Jesus, Not Jesús: Finding The Divine In The Space Between Us.
  • Be Kind
  • About this blog
  • About the author
  • Contact
  • Be Kind
  • About this blog
  • About the author
  • Contact

Questioning Jesus: Do You Want To Be Made Well?

5/27/2019

0 Comments

 

THe Invalid Man is so focused on why he can’t get into the pool that he has forgotten what God is capable of doing inside Of him.

Picture
a Sermon based on John 5:1-9

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?”

Last week my daughter got her driver’s license. And on Wednesday she dropped me off a few blocks from her school so she could drive into the parking lot on her own. It was hard for me to watch my little girl becoming independent. My heart and my head where all over the place as I walked by myself to the gym.

On my way I met a man who looked lost and forlorn. His name was Leonard and he was standing on the sidewalk, waiting for the doctor’s office to open. Leonard said he was having chest pains, which was making him anxious and causing the pain in his chest to increase. When I asked him if I could pray for him, Leonard hesitated. He never said yes, but reached out his hands and bowed his head. As the teenagers hustled to get to school, here were two strangers – whose hearts and heads weren’t in the right place – seeking healing from our God.

I’m not sure what was weighing on Jesus’ heart and head the day he came into Jerusalem to celebrate the great festival. But this is what happened, according to the gospel of John 5:1-9

Albert Einstein once said, “There are two ways to live your life. One is as thought nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Some of us believe God is a miracle maker, and others don’t.
I suspect the invalid at the pool believed in miracles simply because he was there. While that might be true, Elizabeth Johnson described this man as “perhaps the least willing and the least grateful of all the people healed in the Bible.” Jesus asked him if he wanted to be made well. You think he would say yes. But instead of answering the question, the man grumbles and complains. As my friend Roxy reminded me, “Chronic illness wears on you.”

Now there was a belief that this pool of water had healing properties and that it could change one’s life. It was said that every now and then an angel would stir the water, the water would begin to bubble, and the first one into the pool would be healed. For 38 years this man sat there. Waiting. Watching. Hoping. Every day is the same. Not much changes. His life, in contrast to the pool, was stagnant.

How many of us sit on our mats and hope for something better to happen in our life? Have we become blind and crippled, unable to see that the deep well of life is not out there in that magic pool of water, but it’s here…inside us? Episcopal priest Fr. Michael Marsh argues, “The pool of Bethesda is an illusion. It deceives us into believing that life is to be found outside ourselves.” He says, “It tricks us into living an ‘as soon as’ kind of life – as soon as I get to the water… my life will be better, my problems will be fixed.

Perhaps there’s a voice inside you saying, “As soon as I graduate I can get out of this place.” Or “As soon as I find someone to love I’ll be happy.” Or “As soon as I get ahead in my career or make more money I’ll be satisfied and then all will be well.”

“The problem with this kind of thinking,” writes Marsh, “is it puts our life on hold as we sit on our mats, imprisoned by the circumstances of our life.” The imprisonment is so great, and so crippling, that when Jesus asks the man, “Do you want to be made well?” the guy only has excuses why he isn’t. He is so focused on why he can’t get into the pool that he has forgotten what God is capable of doing inside of him.

Johns story reminds us that our wellness isn’t found outside our various circumstances, but within them. In the midst of our living, whether it’s our best or broken self, Jesus comes to meet us…speaking words of life and resurrection, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” Jesus doesn’t help the man into the water, nor does he wait for the man to confess his sins or profess his faith. Jesus simply tells him what to do, and the man does it. He gets up and goes, taking his mat with him – the very mat he desperately wanted to escape.

My takeaway is this: Jesus meets us, and heals us…but our mats, our scars and stories, we still have to carry…they are a living testimony to God healing the world from within itself.

Healing isn’t based on us having ‘enough’ faith, but on the faithfulness of God. There is nothing this man did to earn Jesus’ approval or attention. It was done purely out of God’s love for him. Likewise, Jesus doesn’t heal so he can be praised or worshiped. He heals because that is what God’s love does. It redeems us and transforms us and makes us whole and well.

We too can learn to do all kinds of miracles simply by watching and doing what Jesus does. By the way we love one another, we are able to heal the brokenness in us and in the world. This doesn’t happen with war, or greed, or economic sanctions. God’s love is the balm that heals the world.

“Jesus doesn’t change our outer circumstances. He changes us” from within so that we can go out and be change makers. “He calls us into a new way of being, seeing, acting, speaking, thinking…so the world can get a taste of God’s healing love and be made well.” Jesus is offering you a type of healing that transforms the human condition – that takes your brokenness and makes you whole. He’s asking you, “Do you want to be made well?” How will you answer?

watch video of service

In his book A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway writes, “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” Jesus comes to us in our brokenness and open our eyes so we might see our cracks for what they really are – the true beauty of God at work in us.

You may have heard me talk about this before, but in the fifteenth century the Japanese created an art form called “Kintsugi.” It’s where an artist takes and repairs broken pottery with a special lacquer that had been mixed with gold. The final result is a new object that is more beautiful and more valuable for having been broken and repaired.

This illustration reminds me that we are cracked and broken people. Some more than others. But that’s not how God sees us. God is the artist. And Jesus is the gold that God uses to bind us back together, to make us beautiful and new. Because of Jesus, we are worth more simply because of our golden cracks. Like Hemingway reminded us, being broken is an unavoidable part of life. But through Christ Jesus, who gave his life for us, all of life is made well again. And when people see our golden scars they see God's divine grace and love in all its glory.

In Questioning Jesus, we are all given a choice: “Do you want to be made well from the things in life that are crippling you?”

Jesus is inviting you into a greater life, with more substance and wholeness of body, mind and spirit. Your restored life doesn’t happen “as soon as this or that happens…” but the second you answer Jesus’ question. “Do you want to be made well?” If so, then pick up your mat and go be who God made you to be, a perfect work of art – the divine image of the One who created you a beloved child, cracks and all.

 

​

Work Cited
Johnson, Elizabeth. Commentary on John 5:1-9. From workingpreacher.org, originally published on May 1, 2016.
Marsh, Michael. “Get up off your mat.” From interruptingthesilence.com, originally published on May 6, 2013.
Macdonald, Ian. From the sermon “Healing and Renewal” originally published on February 22, 2015.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Ian Macdonald

    An ex-copywriter turned punk rock pastor and peacemaker who dedicates his life to making the world a better place for all humanity. 

    "that they all might be one"  ~John 17:21


    “Prius vita quam doctrina.”
    ​~ S
    t. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274)​
    * “Life is more important than doctrine.”


    Archives

    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    February 2011
    December 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010

Be Kind

About this blog

About The Author

Contact

Copyright © 2011