5 Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. ² Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. ³ Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches. ⁵ One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”

John 5:1-6

Dear God, off of the top of my head, I can’t think of many or any examples of Jesus proactively approaching the sick person and offering healing. Maybe there are, but when I read this passage this morning, that is what struck me. Maybe this is semantics, but Jesus didn’t say, “May I heal you?” He asked, “Would you like to get well?” Again, maybe I’m reading too much into this and there are cultural norms and customs at play, but the intimation of this verbiage in 21st Century English is that there is a chance the man wanted to stay sick by the pool. It had been his life for 38 years. It would be a lot to take it away. Even though it was awful, it was all he knew.

I have so many analogies running through my head right now for how this can be true of us now. Do I want to give up my sins and follow after you? Well, I’ve gotten kind of used to my sin and this life. The devil I know is better than the life in you that I don’t know. Or when I think of how we are all afraid of death, but I wonder if you don’t see this life for us as the equivalent of us lying by this pool. That’s not to say you don’t have us here and have a role for us here. Our human lives are precious and important. But you have the perspective of what we don’t on the life that is to come. “Don’t be afraid.”

I suppose I should read Sister Miriam’s commentary on this passage from Restored: A Guided Lent Journal for Prayer and Meditation. She focused on being present with you and letting you heal us, and then for us to be present with others, allowing you to flow through us to them.

Father, I have sorrows. I have areas of my heart and soul that need healed. Some are of my own making. Some are things done to me. Some, I can’t tell whose fault it is, mine or someone else’s. But I want to sit with you in this moment and tell you that, yes, I want to be healed. I don’t know what that healing even looks like because I do think sorrow is important sometimes. I think lament is appropriate. I think mourning is appropriate. Jesus even said it is blessed to mourn and to be comforted. So help me to use my sorrow and turn it into comfort for others. I have a friend who’s coming up on the one-year anniversary of his wife passing. Help me to comfort him. Love him through me. Love the people I touch today through me. And use the comforting process to heal my own heart as well.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen