Sermon

Jesus said to him, "Do you want to be healed?" (John 5:6)

The Pool of Bethzatha was a place in Jerusalem where the sick and infirm gathered to receive alms and where they hoped to be cured. A tradition held that an angel would occasionally descend and churn up the water in the pool. If you were lucky enough to be there at the right time, and, if you were able to jump into the water after the angel's visitation, you would be cured.

Jesus came to the pool one day, singled out a man, and asked him, "Do you want to be healed?" This might seem to be one of the most indelicate questions in the whole Bible. "Do you want to be healed?" Of course he wanted to be healed! Why else would he have been there day after day? Why else would he have eaten the scraps of food and worn the used clothing which people brought as their gifts of charity for the needy people gathered around that pool? Yes he wanted to be healed and the man expected a miracle would happen.

I think the question which Jesus asks has more depth to it than we initially detect. For if this man is healed then his life will be radically changed. If this man is healed, he will have to leave the familiar environs pool and go back into the mainstream of society. There he will need to earn a living and buy his own food and his own clothing.

So the question Jesus asks has to do with the radical change in life which come in and through his ministry to all people. He doesn't come to do some cosmetic changes in the lives of people--a little tuck here, perhaps a little touch up there. He comes to offer an abundant new life.

Do we want to be healed in this way? Or is it true that we have grown so comfortable with our neediness and so afraid of change that we would just as soon have Jesus stay away from making any radical changes in our lives?

The Rev. David J. Jones
Rector
Calvary Episcopal Church
Santa Cruz, California