The Resurrection Of Our Lives
Theme: Like the man in this passage, we too have to let go our wounds
so that we can hear the Christ calling us to new life.
The Scripture passage before us today is so simple, at least on the
surface. It seems to be just another healing story—healing stories are a
dime a dozen in the Gospels, especially the first three Gospels, but the
Gospel of John is different that way. The healing stories in the Gospel of
John, the Fourth Gospel, come few and far between, and when they do
come up, they are so richly layered and textured. This is such a simple
story—and yet its not so simple—nothing in the Gospel of John is simple,
really.
John brings us into the story by telling us that the Jesus is back in
Jerusalem for a reason—that he is there to attend a Jewish festival, a
festival celebrated by his people, and while he is there, he and his
disciples pass by the Sheep’s Gate, a place that every resident in
Jerusalem would have been able to direct you to.
And by that gate was a pool of water, perhaps where animals and
humans came and gathered the water they needed for the coming hours
and days. But crowded around that pool, surely making it hard for folks
to get to the water, were people challenged by disease and illness—
people who were paralyzed, who were blind, people who could barely
move.
And whatever strength they had within them was reserved for the
moment when the water was disturbed, when the ripples on the surface
of the pool of water were clearly made by no one but an invisible visitor.
You see, the legend around that pool was that an angel was known to
haunt its surface, and when the angel touched the water, the first person
to immerse themselves them in that water would be healed of whatever
disease they were suffering from. We’re not told how often the angel
disturbed the water, but I can only imagine when the moment came, and
the water stirred, the panicked and frantic chaos and the rush towards
the water must have been frightening to those folks just passing by.
Whatever the scene must have looked like, I don’t think anyone could
have blamed these folks for their desperation—with no medical help, no
social help, their plight was heartbreaking, something Jesus sees that
day, as he passes by the pool.
But I think Jesus saw something else as well, something that was deeper
than any particular physical affliction—I think he saw a deeper wound in
some of them, a wound that went into the spiritual marrow of some of
those folks waiting for their healing by that pool. This wound, this illness
had nothing to do with the disease or challenge they were facing—it was,
I think, a simple forgetfulness about what had drawn them to that pool in
the first place. It was a wound that started with their physical affliction,
but now had seeped into their whole being—their physical wound had
become them, it had defined them, it became their story and I think they
had forgotten why they had found themselves at the pool in the first
place. They had come to the pool to be healed, but I wonder how many
of them would have known what to do without their pain and challenge. It
had become the way they identified themselves to the world.
Have you ever meet folks like that? I know I have—and I know I’ve been
there before. I’ve been at a place that my emotional pain became my
story—and who would have I been without my anger and pain. Have you
met people who carried their emotional or spiritual or even physical
wounds with almost a sense of pride? People who carried their wounds—
their stories about what injustices have been done to them, what pain
they have experienced, how they have been wronged by the universe or
others, and they wouldn’t let go of it—they couldn’t let go of it, because if
they did, they wouldn’t have a story to tell anymore, they wouldn’t have a
way of defining themselves to themselves or to the world. I’ve been
there—and I’ve done that! Sometimes we can get stuck in our spiritual
and emotional and physical illness—and it becomes who we are and we
can’t imagine what life would be without it. We become our wounds and
they then become our story, our story of woe and pain and injustice—our
story of what has been done to us by fate, or God, or other people.
Now, I don’t want you think I am dismissing the pain of these folks around
that pool some two thousand years ago—or that I am dismissing my own
pain or your own pain. Crucifixion just seems to be a part of the story of
our lives—it seems to be built into the fabric of the universe, at least for
right now—but its never the whole story. It was never the whole story of
the people around that pool some two thousand years ago—and its
never our whole story either.
Now, I’ll tell you why I think a few people around that pool were suffering
from something deeper than their physical affliction, that they had
become their pain and didn’t know how else to define themselves to the
world. Jesus, when he passes by this pool, stops and he seeks out
someone, someone special, I think. I suspect that the man he
approaches is somewhat legendary in Jerusalem, that people had talked
for years about this man who stayed by the pool, and been so faithful for
38 years, and yet sadly he could never get to the water in time to be
healed. I bet you he had become as legendary as the pool that he sat
around, night and day.
Now, Jesus goes to this man, and he asks a very simple question,
something that doesn’t make sense, really. Jesus simply asks this man
whether or not he wants to be made well. Now, why in the world would
you ask this man, this guy who has been here for 38 years such a stupid
question?! Well, of course he does! He’s been waiting for 38 years to
be healed!
The interesting thing is that the word that Jesus uses here for “made
well” is very different from the words he usually uses for healing. The
Greek word used here is much more holistic than simply just physical
healing—he is really asking this man—“do you want be made healthy,
physically and emotionally and spiritually?”
I think the question makes sense only if Jesus recognizes that this man
had forgotten why he was even at the pool in the first place. He had
forgotten that he was there to be healed.
And I think you get a sense of this when he replies to Jesus’ question—
you get the sense that he too had become his wounds, that he too had
forgotten why he was even at that healing pool in the first place, that he
had done what so many of us have done—we’ve simply become the
story of what has been done to us, rather than the story of our own
healing, our own resurrection. Jesus asks this question—“do you want
to be healthy, my friend?” and the man replies not with a yes—or even a
no. He replies with his struggle of not being able to get into the water, of
being pushed aside as people rushed to the step into the pool.
It’s a truly sad story and painful to hear, but that wasn’t the question
Jesus asking, was it? He asked this man whether he wanted wholeness,
whether he wanted resurrection, whether he wanted health, and he was
given the story of this man’s disappointment, this man’s pain, a story
about what hadn’t been done for him and what had been done to him. All
of it was sadly true, of course, but that wasn’t the reply Jesus was looking
for—a yes or no would have done—and yet I suspect that the answer the
man gave was the answer Jesus was expecting from him. The story of
his crucifixion, of his personal pain, became the only story he knew how
to tell and he had forgotten what had driven him to the pool in the first
place—his deep desire to be well and healthy.
And Jesus, incredible, generous Jesus, replies with, ironically enough,
with a command. “Stand up, take your mat, and walk.” Simple enough.
Nothing too fancy. Just get up and go, he says to this man who has sat
by a pool for 38 years waiting for such a miracle. Jesus healed him
physically, but I think that the a deeper, more important healing took
place when he heard Christ calling him to do what he had spent a lifetime
hoping he would one day be able to do. He listened to the Christ and did
as he was told—he didn’t reply with, “I can’t. What would I be without my
pain? WHO would I be without my wounds?” We too have the challenge
of listening to the Christ, who calls us to stand up and walk and go
towards our health and healing.
The scary thing is that some of us, certainly me at times, feel more
comfortable with our pain than we would our health. There is a scene in
the Monty Python film LIFE OF BRIAN, which is the funny story of a man
who continually gets confused with Jesus in first century Palestine, there
is a scene where Brian passes by a group of begging lepers, one of
which Jesus who has just passed and healed only a few moments
earlier. Someone comments that this healed leper is “not quite well” and
that is certainly the truth—he went back to the sickness because he was
more comfortable there than he was being well.
But the man that Jesus healed that day in our story from John was made
well, was made whole, because the health he received had burrowed
deep in his marrow and he didn’t want be by that pool any longer.
Christ says to us “stand up, take your mat, and walk.” Whether we
choose to listen to the command is our business, really. I suspect, I think
that this man could have not listened, that he could have launched into
another story of woe, or told another story of the injustices he had
experienced. Stand up, take your mat, and walk—its time to go home,
and home is wholeness, it is hope made real, it is resurrection out of the
grave, your grave and my grave. You and I, we really are created to be
God’s people of resurrection.
The choice is before us—do we tell the same story we’ve always told, the
one filled with our woe and bitterness? Or do we listen to the Christ who
commands us, gently, gently, and yet still commands us, “Stand up, take
your mat, and walk with me and I will show you a new life.“ I say we begin
the process of releasing the wounds in our lives and the wounded ones
we have held hostage. I say we listen, I say we choose health, emotional
and physical and spiritual. I say we choose the life we have been created
for, the wholeness that has always been available, even as we
experience the crucifixion that comes to us in our lives.
We were created for life, not death, wholeness, not woundeness. Listen,
choose to listen, and then, like that man some two thousand years ago,
come off your mat, out of your grave, and become the person you and I
were always created to be, the people were destined to be.
Amen.
