2 Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Bethzatha, which has five porticoes. 3 In these lay many ill, blind, lame, and paralyzed people, waiting for the moving of the water, 4 for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and troubled the water; whoever stepped in first after the troubling of the water was healed of whatever sickness he had. 5 One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6 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?” 7 The ill 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.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. [John 5:2-9, NRSV]
Pool of Bethesda, Nathan Greene.
At the pool of Bethesda, Jesus commands a man sick for 38 years to do three things:
- to resolve to stand up (stop lying there!);
- to stop this perpetually sick façade and give up his comfortable mat (shut down your comfort zone!); and
- to start walking (stop this never-ending excuse to justify reliance on external support).
It is a life changing encounter for the sick man, to say the least. Though brief, this is a stunning revelatory text just as the whole Gospel of John is. Jesus’ first command in healing the man is to stand up. You need to stand up. You don’t need those “clutches” anymore. Pick them up, walk away, go and do something useful with your life! But first, you need to stand up! To “stand up” symbolizes a decision to do something for oneself, to act responsibly, to put paid to all excuses. Let’s get into the story.
Jesus spotted a sick man at the poolside. At a glance, one gets the basic information about him. He just lies there. Next to him, artists usually add a pair of clutches to show him as an invalid (often referred to as a paralytic). Like many others, he is hoping to get healed through some old superstition that says the first person who gets into the pool when the water is stirred by an angel, will receive healing of whatever sickness he has. St John supplies a critical detail of which the narrative presumes the Son of God is aware, and that is this man has been sick for 38 years. That he has not been healed all this time is, according to the man himself, due to the fact that he could never get into the pool in time because nobody helped him, and others got in once the pool was stirred by an angel. He needs help. His need for compassion and mercy is obvious. It has been 38 years!
Given the narrative content, for Jesus to ask the man right upon their encounter, “Do you want to be healed?” seems surprising indeed. Why did Jesus ask a question about the “obvious”? What could the Lord possibly be looking for?
Jesus of the Gospels is not one who asks frivolous questions. So it has been suggested that Jesus here teaches us not to jump into assumptions, but to seek clarification and then discern about people’s needs, before we dive in to help. This suggestion sounds like a platitude. Given the facts, an invalid for 38 years lying at the poolside of a traditional miracle pool desiring to be healed is clearly beyond question. Yet, if we care to dig further, there seems to be merits in this view at a deeper, psychological level. If that is true, then psychology is an inherent element in spirituality and deserves our attention as well in biblical meditation.
First, if Jesus’ question – “Do you want to be healed?” – is surprising, it is because he wants the man to think clearly what he really wants, to own it, to say it out, and to be spiritually and personally responsible for what he says. Indeed, if we may make a passing note here, it is prudent in counselling to get the client to own a decision and not rely on a lame excuse later when hard consequences arise – “Oh, I was told to do this and that”.
If the man says, “Yes, I want to be healed,” he has to face the demands that follow his statement, including taking all necessary follow-up actions that come with that answer, and bearing the consequences of his wish.
Second, questions differ in types. There are information-seeking questions, trap questions, rhetorical or declaratory questions, questions that scold and even condemn the one being “asked”, questions that seek help or forgiveness, questions that actually operate to reveal deep-down hidden truths, and so on. St John’s Gospel is a revelatory text. As we read, it pays to always keep our eyes peeled for revelation. Thus alerted, we at once see that Jesus’ singular question to the man at the pool of Bethesda is neither information-seeking, nor strange. We sense that he is exposing something hidden below the surface. What is it? What gets revealed here?
- We all need healing of some sort, including healing from ongoing sins in our lives, from addictions and obsessions, from wounds of our painful circumstances, and from our misshapen views of God through bad examples or teachings, and so on.
- But Jesus does not ask about our real needs; he knows our need for healing. He is asking: “Do you really want to be made well?” on account of the psychological blockages and resistances inside of us.
- With that, like the man at the poolside, we are compelled to look inside ourselves, because “healing” means a great deal of other burdensome things as well, such as:
✓ admitting that it’s a bad place we are in (“emotionally ruinous”?),
✓ willing to let go of what is familiar and comfortable (“comfort zone”?),
✓ releasing ourselves totally to God’s care (“detachment”?),
✓ giving over to God the control over our lifestyle (“trust in God”?),
✓ taking some measure of risk on our part (“walk the risk”?), and
✓ leaving what we once were and moving forward into the unknown with Jesus (“into the unknown”).
Thirdly, quietly and unobtrusively, Jesus is issuing a challenge in that seemingly “mundane” question. Translated, “Do you really want to be made well?” both searches and reveals. If we are not so thick-skinned, we will admit that this question embarrasses as it exposes our tricks, our lies, our clever cover-ups all along. Come on, it has been “38 years”, and you are still lying there, content to rely on a stupid little old superstition, enjoying the trite “sympathies” the rest of the world casts on you, resting comfortably on a “lie”? All told, you are resting in a comfort zone too, are you not? What have you done for yourself to really move on with life? You do not seriously want a change of lifestyle, do you, or you wouldn’t be lying there doing nothing all this time, would you?
Think about Bartimaeus in Mark 10 for a moment. Before encountering Bartimaeus, Jesus had made his third passion-prediction. At the end of Jesus’ journey and now at the threshold of Jerusalem, this blind beggar cried to Jesus for mercy. He really wanted to be healed, to have his sight restored by Jesus so he could “see” again. Look, he was in his “comfort zone” too. Sitting by the roadside with his trademark beggar’s mantle over him, he gained pity from passers-by and made a living out of people’s sympathy. That mantle was a powerful tool of trade. Yet, the moment Jesus called him over, Scripture presents the picture in IMAX high resolution:
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he sprang to his feet, threw off his mantle, and came to Jesus.
These are three active, energized, action-packed verbs which reveal that the mountain has shifted in the spirit of this man called Bartimaeus. And surprisingly, we read here the same three responses (in surplus) Jesus wanted from the man at the poolside: Bartimaeus stood up (he even sprang to his feet); he stopped relying on external support (like the apostles who left their fishing nets and boats or tax-office upon being called, he too “threw off” his tool of trade); he came to Jesus (a clear sign of positive response to Jesus’ call and to follow him). He was willing and ready to sacrifice his most important possession – his mantle, his tool of trade – to get healed. He acted rightly by God. There too, Jesus asked Bartimaeus a pretty obvious question: “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind beggar asked for the gift of sight. When, as Jesus approached the cross, even the apostles and the religious leaders were “blind” to what Jesus was doing and what he was about, for Bartimaeus to ask for sight so he could “see” is heavily faith-loaded and most pleasing to Jesus. So Jesus at once granted his wish. Unlike the blind man whom Jesus healed at Bethsaida at the beginning of his journey to Jerusalem (Mark 8), Bartimaeus was named in Mark’s Gospel because he “followed” Jesus after his healing. To “follow” Jesus in Mark, is to follow him all the way to the cross – that is the mark of a true Christian disciple.
And so, Jesus just said real simply to the man at the pool of Bethesda, invalid for 38 years:
- “Stand up, take your mat and walk.”
The man heard the command from Jesus the Word of God, and at once obeyed. Healing took place right there and right then as the Word was obeyed. This is essential St John. His Gospel presents a unique dimension of Christology where Jesus is revealed as the “Word made flesh” (John 1:14), who gives life in abundance (John 10:10), so that all who believe in the Son of God will have life (John 20:30). Nothing said about dipping in the pool or competing with others to be the first to take the dip. Not a word about an old tradition of visitation by “sadistic” angels who stirred the water to heal top sprinters of the likes of Usian Bolt or resourceful patients who came equipped with paid assistants. These latter could well afford specialist doctors and did not warrant free priority care by God’s angels.
All this reminds us of the parallels to Jesus’ teaching on our need for pruning in John 15:2.
- Which parts of your life are not bearing fruit?
✓What attitudes, beliefs, or thought patterns are no longer life-giving for you or others and what would it take to remove and let go of them?
✓What’s getting in the way of the life you want to live and the person you want to be?
✓What keeps you isolated and disconnected from yourself, from others, and from God?
✓What prevents you from flourishing?
- Maybe there are some branches in the tree of your life that need to be removed. What would that take? How would you do that? Who could help you with that?
- It’s a choice in each of our lives – a choice to reshape life and flourish or continue living a misshapen life.
- What in your life today needs reshaping so you may flourish? It’s never too late. That’s the promise of Easter.
Finally, look at Jesus in action and visualise what he desires to see in “the Church at Bethesda”:
- Followers of Christ see the persons in need of help. If we do not see, or choose not to see, we do not stop, we move on, and they get no help.
- Followers of Christ stop to ask what they want us to do for them, and we listen well to what they say. In doing so, we shall hear better the cries of all at the margins of society and of the Church and are better able to discern their real needs.
- In the end, followers of Christ heed the need for social justice, act proactively, and do whatever is possible to render real assistance, including helping people to see and take up personal responsibilities.
Copyright © Dr. Jeffrey & Angie Goh, August 2024. All rights reserved.
To comment, email jeffangiegoh@gmail.com.