Atom“The Wholeness Question: ‘Do you want to be made well?’” John 5:1-15
“When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, Do you want to be made well?” John 5:6
“Do you want to be healed?” He could not believe his ears. Of course he wanted to be healed! For 38 years he had wanted to be healed! For 38 years he had been unable to move like other boys and men his age…unable to run and play and later to work and care for a family. For 38 years he had prayed that God might deliver him from the palsied limbs that were too weak to support his body. He had even come to this place – to the pool of Beth-zatha – for most of those 38 years in the hopes that the magic of its waters might heal him…that the spirit of the angel that stirred the waters might heal him and he could be like the others – strong and capable and whole.
The problem had been that there were a lot of other people waiting for the healing, too, and for some reason only one received the healing when the waters bubbled. He was never quite quick enough to be the first one into the water. Someone was always there first. Even with the help of friends, his legs were so shrunken and weak that he could never get there before the others. And after a few years those friends became frustrated and had stopped coming with him, and he was left to his own devices, mostly to watch and wish. But he came anyway, because here at least he was known. Here at least there were others like him that were wounded and sick. And he came because the pool was near the gate that led from the Mount of Olives to the East and up into the city to the temple and there were always people passing by, and people passing by meant coins and bread thrown his way – enough for him to survive. Some of the passersby had gotten to know him pretty well over the years and sympathized with his weakness; they stopped to visit for a few moments and made sure to bring an extra handful of figs or a sweet cake from the market to lay on his mat as they made their way out of the city. So he kept coming to the pool because even though he never could get to the healing waters, it was just how he lived – how he survived.
“Do you want to be healed?” Jesus asked. Jesus was in the city for the festival…there with the crowds who had come to give thanks for God’s mercy and provision and to join in a week of worship on and around the temple mount. He had spotted the man by the pool as he had paused to rest a bit in the midday heat. It was cool there in the shade of the columns that stood like sentinels over the water, a good place for a little refreshment and many others also stopped to rest.
“Oh, him,” they had said when Jesus asked a group near him about the lonesome man laying on his mat near the water. “He’s been coming here as long as I can remember, even when I was a teen. He drags himself here on that pallet and stays the whole day. I think someone comes to get him in the evening, but I’m not sure.” “I’ve never see anyone with him,” said another.
Without another word, Jesus stood and made his way through the crowd to the edge of the pool and the column where the lame man lay. Kneeling down beside him, he put his hand gently on his shoulder. The man raised his eyes to meet those looking so intently into his own. “Do you want to be healed?”
Who of us would not want to be healed, to be whole, to be like others, to be all that we were created to be? We wouldn’t even have to think about it, would we? Yet we all know of those given the chance to be healed who refuse the help - or those who, no matter how often they get help, give up and quit their medicine or therapy and go back to being sick. Because sometimes being sick seems easier than getting better. And we know that we have the same temptation – to get so used to our own particular sickness or failing – that we can’t imagine what it would really be like to be whole…to be different…so we hesitate. I imagine this man hesitating for just an instant at Jesus’ offer. After 38 years he had gotten used to the way things were…he knew how to survive with his sickness, to get along…he wasn’t sure he knew how to be whole.
“Do you want to be healed?” Jesus asks us as we gather this morning. Whatever our ailment, whatever it is that we know makes us less than whole – in our bodies, in our spirits, in our relationships, in our marriages, in our faithfulness to the God who loves us and leads us. “Do you want to be healed?” Of course we do. But then again we may not be sure. The sickness we know. The healing is yet a mystery.
Psychologists can tell us of people who are ill for no other reason than unconsciously they want to be. There are actually some people who, as they say, are “enjoying poor health.” Their illness serves some purpose. In their book “Getting Well Again,” Carl Simonton and Stephanie Matthews-Simonton, (p.107), one an oncologist and the other a psychologist, tell us:
“Illness includes much pain and anguish, of course, but it also solves problems in people’s lives. It serves as a ‘permission giver’ allowing people to engage in behavior that they would not normally engage in if they were well…they get things [like] increased love and attention, time away from work, reduced responsibility, lessened demands, and so on.”
Of course, we don’t want to think that everyone is unconsciously making themselves sick. But it may happen even to us. In the morning before some engagement we do not want to attend we wake up with a headache or a cold. Our unconscious produces the condition to avoid the unpleasantness. Illness can be escape. Illness can make us the center of attention. Illness can give us permission to be unusually grouchy or hard to live with.
“Do you want to be healed?” Jesus said, looking into his eyes. “I do,” said the man, “but there is no one to help me into the pool.”
Ah, first there is the fear of change that may hold us back from healing, and then there is the temptation to self-pity. “There is no one to help me.” One reason that self-pity can be so seductive is that it allows us to see ourselves not as persons who are at fault, but rather as the recipients of undeserved misfortune. Everybody else is to blame for our problems; we are not.
During one of the periodic times of recession a few years ago, Dr. Donald Lunde, a psychiatrist at Stanford University, wrote a book titled “Murder and Madness.” In it he analyzed the effect that recent recessions seemed to have on people. In former times, in the Great Depression, the murder rate went down and the suicide rate went up. In more recent times, however, precisely the opposite is the case. Dr. Lunde asked why this is so, and came to the conclusion that today, modern Americans do not blame themselves for their misfortunes. They blame “the System.” And so they lash out at others, instead of themselves. During the Great Depression of the 1930’s people blamed themselves, and jumped out of office windows. Today people blame the system and go on murderous rampages against their families or their neighbors, or even complete strangers. We need only think of recent school shootings or the 911 tragedy and this begins to make sense. It points to the fact that self-pity can be a destructive force in anyone’s life.
“Do you want to be healed?” says Jesus to the man. “Then take up your mat and walk. Is there is no one to help you into the pool? No matter. I am here. Trust me. Stand.” And suddenly there was something happening in his body, some new strength that he had never felt before and he curled his legs under him and he pressed his hands down against the ground and he stood. And he walked – at the invitation of Jesus…Jesus, who makes the same invitation to us: “Do you want to be healed?” Is there no one to help you? No matter. I am here. Take up your mat and walk.”
My Aunt Donna heard the invitation of Jesus after being ill for so many years – perhaps not ill in the way you might think, but after twenty years ill in the same destructive marriage. Try as hard as she might to love Jesus and to love my uncle, he beat her down again and again, if not with fists, with words. Their life was chaos. Uncle Gene was hurtful. He threatened. He threatened to take her life and his own. She prayed. She waited for the waters to be stirred and marriage to be healed. And one day she heard Jesus say, “Do you want to be healed?” She did, but she didn’t. Her marriage was all she knew, bad as it was. She was afraid. But she heard Jesus say again, “Trust me. Stand up.” And so she did…out of that illness. One step at a time. One week at a time. One year at a time…with Jesus.
It is the promise of wholeness, of healing. And it comes after all other alternatives have been exhausted and our own strength is not enough and the help of friends is not enough and we have recognized our illness for what it is and recognized that on our own we cannot beat it, and take the hand of Jesus, the invitation of Jesus to walk one day at a time in wholeness.
If what I describe sounds a bit like the twelve step journey of any person with addictions, it is…but it fit as I read this story of Jesus and had visions of former parishioners – those wanting to be well, but also not sure that it was possible. I remembered one addicted to pain-killers, too many friends addicted to alcohol, and a few that I know, probably many I didn’t know addicted to pornography. I remember the visits and the brokenness in their lives and their families and the prayers and the question of wholeness that they heard: “Do you want to be healed?” And when they said, “There is no one left to help me and I cannot help myself,” they finally heard Jesus saying. “I am here. I will help you. Take up your mat – take up your life again – and walk.” And they did. One step at a time. One day at a time. With Jesus. To be sure it wasn’t always easy. Those who have been there know. Sometimes after being healed you stumble and you need hear Jesus tell you again, “I am still here.”
Which, I have to believe may be the reason Jesus sought the man in this story a second time. When he had been challenged regarding by the leaders about his healing, when he may have begun to question and to doubt the truth of what had happened, Jesus found him and reminded him: “Do not fall back again deeper into your sin and despair. I am still here. Walk.”
Friends, it is this Jesus who seeks us again this morning as we gather around his word, this Jesus who says to us – whatever our ailment and whatever our need might be – “Do you want to be healed? Are you ready to leave behind the familiar illness that claims you, for the new life that is yet mystery, but is also freedom and life? Is there no one left to help you into the pool? No matter. I am. I will help you. Take up your mat – take up your life again. And walk.”
I am not sure how or where this word of Jesus speaks to your life this morning – but it speaks in this way to me. It is the gospel, the good news of our Lord…thanks be to God. Let’s pray…
Again Lord you offer us healing, again Lord you stretch out your hand to lift us to wholeness. Help us receive the healing offered…to not be afraid or in despair… but to believe. Help us Lord to be made well and walk with you. We pray in your precious, yet powerful name, the name of Jesus. Amen.
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