On desiring to be made whole...

I am pondering this mornings lectionary reading: 

After this 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 HebrewBeth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralysed. 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. So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, ‘It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.’But he answered them, ‘The man who made me well said to me, “Take up your mat and walk.” ’ They asked him, ‘Who is the man who said to you, “Take it up and walk”?’ Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, ‘See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.’ The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath. But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is still working, and I also am working.’ For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God. John 5: 1-18

Although in the NRSV the passage is headed "Jesus heals on the Sabbath" and goes on to reveal a conflict between Jesus and the Jewish leaders I am struck by the question asked of the man by the pool. " Do you want to be made well?" We are told that Jesus knew he had been there for a long time, he asks a direct question and is met with an evasive answer, an excuse as to why healing has not taken place, "there is nobody to help me", and then "there is always someone ahead of me..." Why didn't he answer directly, " yes, yes I want to be made well that is why I am here?" 

The lame man was sitting within a few yards of hope, and yet somehow he had no hope, could it be that he was in some ways comfortable in his condition, and afraid to move beyond it? Could it be that he defined himself by his disability, that he chose to live within the boundaries of his limited vision? Yes he was lame, but somehow through this I am seeing a picture of a man that kept returning to the same place, each time the water was stirred he moved towards the pool, every time somebody else got there first, and every time he returned to his mat. I am left to wonder why he did not move his mat a little closer? Maybe he couldn't maybe I am being hard on him, but he makes me aware of the times in my life when I have limited myself with the statement I cannot! Times when I have been content to return to a disabling condition and position rather than taking a bold step, grasping a vision, answering a call.

Jesus now comes into full view, despite the mans excuses he issues a command and at that command the man is made well, he has a choice now, sensing the healing in his body he could have remained on the ground refusing to change, he could have, but he didn't; touched and transformed by the healing power of God he got up, picked up his mat and walked away. Hope had re-entered his life, but that is not the end of his encounter with Jesus, later that day Jesus sought him out him in the Temple, this time he is just as direct; "See you have been made well. Do not sin any more so that nothing worse happens to you." In other places in the Gospels we are told that suffering is not often the direct result of sin, but here it seems this is not the case, the warning is stern, the challenge to change is given, and I am left wondering how often my own desire for change has been hampered by my own inability to own up to the sin in my life, if I am honest and open before God, and as in this case sometimes before I am he comes bringing healing. The wonder of that healing becomes a mirror for me to myself, and the offer of continued wholeness is made. My daily choice is to re-turn to God and to continue to seek his ways, to lean upon the power of the Holy Spirit within me and to walk in that healing until bit by bit I am made whole.

I hear Jesus voice this morning, "do you want to be made well?" 

I must answer;  Yes Lord, Yes, I am ready, come make me whole....