We continue our series looking at encounters Jesus had with various people and today look at the man Jesus healed at the pool of Bethesda.
Now there are some people whom we all take an instant dislike too. It's not very nice, but it is very natural and sometimes we can't help it. I remember meeting a colleague of a friend's once and taking an instant, and lasting dislike to this person. There is nothing rational about it - I just disliked him. The man in our reading today is another person who I have never been able to like. I read the story and get annoyed with him - it's quite irrational, after all he has been dead for over 2,000 years, but I have this very strong reaction to him. I suspect, however, that Jesus' reaction was equally strong and probably for similar reasons.
Reader: Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie-the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.
So we have the scene set for us. There was this pool surrounded by five colonnades and here congregated various disabled people. It seems that every so often the waters seemed to stir - ancient writers thought this was because an angel moved the waters - and when the waters stirred the disabled would rush to bathe in them in the hope of getting a cure. It was like the modern Lourdes in South East France where Christians still go, bathe in spring water and pray for God to cure them.
I know a few of you have been to Lourdes. I visited for the first time last year and I quite liked the place - once you get over the hundreds of shops selling religious objets d'art it is fine. The shrine area is huge; throughout the summer there are torch-lit processions every night which are stunning to watch as people process, sing and pray in many languages. The actual churches are not really to my taste, but have been impressively built into the hill. At the foot of the hill is the grotto where Bernadette had her vision of the Virgin Mary and where a spring appeared. Around the corner baths have been built where people can queue up and go for a dip. As I watched this I had a number of different feelings and emotions. First I felt it was all rather un-British. We don't really like to display our religions! Then I wondered if it was really a place for the gullible - people were there with dreadful illnesses and disabilities. But then as I reflected I realised how quiet and still this area was, how prayerful people were, and how content the ill seemed to be just to be in this place. As far as I know, no one was physically healed that day - there are well attested records of healings going back through all the life of the shrine - but many gained spiritual and emotional healing.
I wonder what emotions and feelings Jesus had as he looked at the sick and disabled gathered by this pool in Jerusalem waiting for the waters to move so they could have a chance at being healed. Did he think they were gullible or needy? We don't know but we do know what he thought of one particular person, who for some reason, stood out for him.
Reader: One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?"
What a strange question! Why on earth would Jesus ask this guy if he wanted to get well? Surely that was the point of being at the pool - why go to all the effort of getting to the pool each day if one didn't want to get well. But, there again, I wonder. I know many other people who don't want to get well. I don't mean people who are physically ill, but people who have emotional or spiritual turmoil but who don't want to get better. Our culture is addicted not to eros - the love of life, but phanatos - the love of death and decay. We like to have a pity party, to wallow in our pain and almost to rejoice in it. Maybe this guy was addicted to his pain and Jesus realised that he didn't really want to get well.
Reader: "Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me."
Well it looks like this guy has got some excuses for not getting well. It's not his fault, he whines, it's the others - they get in the way. This guy whinges and this is why, I think, I don't like him. Of course we can all whine and moan when we want to. We can all find excuses for why we don't do certain things or why we behave in certain ways. We have been finding such excuses since Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent in the Garden of Eden! This man has excuses for why he hasn't tried to get well. Jesus just dismissed them.
Reader: Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
Jesus's words of authority made the man whole and he was able, at last, to be healed. But of course the religious establishment doesn't do change very well at all.
Reader: The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, "It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat."
The Law actually forbade people to work on the Sabbath. The Pharisees had interpreted this to mean that carrying one's mat was work and, therefore, forbidden. It is easier for religious people to pick at minor issues than to address what is really going on. We see this in other churches where there is fierce arguments over homosexuality. Instead of looking at what the real issues are - how we view the authority of Scripture - they prefer to debate moral issues. In MCC there has always been a desire to make our language as inclusive as possible. Often this has meant we have used language which is rather exclusive and sub-Christian. But when politically correct MCCers hear a stray male reference for God in worship they get very angry without realising that the one we worship is beyond words or description. This nit-picking really didn't help anyone; it still doesn't.
Reader: But he replied, "The man who made me well said to me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.' " So they asked him, "Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?"
I really do loathe this man. He is still trying to shift the blame! First it wasn't his fault he couldn't make an effort to get well, now its not his fault that he is carrying a mat - someone told me to do it! If this really was breaking a Law Jesus wouldn't have told him to do it. This guy really hasn't got the maturity to take responsibility for his own actions. Jesus seems to recognise this.
Reader: The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, "See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.
This last part of the encounter is puzzling too. In Jesus' time people thought that illness was a punishment for sin and at first glance Jesus is buying into this idea. But I think Jesus is urging him towards maturity. That rather haunting "see you are well again" is almost like saying "you didn't think you could get better, but look you are" and then a reminder to keep on growing in maturity "stop sinning or something worse may happen to you".
We all can choose
to get better, to mature, to leave behind behaviour patterns and ways of
thinking which are bad for us. Sometimes it is a struggle to start that journey
of wholeness as we have got so used to our pain that we think it is normal. Yet
Jesus calls us to wholeness and asks us, just as he asked the man in today's
encounter "do you want to get well?" If we do then we too need to pick up our
mats and follow Jesus.
Amen.
This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester. Click here for further information.