One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
Thirty-eight years was a long time to be unwell. It was the same length of time that the Israelites wandered in the desert after leaving Egypt. It seemed altogether too long a time to expect one to maintain hope, desire for something better. Much easier, it would seem, to just try to accept the new normal and to make the best of it. How many of his years his illness had this man spent lying by these pools? No doubt there was originally a hope to benefit from their healing waters. But as year after year went on and he saw others healed he must have gradually come to accept that he himself would never make it to the waters in time.
"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."
What did this man now experience as he sat near this pool, and why did he continue to choose this place to spend his time? Was there much left besides self-pity and perhaps jealousy at the "someone else" who always seemed to beat him to the healing waters?
"Do you want to be well?"
We too have grown accustomed to much that was meant to be temporary, and have allowed ourselves to become defined by our flaws. At first we do often push against our spiritual and physical ailments with an initial burst of enthusiasm but then quickly give up when there are not immediate results. We grumble like Israel in the desert. We complain like this man by the pool. Rather than seeing evidence of God's providence along the way we narrow our focus to dwell on what we do not have. We are preoccupied with what we left behind in Egypt or what others seem to be experiencing around us. We neglect to notice that the constant presence of the supernatural at work means that nothing is as yet hopeless.
"Do you want to be well?"
When Jesus comes to meet us in our sorry state he has to excavate the desire for wholeness from underneath all of the detritus of our attempts to accept our situation and make the best of it. Beneath our despair, our jealousy, and our lack of initiative is still a genuine desire. It remains within us no matter what we say, just as the man being near the pool was proof that he could not entirely shake his desire for wholeness although he lived in the constant sorrow of knowing that on his own he could never attain it. In response to the question of Jesus as whether he wanted to be well he was afraid to even venture an answer, afraid that it would be just one more disappointment.
Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your mat, and walk."
Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.
What the man could not do on his own, the desire he could not even articulate, Jesus read in his heart and granted him. The man couldn't move toward the pool quickly enough for healing, couldn't even verbally move toward Jesus on his own. But his thirty-eight year journey had not been for nothing, and he was no longer alone. The words of Jesus to the man carried more than a merely physical healing. They contained the spiritual antidote to the self-pity and despair that had consumed the man.
Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your mat, and walk."
Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.
The man was not only able to move freely, but was able to take immediate action, no longer meditating on his weakness, but depending on the words of Jesus for strength. Is it possible that we have given up on blessings that Jesus himself does intend to bestow? It may yet be that he intends healing for us from self-pity and despair, making us responsive to the call of love in our lives. The fact that of ourselves we can't find the way to these blessings should not diminish our hope for them. Nor should seeing others receive them and not ourselves. All of this is simply bringing us to the critical threshold that will finally impel us to take Jesus at his word.
So the Jews said to the man who was cured,
"It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat."
The man had to take action. It would not have been enough for him to be healed and continue lying by the pool. The action was a corrective for the deeper spiritual sickness, and it was for this reason that it was entirely appropriate on the Sabbath. We cannot imagine this felt anything like work to man, but rather celebration and joy. He was indeed so preoccupied with the experience that even Jesus slipped away without him knowing.
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."
For a second time Jesus found the man, giving clarity about his identity, and showing the way to continue from the initial blessing down the path of discipleship. Did the man continue to respond to Jesus with prompt obedience? It is unclear. We may hope that in telling the Judeans what happened he was trying to honor Jesus rather than to bring about his persecution. But for us the point is that even great blessings are not meant to be our only experience of Jesus. They are meant to lead to a life of faithful discipleship. They are meant to remove obstacles to the wholeness that Jesus intends for every one of us. But we can truly discover who we are meant to be only by continuing to follow him as his disciples. The promised land is precisely wherever Jesus himself is found. The living waters promised in Ezekiel are precisely those that flow from his Sacred Heart.
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.
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