Do you want to be made well?

Jesus asks an interesting question in John 5:2-9…

5:2 Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called  in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. 5:3 In these lay many invalids–blind, lame, and paralyzed. 5:5 One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 5:6 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?” 5:7 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.” 5:8 Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” 5:9 At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and  began to walk. Now that day was a sabbath.

But before we go on… watch this video of the song Rise by Peder Eide…

There are so many healing stories in the New Testament, and there are 2 healings in John on the Sabbath.  It seems these healings happen on the Sabbath…  O’Day in John (The Interpreter’s Bible) says, “First-century Judaism defined community identity around three practices: circumcision, food laws, and sabbath observance. In Jesus’ time, a challenge to the sabbath meant a challenge to the definition of covenant membership” [p. 579] So by doing these healings on the Sabbath Jesus was questioning the communities understanding of covenant. He was questioning how one was included in community.

I mean really after all, the reading says that the man had been afflicted for 38 years, what is a few more hours going to matter, why couldn’t Jesus wait?  38 years. How many of us can actually understand what that means. I have only been alive for 39 years. I can not fathom what it would mean to be afflicted with something for almost my entire life. But really what would a few more hours matter?

But you see the issue is our understanding of what it means to be ill. In our society, in the western world, we view disease as a malfunction of the system that can be fixed by the proper medication and allow the diseased person to function again. In the non western world, disease is more seen as a separation from community and not being who you were created to be. Illness is a separation from community, and a devalued state of being. Jesus was focusing on making people be seen for the value they inherently have, by restoring them to community. That is why a few hours mattered.  Jesus knew this man had been devalued and removed from community for too long, 38 years to be precise. That is why in the following passage in John, the Jews take to have Jesus arrested.  Because the Jews see Jesus act of healing on the Sabbath as something that removes this man from community, because Sabbath needs to be honored and he did not honor it. But Jesus’ restoration to community is misunderstood by the community…

How many times do we as a community, through our structures and rules, keep people in their illness, rather than offering them the new life that Jesus has for them? You can’t participate until… You won’t be a full member until… You can’t participate in communion until you have reached a proper understanding… How do the rules and structure of our community aid in keeping people from restoration to community and isn’t that really what healing means?

And to the interesting question Jesus asks…

“Do you want to be made well?” Jesus asked a man who has been afflicted for 38 years. And what does he say? John 5:7 says 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.”  What would you say, if Jesus asked you do you want to be made well, after you have afflicted for 38 years? Wouldn’t the appropriate response be, YES!!!! Please help me become a part of the community again? But the man says all of the things that have kept him from being made well. Jesus offered to heal him, but he gives excuses about why he hasn’t been healed yet.

But that brings the other question of how many times we keep ourselves from the healing Jesus has for each and everyone of us. Peder Eide said it beautifully in the song Rise – “Broken, all of us are broken, from the day the curse was spoken.” We are all broken, we are all fallen, we are all afflicted, since the day the curse was spoken in Genesis 3… Long before we were born, so I’ve been afflicted for 39 years. Because you see the healing that Jesus has for us is not physical. It is a restoration to community, to being a part of the body, to being a part of Jesus. We are hung up on healing being a physical thing, the body will be perfect, and that is not it. Healing is being whole and who were created to be in the body, in the world.

Jesus asks us if we want to be made well, and we do not want that, because we are worried we will not know how to act or be in a healed situation. It cuts to the core of our being because it puts into question our place in being right about our understanding of what Jesus came to do. It puts to question our understanding of what is the right understanding about Jesus teachings. O’Day says it this way:

“This a delicate interpretive situation, because to engage in a battle of conflicting orthodoxies by pitting one “right” understanding of the good news against another is in reality a rejection of Jesus. Much damage and hurt have been done in the church by laity and clergy alike in the defense of the “right” position. Jesus’ challenge, which the Jewish authorities rightly sensed and reacted against swiftly and intensely (5:18), is to the hegemony of any one group or position. Jesus brings God into human experience in ways that transcend and transform human definitions and categories.” [p. 581]

Basically O’Day says that Jesus is saying that anytime we battle whether it is against the law to heal on the Sabbath we are not understanding who God is and what God came to do. We are not allowing God to be God, and are claiming to know what is right. By doing this we are not allowing God’s healing to come to us, or others.

But Jesus is standing before you still, even in your brokenness saying “Rise, take your mat and walk. Your sins are forgiven.” Because you see, forgiveness of sin restores you to the proper relationship with God, and that will put you in a right place with community. You are loved by God, listen to him take the forgiveness and healing He gives you and Rise.