"Making Waves by the Healing Pool"

Dr. George Sinclair
Pastor

Acts 16:9-15; Ps. 67; Rev. 21:10, 21:22-22:5; John 14:23-29 or John 5:1-9

May 9, 2010

There was a pool in Jerusalem, northeast of the Temple, known for its healing power.  Sheep were herded there on their way to be sacrificed.  There is some confusion regarding the name of the place: Beth-zatha is the name chosen by NRSV. Other ancient texts read “Bethsaida,” a confusion likely driven by the familiar town in Galilee. Still other ancient manuscripts read “Bethesda,” a name you’ll recognize from the city in Maryland, the site chosen by Franklin Roosevelt for the National Institutes of Health, a city which took its name from the King James Bible.  Bethesda.

Sheep of another kind also gathered at Bethesda—the blind, the lame, the halt. Legend had it that whenever the water there was disturbed, whoever got in first was healed. So they gathered by the dozens at the bubbling spring, perhaps by the hundreds. John says “many” came to Bethesda. The five porticos built by Herod the Great could surely protect “many” from a noon day sun. John directs our attention to one man in particular, a man who had been there for “thirty-eight years.”

Thirty-eight years is a curiously long time, a long time to be sick to be sure, but curiously long to be sick for exactly thirty eight years.  According to Deuteronomy, Israel waited in the wilderness for thirty-eight years.  Coincidence?   With John, you can never be sure.  Maybe the cripple had been waiting by the healing pool for thirty-eight years and the fact was well known.  Or maybe John chose thirty-eight for symbolic reasons—Israel waiting for her Messiah, Israel waiting for a very long time, waiting not for waters stirred by an angel but for the Word of God made flesh. Or maybe both were true: the cripple had been waiting thirty-eight years and John used his terribly long wait symbolically. 

Whatever the case, and it doesn’t really matter. When Jesus saw the man sitting by the pool, “he knew that he had been there for a long time.” How long must you be sick to be sick “for a long time?”  Thirty-eight years would do it.  “Thirty-eight years” constitutes a life-time of sickness, in this instance, a lifetime of paralysis. 

I’ve told my bike riding friends that if I’m ever hit by a car I hope I die; not that I want to be hit by a car or want to die. I just don’t want to be paralyzed.  I don’t think I could take it. Maybe I could, but the thought unnerves me.

By any measure, thirty-eight years is a “long time” to be sick which makes Jesus’ question curious to the point of cruelty:  “Do you want to be made well?”

“Well, gosh, I don’t know, Jesus.  It’s like, well, I’ve been here so long.  I’ve gotten used to things. I know the shepherds.  They toss me a wave, a few coins. ‘Do I want to be made well?’ Nah, I’ve been here for thirty-eight years because I like it here.”  A person can get used to most anything—even being sick “for a long time.” 

Still, I’m puzzled by Jesus, “Do you want to be made well?”  Is desire a pre-condition of wellness?  Must I want wellness to have it?  Was it not obvious that the cripple desired wellness? He’d been by the pool for thirty-eight years.  If that’s not desire, what is?  The sick came to the pool because they wanted to be made well.  They came because the pool offered salvation.  When the water was stirred, whoever got in first was saved.  That was the story. That was the legend.  If I were paralyzed, I would do whatever it took.  And if that meant sitting under Herod’s five porticos waiting for magic water, I’d do that too. Wouldn’t you?  What wouldn’t you do to be made well?

“Do you want to be made well?” 

What kind of question is that?  “Do you want to be made well?”  You can see where the “name it and claim it” folks get their juice.  You’ve got to want salvation.  That’s very American, very god-helps-those-who-help-themselves.  The 17-year-old, this week, who was booted off of American Idol espoused that very wisdom. As he was making his exit the show’s host, Ryan Seacrest, asked the boy, “What will you take from your Idol experience?” 

And the boy said, “You can do anything you want.  But you’ve got to want it.  And you’ve got to be willing to work at it.  That’s what I want every kid in America to know.  You can do anything you want. But you’ve got to be willing to work at it.”

“Do you want to be made well?”

Is salvation a matter of desire? Must we want to be saved in order to be saved?

“Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool . . . and while I’m making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.”

Now I’m wondering, just wondering, how did the cripple get to the pool in the first place?  I mean, did he live there? Did he just hang out under Herod’s porticoes all day long?  Was he there every day, all of the time, for thirty-eight years? Never went home, didn’t have a home? How did he get to the pool to begin with? 

“Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool.” 

Remember the cripple from Mark’s gospel?  That guy had four friends, at least four. Mark implies there were more than four, but four let him down through the roof.  Remember that story? Remarkably similar to John’s story except the man at Bethesda is friendless: “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool.”

How did the other cripples get in the pool? Did they have helpers, stretcher bearers quick on their feet, at the ready? Was that how it worked?  You had to be fast and you had to have friends?  Sounds like a race, a competition—picture a rugby scrum—first in the pool gets the prize.  And it’s not like the man never tried. In thirty-eight years, it sounds like the cripple at least tried to get into the pool, “While I’m making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.”

What’s your excuse?  I’ve got my own.  We all have reasons why we don’t get in the pool. I’d rather not call mine excuses—life situations or contextual variables, maybe—Yes, that’s it or something like that. Anything but plain old excuses. 

What’s your excuse?  What keeps you from being made well?  What’s holding you back from walking with Jesus?  Is it time?  You haven’t enough time: “I’ve been meaning to pray. I’ve been meaning to go to church. I’ve been meaning to give my time, but I just haven’t the time. Something else always gets my time.”

Or it’s not time. Maybe you don’t have friends to lower you in the pool—your friends are elsewhere doing other things. Maybe you don’t have any friends in this church. Or maybe your excuse is the church:  “You know churches.  They’re full of hypocrites. And, my gosh, the worship can be soooo boring.  And that preacher. I’ve been disappointed, disillusioned, disaffected. The church isn’t what it used to be. The church isn’t what it’s supposed to be. The Church. The Church. The Church. Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool.” 

“Do you want to be made well?”

“You see, Jesus, I really want to be a Christian.  I just don’t want to get in the pool with those people.  I really want to be made well, but I’m choosy about who I swim with and when it comes right down to it, I really haven’t the time for lessons. We have a very busy family life. I’m a very busy person, with work and tennis and golf and grandchildren, my grandmother, grandfather, my mother, father. And did I mention—the dog ate my homework?”

“Do you want to be made well?”

“That depends, Jesus?  What do I have to do?”

“Stand up, take your mat and walk.”

Maybe Jesus reserves those words for cripples like us, for people full of excuses. He said the same thing to the guy in Mark—the one with four friends. When they lowered him through the roof and he landed at the feet of Jesus, when that moment of truth came, Jesus said to that cripple, “Stand up.”

Lost in the English translation is the word “arise,” which in Greek is the word for resurrection. “Stand up. Rise.” More commonly, “Get Up.”

Do you want stand up friends? We all want stand up friends.

There’s a wonderful line from the movie Cold Mountain:  “This won’t stand.  The world won’t stand for this.”  You don’t have to know the context for those words to capture your imagination. “The world won’t stand for this.”

What do you stand for? Do your friends know what you stand for?  Do your children know?   Does your spouse know? What do you stand for?

“Stand up take your mat and walk.”

Perhaps this command is unique to bipeds.  We can’t live in the dust, but that’s where people with excuses live. We drag around. That’s how the cripple lived.   Oddly, that was his standpoint—prone, stepped on, walked over, ignored, down and out—the lens through which he saw life. And he lived that way for a lifetime. Cripples can get used to their excuses so much so that excuses begin to sound like reasons, and good ones. But people aren’t meant to live that way.  We can’t live on our bellies.  Oh, babies can.  Babies must crawl before they walk. And we want them to walk. Actually, we want them to “stand.” 

God wants us to stand.  God wants us to get over our excuses and stand. What do you stand for?  What do you stand for in your family, in your business, in retirement, in your leisure, when you’re alone, when you’re with others?  Do you stand for Jesus?  Or is something holding you down?  What’s keeping you from standing up for Jesus? Have you done that?  Have you stood up for Jesus?  You want to be made well—“Stand up, take your mat and walk.”

“At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a Sabbath.”

Just when we thought the story was ending, John complicates it.  “Now that day was a Sabbath.” 

Standing up has consequences.  Yeah, you get saved, but salvation brings consequences.  When you stand up for Jesus, especially after a life time of laying down, there are social consequences.  People see you differently, friends see you differently, family, foes. Everybody sees you differently and they all treat you differently. When you stand for Jesus you become a different person and people notice. When you stand for Jesus, well, frankly, it makes some people mad.  When you stand for Jesus some people don’t understand. They may even question you, “Who told you to take up your mat and walk?” 

I love this part of the story. I love the cripple’s answer, “I don’t know.”  That’s how the cripple answered his accusers. When asked who healed him, the cripple answered: “I don’t know. I don’t know his name.”

John explains that Jesus had “disappeared in the crowd.”  Healing pools are crowded places—you’ve got seekers by the dozens, hundreds perhaps, sheep, shepherds—Bethesda is a real marketplace. Healing pools always are.  Healing pools attract crowds.  Jesus got lost in the crowd that day. Before the cripple learns his name, Jesus slips away.  After thirty-eight years, the cripple is healed, but he doesn’t know the Healer’s Name, not until the Healer “finds him in the temple. Isn’t that curious—Jesus finds the cripple. The cripple doesn’t find Jesus. Jesus finds the cripple. And his finding brings salvation—more than strong legs and straight limbs—Jesus finding brings salvation: “You have been made well!”  The cripple doesn’t find Jesus. Jesus finds him. And when he is found he is saved. But listen closely, being found comes with a warning, “See that nothing worse happens to you.”    

What could be worse than thirty-eight years of paralysis?  There are worse things—the soul which knows it is not right and does nothing—that’s worse. The soul indifferent to its Maker—that’s worse. The soul unable to see beauty—that’s worse. The soul limping with excuses—that’s worse. The soul standing for nothing—that’s worse.  The soul unquenched by forgiveness—that’s worse.  A soul without friends, that’s worse. The soul with no help in the pool—that’s worse. 

“Do you want to be made well?”

“Stand up, take your mat, and walk.”  Amen.