Modern Healing?

John 5:1-9a

"After this there was another Feast and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate, there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these porticoes lay many sick people – some blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.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?”

The sick man answered him,

“Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up;

and while I’m making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.”

Jesus said to him,

“Stand up, take your mat and walk.”

At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.”

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Do you want to be made well?

This question stands out to me from this morning’s passage.

Do you want to be made well?

Don’t we all want to be made well?

It seems like an easy enough question, right? Yes! Obviously, I want to be healed. Even when I don’t know what’s wrong, I yearn for healing and wholeness. I yearn to be made well.

This is the good news of our faith – one day, somehow, we will be made well. We will be reconciled into the embracing peace of the Triune God despite all of our efforts – despite our apparent brokenness. Our identity in Christ assures us of this. It assures us that we will be made well.

So, it seems like kind of a silly question, right? Why is Jesus asking this man who has been ill for thirty-eight years if he wants to be made well? Of course, he wants to be made well!

[Pause]

The imagery in this story is vivid. Imagine the scene:

A pool in the middle of Jerusalem solely for healing. Surrounding this pool are five porticoes or alcoves full of people who are sick. I imagine it being like a swimming pool at a resort with five cabanas around it. Except the people at this healing pool are not coming to relax or unwind. They are coming to be made whole, to find healing.

Some ancient versions of this text describe angels descending upon the pool to stir the water. When the water was stirred by angels, healing happened. This is why so many sick people were waiting around pool. It was a point of connection between God and God’s people. The years of waiting and the yearning for wholeness could be cleared if one could just wade into the healing waters.

Can you imagine the torment of this man? He has been sick for thirty-eight years. The pool is within reach, yet he has no one to help him into the water, and every time he comes close to making it in on his own, someone else cuts in front of him and steps in before him.

It would be torturous to have the source of healing right there but never be able to receive it.

[Pause]

Maybe hard for us to imagine. Maybe the ancient healing practices of 2nd Temple Judaism feels a bit out of touch for us today.

Really, angels come down to this pool, stirred the waters, and voila, people are cured of all their woes? Our modern sensibilities make this difficult to imagine.

We have science now! The healing pool of Bethesda has been replaced with hospital beds, sterilization, and pharmaceuticals.

Can we really believe healing was within reach for this man by dipping into the pool?

And can we really believe that Jesus cured this man as quickly and as easily by saying, “Pick up your mat and walk”?

[Pause]

To be honest, I have a hard time understanding rituals of healing. This story seems so far removed from our current time and place. I’ve been going to a doctor for my entire life. I understand healing to be precise, well thought-out, medical procedures.

The mystery of healing is absent for me.

[Pause]

Or is it?

My great-great grandmother Effie Farson, who passed in 1986 (so well within the age of modern medicine), believed that her arthritis could be cured by taping pennies to her aching joints. If you can imagine, she walked around town with stacks of pennies scotch-taped to her knees.

This is a ritual of healing.

When I had the flu as a kid, I was absolutely certain that my illness be cured by a hot bowl of chicken noodle soup, ginger ale, and the TV show Price is Right with Bob Barker. After I visited the doctor and got the so-called “medicine”, my parents would take me home and I would settle in for the real procedure to happen. There is something about Plinko and the Showcase Showdown that is mysteriously therapeutic.

This is a ritual of healing.

When I lived on the Northern Cheyenne reservation, there was an assisted living home started by a Catholic church and was heavily subsidized by the Bureau of Indian Health. Every Wednesday night, they would have a sweat lodge in the backyard of the facility.

A sweat lodge is a small hut traditionally made from sticks, brush, and animal skins. They are just big enough for about 8 people to be huddled together in a circle. A large fire is built outside of the lodge, and good-sized [tell the size with your hands] rocks are put in the fire until they are literally red hot.

These rocks are then placed in the center of the circle inside the sweat lodge. The spiritual leader of the ceremony leads the group in prayer and song while splashing water onto the hot rocks. It gets unbelievably hot inside, and the only light is the soft glow of the red rocks, which is barely visible through the dense steam.

This ceremony of prayer and song lasts for about an hour. It symbolizes rebirth – the lodge represents the womb, and you come inside to be cleansed and healed so that you can go back into the world with new perspective and new life.

This, too, is a ritual of healing.

One of the times I participated in this ceremony, an elder of the tribe who lived at the facility was part of the group. She had been suffering from cancer and recently went into remission. She called this a miracle, and attributed it to the prayer of the sweat lodge. That night, we continued to pray for her health.

It was really meaningful for me. It was a powerful experience of prayer, and the power came not only through words and song, but through the ritual as well.

I had a new perspective – a new outlook on healing. Here I was at this federally funded institution of health, with nurses and modern medicine, but integrated into the science of healing was a thousand-year-old ritual that had equal influence.

This experience challenged how I thought about healing. It introduced an element of mystery in how we become whole. It introduced a new way of experiencing God and relying on God’s Spirit to heal us.

I had always concentrate too much on how healing happens, instead of being open to why it happens.

[Pause]

Being open to the why of healing means being open to the mystery of God’s presence when we are most vulnerable.

This realization appears in our text this morning. When Jesus asks the man, “Do you want to be made well?” The man immediately focuses on how he will be healed.

The man responds, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up;

and while I’m making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.”

He does not realize that Jesus, the Son of Man, is in his presence. He is caught up in the mechanics of his healing, unable to imagine himself getting well because he cannot reach the pool.

Jesus reimagines the healing process and simply says, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.”

And that’s exactly what the man does. After so many years of agonizing and crawling his way to the pool, he is miraculously able to walk. But he doesn’t walk to the pool and wade in its waters. He doesn’t need to. Instead, he goes in the opposite direction, leaving the pool behind, and walks into town.

We do not know how God healed this man. Perhaps we’re not supposed to know. Through this story, Jesus is telling us to be open to God’s creative presence even when we think there is no solution in sight.

[Pause]

How many of our prayers only focus on the how? How many of our prayers ask for God’s help in a solution that we’ve decided is good enough? How often do we try to fit God into a game plan that we’ve already figured out?

How often do we not look for God in our healing process? Whether our healing be physical, emotional, or relational – are we looking for God’s creative presence and miraculous healing?

Or are we worried about how and when the healing will be done?

[Pause]

So, what are your rituals of healing?

They can be as ridiculous as taping pennies to your knees, or as involved as a sweat lodge.

They can be rituals of eating healthy, going for a run, or prayerfully walking your neighborhood.

They can be visiting a doctor for a yearly check-up, or seeking a counselor for the first time.

They can be a ritual of seeking new friendships, or growing deeper with the ones you already have.

And finally, as a Christian community, our ultimate ritual of healing occurs right here in this space every week. It’s through worship and taking Sabbath that our connection with God is made stronger. Through community and worship, our reconciliation with God and the world flourishes.

Our lives are molded by rituals of healing. Some are passed down to us from generations, and some are specific to our time and place.

These rituals require intentionality and participation. They require an openness to seeing, hearing, and feeling God’s presence even when we don’t know what it will be like.

They require creativity and letting Christ reimagine our individual and communal healing.

No matter where our illnesses lie, we come here, together, to experience God’s mysterious presence.

It is here where we wonder with awe at God’s loving grace.

It is here, the Church, where we are healed piece-by-piece and relationship-by-relationship, into wholeness.

In the name of the Triune God, loving healer, we pray

Amen.