncle?” James whispered. “Papa always told me stories before bed.”
“Feeling lonely, eh?” Uncle was silent for a moment. “I know how it is to be left behind. You think no one cares. I well remember the day when my neighbors brought me to the pool…”
“This is your best chance, Simon,” they said. “If you believe in miracles, they say that an angel sometimes comes to stir the water and the first one in the pool gets cured.” With well-wishes they left me behind.
Since my accident I had often been left behind. As a boy I had been the village ringleader in any mischief done, to the despair of my parents. One night I got into a drunken fight with the merchant’s son over a bracelet I had stolen. I woke up in the street, unable to move. Everyone had left me.
When the merchant found that I was crippled, he took pity on me and hauled me home. Poor Mother! She tried to make me comfortable, but I only complained and cursed. My father and older brother would hardly speak to me. It seemed they were all glad to see me punished for my evil deeds. Even my old chums abandoned me.
Lying on a mat, day after day, I watched my muscles and hopes of a normal life shrivel up before my eyes. But there was nothing that could be done. The weeks passed into months and years. No one cares what has become of me, I thought bitterly. They all go on with their lives, while I must lie here in pain.
It wasn’t until my father’s death that I began to realize that I was wasting my life. “Son, you have suffered much for your sins,” Father told me before he died. “But remember, God is just.” I had never thought much about God. Instead of confessing my own bad attitude, I had blamed others. But it had only made me miserable. Did the Lord God notice me? Had He crippled me as punishment for my rebellion?
Mother often sang Psalms of God’s glory and power, and now I began to listen. My hard heart softened as I realized how unfair I had been. It was my bitterness and self-pity that had separated me from all that was good. I began to pray that God would be merciful and give me another chance.
It was about that time that we heard about the pool of Bethesda. “You must go there, Simon. I believe God will heal you,” Mother said. My older brother (your grandfather) arranged for me to be moved to the pool and provided for. With high hopes I told Mother, “It will not be long before I come walking home!” I did not know that I would never see her again.
Life at the pool wasn’t all I dreamed it would be. I soon was longing for my mother’s gentle touch and kind words. Funny, isn’t it, how we don’t really appreciate the good things in life until we have to go without them? Instead of sweet songs, the air was filled with moans, complaints, and nasty smells. Those who brought us food never cared to stick around. When would the day of my healing come? I wondered.
I was dozing behind a pillar when I heard the cry, “The angel is here!” In the mad scramble I was kicked and stepped on. No one cared about a paralyzed man like me. “I am healed!” I heard someone shout. The terrible news sunk in. I wouldn’t be going home.
And so the years passed while my hopes withered up like dry grass. Once Ananias, a young man with a twisted leg, befriended me. “Cheer up, old uncle,” he would say. “When the water is stirred next, we’ll be the first ones in!” I began to believe that I would have a chance after all. But Ananias was no where to be seen the day that the angel came next. He didn’t appear after the excitement settled down either, and someone told me that they had seen him leave the pool with his friends. Again I was left friendless and forsaken.
Those were dark days for me. I was sure that no one really cared if I lived or died. The Psalms my mother had sung were my only comfort. “Be merciful unto me, O Lord,” I often prayed. But would God Almighty listen to a worthless cripple like me? I felt so hopeless and alone, and began to believe that my sins had cut me off forever. But that was before I met the Master.
It was the feast of the Passover and, as usual, Jerusalem was crowded. I didn’t pay much attention when a group of men passed along my porch one morning, except to hope that they wouldn’t step on me. So I was grateful to see one of them stop beside my bed and look down kindly. “How long have you been in this condition?” he asked.
“It has been thirty-eight years now,” I replied, dully.
“Do you want to be made whole?” he asked.
Beneath the weary pain and despair, the old longing flickered up like a spark in the darkness. A normal life? That was why I had come to this miserable place so many years ago. But it had been of no use. “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred,” I explained. “But while I am coming, another gets in before me.”
It was the sad tale of my life. Always left behind, with no one to care. But he didn’t shake his head or turn away. For a long moment the man looked at me, and I saw a love and power that I had never known.
“Rise, take up your bed, and walk around,” he said, and it seemed that the very words lifted me off my feet like a strong arm.
In a daze I looked down at my bed by the side of the pool. Was I dreaming? My hands reached down and rolled up the old mat. I found myself walking away from the porches crowded with suffering bodies, up the steps and onto the city street. Walking. I was well!
I was standing in the sunlight blinking when I heard a shout. A purple-robed scribe came up to me with an angry look on his face. “It is the sabbath day,” he said sternly. “It is against the law for you to carry your bed.”
My bed? Suddenly I realized that it was tucked under my arm. “The man that-that made me whole,” I said, stuttering in my excitement, “that man was the one who told me to take up my bed and walk.”
In a moment I was pressed with questions. “Who? Where is this man?” I didn’t know. He was no longer beside the pool, and in the milling crowds I could see no familiar face. The scribe left me with a parting warning, “Beware of that madman, for he breaks the law!”
My mind was spinning. After so many years of bitter loneliness and pain, here I was standing, whole and strong! Could it be possible that I had been healed by a madman? I set down my bed and sat on it. I hadn’t meant to break any laws. Was the Lord angry with me for obeying the man at the pool?
Suddenly I saw your papa coming through the crowd with a basket off food for my dinner. He was turning down the path toward the pool when I called to him. He stared at me in amazement. “Uncle, is that you? How did you get up here on the street?”
With a broad smile I stood up. “My nephew, I am well! You need not go to the pool any longer.” My heart was filled with joy as I realized that the Lord had indeed given me another chance. “Will you go up to the temple with me?” I asked him. “I want to give an offering of thanksgiving to God!”
It was in the treasury that I felt a hand on my arm. I looked up to see the strong, kind face of my healer. “Behold, you are made whole,” he said with a smile. The warm grip on my shoulder sent a tingle through me. Then his eyes grew tender and serious. “Sin no more,” he told me, “lest something worse happen to you.”
I didn’t know what to say. Why had this stranger taken such interest in me, a worthless old man? Why did he care? “Jesus, Master!” someone called out, and I watched as he was surrounded by the milling crowd.
“Who is this Jesus?” I wondered as I turned away. “Is he a madman, or the Master as this person has said?” When I found the scribes’ corner a few minutes later, they were loud in their opinion against him. But many others had good things to say. Your papa was eager to tell me what he knew of Jesus’ teachings and power.
“He goes about everywhere doing good,” he told me. “He teaches us that God is our Father and that we must love others and forgive those that hurt us.”
My heart was stirred the more I listened. Love and forgiveness? Surely that is what I had been longing for. And here was someone who had cared when no one else did. Someone who saw beneath the surface to the hurt inside. If God had given this Jesus power to heal me, shouldn’t I trust and obey him?
I thought much about what he had told me in the treasury. “Sin no more, lest something worse happen to you.” I had been set free from a life of lonely helplessness. What could be worse than that? But there was something darker and more bitter than being a cripple, I realized. It is the bitterness of sin inside us. Jesus had seen the guilt and darkness that bound my soul, and He had come to set me free.
Yes, my boy, that is how great God’s love is. He cared about me when I thought I was forsaken. Cared enough to send His Son to come looking for me!
Jesus is now my Master and Friend, James. I can never think of troubles when I remember how good He’s been to me. Jesus was the one that gave these old muscles their strength, so the rest of my days I’m using them to please Him.
The chirping of crickets filled the night air as Uncle finished speaking.
“Papa said that Jesus held me on his lap when I was a baby,” James said, sleepily.
“Yes, your Papa wanted Jesus to bless you,” Uncle agreed. “The Master was always glad to take time for the children.”
James thought of big, kind Papa carrying him to Jesus. “Was Jesus strong?” James asked.
“Yes, the Lord Jesus is strong,” Uncle said with a laugh. “Even death could not hold Him! When He returned to the Father in heaven, He said that all power on earth and heaven was given to Him, and He promised to be with us always.”
James thought for a moment. “Can He be with Papa in prison and us here, too?”
“Yes,” Uncle said, as he tucked James’ cloak around him. “Jesus is the power of God to all of us who believe, wherever we are.” James snuggled down on his mat, but in the sleepy darkness he thought he heard Uncle’s voice murmur, “Yes, I believe it is the lonely and forsaken that the Master wants to save most of all.”
