Inauguration Day


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In*au`gu*ra"tion\, n. [L. inauguratio a beginning: cf. F. inauguration.]

  1. The act of inuagurating, or inducting into office with solemnity; investiture by appropriate ceremonies.

2. The formal beginning or initiation of any movement, course of action, etc.; as, the inauguration of a new system, a new condition, etc.
Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
Near Sheep Gate in Jerusalem was a pool called Bethesda in Hebrew. It had five porches. Under these porches a large number of sick people—people who were blind, lame, or paralyzed—used to lie. One man, who had been sick for 38 years, was lying there. Jesus saw the man lying there and knew that he had been sick for a long time. So Jesus asked the man, “Would you like to get well?” The sick man answered Jesus, “Sir, I don’t have anyone to put me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I’m trying to get there, someone else steps into the pool ahead of me.” Jesus told the man, “Get up, pick up your cot, and walk.” The man immediately became well, picked up his cot, and walked. John 5:2-9 (GW)

The Pool of Bethesda was located on the eastern side of the city near the Fortress of Antonia. The name Bethesda means "house of mercy."
 
The water source was a nearby spring. Recent archaeological discoveries have confirmed the Biblical account, that there were five porches and the fifth one divided the rectangular pool into two separate compartments. Josephus wrote about the Pool of the Sheep-market.

There is a loud cry of discrimination and inequality being heralded throughout our land. There are those who may feel like this crippled man, that there is no one looking out for them, there is no one to give them a hand out, there is no one to help them attain their goals. So here they sit and wait and complain about being discriminated against.
 
Jesus cuts right to the heart of the matter when he asks. "Would you like to get well?" Do you really want your situation to change? Are you really ready for change? Are you willing to take responsibility for change?
 
The man answered that he had no one to help him. There was no one to enable him. There was no compassion being shown him. No one cared or showed mercy. There were others skipping in line and going before him. His answer should have been YES SIR! I want to be healed. Instead he made excuses. Jesus then commanded him to GET UP! PICK UP YOUR BED! and WALK!
 
There is the simple remedy to life’s ills. Get up, pick up, and start to walk!
 
I have listened to crowds of people cry YES WE CAN, YES WE CAN, YES WE CAN and then come running with their hands out. Now I am not the smartest person on this planet but I am having a hard time understanding how you can say YES WE CAN and then turn around in the next breath and cry NO WE CAN’T.
 
We are about to inaugurate a leader who made us cry YES WE CAN but then says NO YOU CAN’T. Our new leader seems to think that the government has the cure, while simultaneously ignoring the huge pool of opportunity sitting right before us. He promises that all can drink from the public pool of funds collected from those who have been healed by the pool’s waters of opportunity, yet he does not offer to lift anyone into the pool to actually be healed.

The crippled man sat by the pool for 38 years. He had seen a whole generation pass before him into the waters while he was continually passed up. For those who have long been imprisoned with this crippling mindset, I can understand their lack of internal strength, to do whatever it takes to obtain their goals and objectives. There are some in our society who have been put down and overlooked for so long that they have accepted their lot and gave up on their goals. They sit by the wayside of life, day in and day out watching others succeed, and lament their inability to achieve. They have lost the inner desire to achieve.

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