Who amongst us does not want to get well in at least in some part of living? It doesn’t need to be deadly cancer; it can be getting well from your headache and habitual anxiety. It can be being well in your study or at your new job. It can be being well with your spouse or friend; disagreeing gracefully. Jesus asks a paralytic of thirty-eight years … almost four decades … a perplexing question: “Do you want to be well?”.
I can hardly describe the feeling I felt when I put myself in that man’s situation. I have been paralyzed for four decades and painfully know that no one is out there to help me get into the pool (think of hospital bills). I had given up by the first decade of my illness. I languish with all “ill, blind, lame, and crippled” as my lifestyle and occasionally see one of us reach the pool and get well. I envy the one healed but I know I will not get it. I imagined all that thinking, feeling, and talking within me.
Here is story and please get something you want to be well and tell Jesus why you can’t get well. He will tell you to get up and pick up your mat and move on. Please enjoy the story and my thinking in brackets.
There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
(Feasts and celebrations show our differences)
Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes.
(Hospitals and medical insurances show our differences)
In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled.
(We have a longer list of ailments mostly psychological and spiritual)
One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
(Wow, no time is too long … Hope for being well till your last breath)
When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been ill for a long time …
(Please appreciate Jesus’ compassion and sensitivity)
he said to him, “Do you want to be well?”
(Jesus focuses on the most important talk … healing rather than sin)
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.”
(It has always been competitive … you may never get friendly help)
Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.”
(Let Jesus be that friend … when there is none)
Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.
(Spirituality is about action … getting well and moving on.
God, our Father:
We too want to be well …
I too want to be well …
But no one can help …
We cannot help ourselves to wellness …
I cannot help myself to wellness …
Please send your beloved Son, the enabler …
the wounded healer …
who keeps healing us …
each one of us by his own wounds …
Grant our brothers and sisters …
who keep suffering for decades …
the hope of healing …
Through Christ, Our Lord.
Amen.
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