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 Hebrew Beth-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. (John 5:1-9 New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised (NRSVA))
Lots of fascinating stuff in this passage, especially if you're a Bible geek. There is for instance the way that until the 19th Century the only reference to this pool was in this passage of John. So some claimed this had never happened, and that the passage was written by someone who didn't know the geography of Jerusalem. Except then a bunch of archaeologists only went and dug it up.
Or the fascinating way Verse 4 is missing in modern translations, but it's there in the King James. This tells us that "an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had." Which isn't in the early manuscripts of John's Gospel. Presumably because John just assumed everybody knew how the pool was meant to work, but as the Gospel spread and time went on somebody realised they needed an explanation. Or maybe it's because that swimming pool was actually sacred to the Roman god of healing, Asclepius, and somebody decided that the story needed a bit of sanitising and put a Jewish angel in the picture. We don't know.
But we do know that healing pools are known the world over. We have plenty in England. Some said the waters of Bath would make you well. Bertie Wooster's uncles used to go off to Harrogate to take the waters whenever they'd drunk so much their livers were packing up. Walsingham has its well, which may or may not be the one that pilgrims drank from 1000 years ago, but is certainly going to have its sources in the same aquifer. And Wellingborough had the Red Well, which was the place that Charles I and Henrietta Maria went to drink the iron-rich waters when they were having trouble conceiving. They conceived nine kids after that, but Charles ended up having had his head cut off. The name "Red Well" is now given to the Wetherspoons in Wellingborough. Where much the same kind of thing can happen if you're not careful.
But I digress. The bloke's lying there and he's hoping to be healed. And every day it's the same. He's not. 38 years of "not". And Jesus says to him - do you want to be healed?
And did you notice - the bloke doesn't answer. Instead he tells Jesus the story. Every time the water's moved, everybody else jumps in and I can't so I'm last and I never get healed.
But does he want to be healed? We don't know. I mean, yes he's there every day. But then what else is he going to do? In a society where being able bodied is really the only way to make a living for the vast number of people, he hasn't really got anywhere else to go. Maybe his friends come out and lift him up on his mat and stick him somewhere busy to beg. Or maybe - because we don't know - maybe given this is the place to hang out if you've a disability - maybe the great and the good wander into this place and chuck a few coins around when they're in town.
Maybe his story has made him into a local character - the man who spent 38 years at the healing well and never got better. Maybe that's worth a denarius or two. Maybe he trots out the same story to everyone who speaks to him, thinking they'll give him something. so maybe he doesn't really want to be healed. Maybe he's been disabled so long, he has settled into his niche of being the bloke lying by the pool, watching everybody else splashing about and occasionally being healed. And he's just always there. Faithfully waiting. Never getting any better.
Maybe he does want to healed, and he's telling Jesus his story because he doesn't want Jesus to think he's just idle and not trying hard enough.
Or he's gone into a state of depression. I once had four weeks of being unable to get around without crutches, lying on the couch day after day watching Jeremy Kyle. And I tell you what, just four weeks nearly broke my spirit. I can't imagine 38 years of it. Maybe he's been consumed by his circumstances and he can't imagine being healed any more.
Maybe he's like friends of mine who've been prayed for healing so many times they don't want anyone else forcibly praying for them. It's not necessarily that they wouldn't like to be mobile, or healed from a long-term illness. But they've accepted that this is how it is. Maybe it's like the thing Beethoven is said to have said: "I shall hear in heaven". But I'll tell you one thing. Never just try and heal people yourself whether they want it or not. You aren't Jesus. But you may well be very annoying.
But it doesn't matter whether he wants to be healed or not, apparently. Jesus has decided that a healing will happen and it's going to be him. "Stand up, take up your mat, and walk."
And he stands up, takes up his mat, and walks. He responds in faith. He could have just laid there. But God's love triggers his response.
Now this isn't the end for this guy. This is just the beginning. We know that later on Jesus tells him "stop sinning, or something worse may happen to you". Which in itself fascinating - Jesus heals him, knowing he is a sinner. Gives the man grace before he has repented: he only told Jesus what a bad life he was having, not that he needed forgiveness as well as healing. Maybe his heart had grown bitter. It might, lying there all that time. But God's grace is there before the man is even ready to accept it.
So Jesus takes a man who hasn't even asked for healing, and gives it to him. Takes a man who had been utterly dependent on others and stands him on his feet. Takes a man who has been passively dependent on others and reminds him that he is - that he's always been - responsible for whether he sins or not.
And the man wanders out of our story. God has come unasked. God has made him well. He has seen the glory and love of God. Not in some mighty explosions or flight of angels. But in a tiny, quiet miracle.
In times of our lives when we feel helpless, unable to do things for ourselves - God will come to us, if we let him. Like this man we can trot out our story of where we are, our complaints and our weakness - we call it "prayer". And God can touch our lives, give us new meaning, new direction.
Now our final blessing comes from these words of Jesus, told to us by John.
Go, and stop sinning.
Or something worse may happen to you.
is probably the book for you.