Do you want to be made well?

 

A Sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter

May 22, 2022

The Rev. Robin Teasley

 

 

O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.          The Collect for the Sixth Sunday of Easter

 

 

After Jesus healed the son of the official in Capernaum, there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids-- blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 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?" 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." Jesus said to him, "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.           John 5:1-9

 

 

Anyone who knows me knows that I love the beach, and that is an understatement! My family has been renting a beach house in North Carolina for thirty years. And growing up, we spent every summer vacation at the beach in Virginia. I think salt water is in my blood. The ocean is what connects me to God – it’s beauty and power, always changing and yet somehow changeless, makes God very present to me.

 

Knowing I would be preaching this morning, after being at the beach all of this past week ,my goal had been to write a sermon before I went on vacation, only that did not happen. God had other plans that surpassed my understanding! On Wednesday as I sat with this morning’s Gospel passage, gazing at the ocean from the deck, many pieces of the puzzle that has been my life over the past year began to connect, take shape, and become clearer. 

 

I found myself identifying with the man lying by the pool at Beth-zatha. Jesus had been asking me if I wanted to be made well, only I did not hear him, or maybe I wasn’t listening. I thought I was well, I believed I was doing exactly what God wanted me to do. Turns out I was mistaken. 

 

And as I thought about that, it occurred to me that there are probably times in your lives when you have been mistaken too! Sometimes it’s easy for us to name those times, to admit them, to confess that we are in need of some healing. But I would hazard a guess that throughout our lives God will continue to reveal to me, and to each of you, some more healing that is needed. Right now, there are things that surpass our understanding about God, but as we grow in our relationship with Christ, more clarity will come, and the Spirit will show us places in our lives where we are blind, lame, and paralyzed.

 

Did you notice that the man in the Gospel account doesn’t have a name? He could be any of us. We don’t know what it is that has him lying by the pool, only that he’s been in need of healing for thirty-eight years. Thirty-eight years! That was about the average lifespan for someone in the first century. Hearing that gives me hope that it’s never too late to be healed.

 

The question is, do we want to be made well? 

 

Jesus sees the man lying there and we are not told whether Jesus knows what is wrong with the man, but it’s Jesus, so I am betting he knows everything. And the man does not seem to know who Jesus is, or if he has heard about him it’s pretty clear he does not believe in his healing power. Jesus asks him, “Do you want to be made well?” And the man does not answer the question.

 

The man doesn’t answer the question but instead recites a litany of all the reasons he cannot be healed. He is lying right there by the water of life, the pool of healing water. Just like the women in our reading from Acts who were down by the river when they heard the good news of Jesus Christ from Paul, and just like the river of the water of life that the angel showed John in his vision in our reading from Revelation. (Acts 16:9-15, Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5)

 

Water is everywhere in our readings today, water is holy, water is life-giving. It is Jesus who will lead us to the water.

 

I want to suggest that each of us might have a litany we recite when Jesus is wanting to lead us to the river of the water of life, to the pool of healing water at Beth-zatha, to the river where God’s Word will convict us of truth. Thinking about the man in the Gospel who had many excuses, good excuses, for his inability to get up off his mat, we might find it useful in our own faith journey to consider what is keeping us on our own mats.

 

Life is hard for people. This man really was suffering, reminding us that we shouldn’t ever forget how hard things are for some of us. As Christians we are called to compassion for those who are suffering. And sometimes healing comes, the ultimate healing, when we are in the eternal presence of God.

 

It’s been an unbelievably difficult few years for all of us. Maybe the pandemic has created unwanted circumstances in our lives -financial losses, health problems, spiritual doubts, mental health challenges; things that have made us lame and put us on a metaphorical mat. Maybe the current events in our parish have us feeling paralyzed. Maybe we are blind to God’s deepest desires for our life. 

 

Jesus is asking us, “Do you want to be made well?”

 

Take a moment to notice how you respond to that question right now? Do you want to be made well? Maybe we dismiss the question entirely. Maybe we say we are not sick and have no need of healing. Maybe we list our excuses. Maybe we point to others who are clearly in greater need of healing. 

 

Do you want to be made well? 

 

Do you want to improve your diet? Explore your anger issues? Stop drinking? Restore your marriage?  Do you want to let go of past hurts and resentments? What is it in each of us that God wants to make well?

 

Our personal lives are filled with places that need healing. Faith communities are also filled with places that need healing. When we can recognize that we are, all of us, in need of healing, it is then that the healing can begin. Most of the time healing is not easy or quick or pleasant. It requires, first of all, that we admit our need of healing, that we get up off of our mats of complacency or denial. It requires that we truly listen to God, pray with intention, and work the process toward healing.

 

If we open our lives to God’s presence we will be changed.  Indeed, as Cardinal John Henry Newman once said, “To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.” (An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, Chapter 1, Section 1, Part 7) The healing is ongoing, it never ceases, and it’s never too late.  The man on the mat was open to Jesus and listened to him and responded. That is when the healing began for him.

 

What usually makes us change, sometimes forces us to change, are the changes taking place around us, or within our lives.  The ocean is always changing, the rivers flow, the pools of water are stirred up and we miss our opportunity. Sometimes this looks overwhelming to us, all this change and loss, yet in every change is the power to bring about healing in our lives. The changes and chances of this life bring growth and they deepen our trust in God.

 

Every change, every unexpected obstacle in life, can bring fear or anger or feelings of hopelessness.  Jesus does not change.  He is faithful and has come to bring healing into our lives. That is our Easter hope, that is our amazing, good news - that when we don’t think healing is possible, or don’t even know we are in need of healing, God is in the business of healing. 

 

Jesus is asking, “Do you want to be made well?”