8 March 2016 - after thirty-eight years

[ Today's Readings ]

Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate
a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes.
In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled.
One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.

Jesus, we can see the pool that contains the healing waters. Yet we cannot get there. We get up to get when the waters start moving but someone else is always the person who receives the healing. After thirty-eight years it is hard to even want healing anymore. The hope is just too risky at this point.

When Jesus saw him lying there
and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him,
“Do you want to be well?”

Jesus, you ask us if we want to be well. This is different from before. Now you are the one asking. We're still fixated on the pool...

The sick man answered him,
“Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool
when the water is stirred up;
while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.”

...but you shift the focus...

Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.”
Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.

You yourself are what we desire. There is no pool of water that can substitute. There is no formula that can fix us. There is no right answer apart from you. You yourself, and not the pool of Bethesda, are the living water which gives life to all that it touches.

Wherever the river flows,
every sort of living creature that can multiply shall live,
and there shall be abundant fish,
for wherever this water comes the sea shall be made fresh.

It is because of you that we don't fear if the earth is shaken and the mountains plunge into the depths of the sea. It is you yourself who are our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in distress.

We do need healing, LORD. And we're on the verge of giving up after so long without it.

Do you want to be well?

Why now? Why thirty-eight years of pain first? How can this be?

Do you want to be well?

But this is different isn't it? It is you Jesus. You are asking. Grant us to hope in you where all other hope has failed.

Do you want to be well?

Yes, LORD. We have tarried in sickness and pain and darkness for too long. We want to be healed.

Rise, take up your mat, and walk.

Yes, LORD. We rise in the power of your Spirit and stand fast by the strength you give.

If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit (see Galatians 5:25).

We don't even fully understand all at once. We don't have to because it is about you more than it is about us. You stick with us and continue to reveal yourself to us until we get it.

“Who is the man who told you, ‘Take it up and walk’?”
The man who was healed did not know who it was,
for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there.
After this Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him,
“Look, you are well; do not sin any more,
so that nothing worse may happen to you.”
The man went and told the Jews
that Jesus was the one who had made him well.

This is the song that came to mind...