"Do you want to be made well?" Jesus asks a man. The man, who has been ill for many years, replies that there is no one to put him in the healing waters, or someone else gets there first. He doesn't really answer the question. Nor does he ask whether Jesus can heal him. He just sits, day after day, not expecting to be healed (or expecting not to be healed). Jesus tells him to get up and sin no more; he has been made well. Later Jesus finds the man in the temple and tells him again to walk away and sin no more. This time the man identifies Jesus to the authorities who had been asking who healed the man on the Sabbath -- and the authorities give Jesus a hard time because no work (including healing) is to be done on the Sabbath.
This story is so rich and layered, and there are any number of things to notice and ponder. For me, whenever there is a power dynamic in a story, that is the one I want to explore. Who has power and by whose authority are things done?
Here, the man Jesus heals feels powerless. He cannot, in his own power, make his way into the healing waters. Whether it is a physical or mental barrier, he can't get there. He can't even admit that he wants to be healed. His disability has been such a part of him for so long he can't dream that he could be healed. Jesus, I think, intends by his question to restore to the man some agency.
Given the rest of the story, though, I am not sure the man has recognized all the ways in which Jesus is offering healing.
The man has been sitting for 38 years while the religious authorities and everyone else apparently walk right by him, oblivious to his needs or too concerned with their own stuff to engage with him. And then when Jesus heals him, suddenly the authorities are angry because of the day on which he was healed. Does anyone really think that if Jesus had gone a day earlier, or a day later, and healed the man, that the authorities would not be angry? They were the ones who had authority under the law to say who got healed, or pardoned, and when. The man was so used to being under that authority that he could not fully accept the freedom offered to him. Unlike some healing stories, when the one who is healed is joyful and spreads the good news to others, in this story the one who is healed does not seem joyful -- just dutiful.
So I guess my question for today is this: do you want to be made well in all the ways that Jesus desires to make you well? Or do you want only enough healing to go about your business without being noticed?
It may seem strange to put a protest picture on this post, but my point is that sometimes you have to speak up in order to be healed. These young people are demanding to be heard by those in power who are not concerned about their health and wholeness. It is not just our own health Jesus desires, but the health of all creation.