Do you want to be made well?

^{Sermon given at Sydenstricker UMC on 8/6/17}

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^NRS John 5:1 After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ² Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. ³ In these lay many invalids-- blind, lame, and paralyzed. ^{4  5} One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. ⁶ 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?" ⁷ The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me." ⁸ Jesus said to him, "Stand up, take your mat and walk." ⁹ At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

Legend has it that in Jesus day there was a pool that sat at one of the gates where you would enter into Jerusalem. As the story goes those who were sick and injured would surround the pool waiting for a ripple to appear within the waters of the pool. Their belief was that when a ripple appeared, an angel of God had touched the water and those who entered at that moment would be healed. God’s presence was felt greatly in those days and this story came to be believed by those who lived at that time. But the interesting thing about this story to me is that the man had been ill for thirty-eight years. I wonder how many of those years he lay beside the waters of the pool praying to be healed. Jesus comes upon him and asks him, “Do you want to be made well?” The first response is expected I guess, but sir, it’s not my fault, someone always gets in ahead of me. It wasn’t an answer to the question that was asked, mind you. So Jesus ignores the response if you will and then tells him, get up and walk. Now part of the telling of this story has to do with the day that it happened but that is another sermon for another day. Jesus calls the man to stand up and walk. 

This is an interesting story of the miracle of Jesus and another one of the 40 miracle stories in the bible, 31 of which are healing stories. When Jesus healed someone in the bible, he clearly did so with two intents, that the person would be physically healed and two that there would be the opportunity for restoration into the family and society of the person. In this case, there also appears to be a third reason that appears in several of the healing services, to make a point of God’s power and God’s rule in the world of human rules and prohibitions. There are two parts to this story today, the healing of the wounded and the proclamation of God’s Kingdom. But I have a question for you today, are you ready to be well?

I visited with an older woman who was confined to her wheelchair and had lost her mobility. We provided tapes of the worship service every week and brought communion once a month to her there in her home and I brought communion at least once a quarter. I am so thankful for the members of the church who chose to take on the ministry of visitation and communion each week. But I had the pleasure of being there with her on that day and we had a wonderful discussion.

In the course of talking to her I noticed that she winced every time that she moved. So I asked her about it. She tried to shrug it off as nothing and I asked her if she had been to see a doctor. She told me no, that she had faith in Jesus to heal her. Well I had to take a moment. You see, I have great faith in what Jesus can do, but I wondered if she had faith in the right kind of things. So I asked her again whether she intended to see a doctor and she told me no, that Jesus would heal her. It was at that moment that I knew we needed to have a serious discussion about faith. I shared with her the creation story and the story of Noah and the story of Moses and the exodus. She told me she knew all of those things, what did they have to do with her. I asked her if she believed that God had reconciled the world through Noah and healed the oppression of the Hebrew people through Moses. She told me she most assuredly did with her voice rising. I could read her mind. It said something like, “what does this young man think that he is going to tell me about God that I don’t already know and what does it have to do with my condition.” In a way, sort of like the response that the man gave Jesus when Jesus asked him the question about healing. So then in a soft voice I asked her, if you believe that God called Noah to save the world and called Moses to lead the people out of exile, then why don’t you believe that he called the doctors to make you well? Do you want to get well?

There is another story of a woman who had reached a point in her life where it was difficult to walk, spending most of her days in the bed, without the energy to move. The doctors told her that only half of her heart was working. That in the course of her diseases which included cancer and diabetes, much of her body had shut down and she faced a grave decision. As the family gathered outside her room much discussion took place about what the right thing was to do. The doctors informed the family that she needed to have an operation to clear the blockage in the good side of the heart. But he warned the family that there was a 60% chance that she would not survive the operation. The family talked it over with each other and then with the woman and her answer was to go ahead with the operation. “If this is what living the rest of my life is like, then I do not want to continue. I want to put my faith in Jesus. Let them operate.” The family began to argue with one another and the one son continued to struggle with them over the fact that this was not their decision to make but hers. In the end the operation on Mom was successful and because of it she lived another ten years. Her faith in Jesus was that it was in his hands and he had chosen to work through the efforts of the doctors.

Two different stories and two women of faith who chose to believe two different versions of Christ healing power in the world. What do you believe? Do you want to be made well?

In this story the man is waiting by the pool that is reported to have healing properties. In this story the oral tradition handed down tells us that God would look favorably upon the water, and angel would stir it and the first to get into the pool would be made well. An interesting selection system that doesn’t sound much like the God I know. But here is this man who has been ill for thirty-eight years. And Jesus asked him a simple question, “do you want to made well?” The man begins to answer him but never directly says yes. Instead he offers excuses in why he has not been healed. Jesus says to him, pick up your mat and walk. The power of healing is always God’s to give.

Do you want to get well? Isn’t that the question we all ask at times of trouble and illness? Isn’t that the prayer that is on every breath when a loved one is struggling? But what kind of faith would allow us to embrace it and acknowledge it? What does well mean? I guess one of the fundamental questions that we would need to answer is the last one, what does it mean to be well? I believe when Jesus asked that question He intended that we would respond with a desire to be in a better relationship with God and community. I have said before over and over that Jesus heals not to bring physical healing, though that is the blessing side effect, but to bring restoration of relationship with God and community. What would our world look like if we restored relationship in the way that God intended, love first, love for God and then love for neighbor.

We have forgotten who God is. In the 60’s there was a popular expression that said “God is dead”. I think there may be some who remember that. It wasn’t that God was dead; it was that our sense of who we are and whose we are was gone. We have lost our way in the 60’s and forty years later we still haven’t figured out a lot about life and health and wellness. The psychiatric boom of the 80’s and 90’s is now a multibillion dollar business in the world. The significance of the story today is that God and God alone decides the rules. When we humans get involved, we mess it up. And it is God who provides the healing, but only when we are ready. I think we have lost our way. We have forgotten the healing power of the Word. We have forgotten the promises of God who is always active in restoring relationships and bringing forgiveness into our lives. When we look to the stories of the Old testament, we see the power of God in the world restoring and shaping and directing. In the New Testament we have continuing stories of God working in the world in the body of Jesus and then in the spirit after Pentecost. What is truly interesting to me is how we view healing and wellness in our world. We focus on the physical restoration but we should always focus on the relationship restoration.

I want to leave you with a thought from Flora Wuellner's book, Forgiveness the Passionate Journey. “We stay in our self-made hell as long as we choose, as long as we ignore God’s hand stretched out to help us. One of the books written by the Christian author C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, describes in fictional form how the souls in hell may take a bus to heaven whenever they choose. The spirits of the blessed meet them and plead with them to stay in heaven, but most of those from hell choose to return to their self-made hell because they are more comfortable in their glumness, self-pity, resentments, and because they are frightened at the bigness and solid realness of heaven and the painful growth required to become real and full of light.” Do you want to be made well? Then get up, pick up your mat of human rules and lies and deceit, and follow the healer. God is calling, will you listen?