Word to the Wise
Tuesday, April 1, 2025 - 4th Week of Lent - Tues
[Ezek 47:1-9, 12 and John 5:1-3a, 5-16]When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be well?" The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way someone else gets down there before me," Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your mat, and walk." Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked. [John]
The sick man had been sick for thirty-eight years! His situation is one that would certainly evoke sympathy. Jesus responded first to the illness and asked the question: "Do you want to be well?" The answer from the sick man seems ambiguous. He refers to a belief at the time that an angel would come from time to time and stir the waters. The first person to get to the waters would be healed. An old hymn celebrates this: COME DOWN ANGELS AND TROUBLE THE WATERS. Some scripture scholars opine that the man wasn't sure he wanted to be healed because he had made a living begging for all those years. This may explain why he tattled to the religious authorities that Jesus had cured him on a sabbath!!
The sign Jesus performed sets the stage for the discourse that follows on Jesus' "works." The difficulty that arose then, and still does for some, is that all attention is focused on the action and not on the person acting. All of Jesus' signs in the Gospel According to John are designed to reveal him as the one whom God has sent. The religious authorities focused on the prohibition against "work" on the sabbath. Healing was considered "work." There is no response of faith on their part, and little or none on the part of the sick man except that he followed Jesus' order to get up, take up his mat, and walk. In matters of faith, excessive concern when someone doesn't do something "correctly" can mean one misses the purpose of the "rule" itself. Jesus was revealing something greater than the sabbath [John 5:20]. The sick man may have been wondering how he would make a living. The religious authorities were concerned about unlawful healing. How do we respond to Jesus' "work" in our own lives? Do we really want to be well? AMEN