People have been looking for quick fixes for what ails them since the beginning of time. Every time someone announces a new discovery, hundreds and thousands of people go chasing after the magic potion, the pot of gold, the secret formula that will make all their dreams come true.
When Columbus discovered the New World, the adventurous and the gullible and the desperate flocked across the Atlantic ocean in hopes of finding - something. Something else. Something new. Some were hoping just to begin a new life. Others were looking for excitement, for adventure. Many wanted religious freedom. And still others came in search of gold. Cortez found gold in Mexico and Pizarro found silver in Peru, but their rival Ponce de Leon landed in Florida. There he met natives who told him of a spring with magical powers: anyone who drank the water would be healed of any wounds or diseases - everything from acne to arthritis. But most important of all, it would make them young again. Ponce de Leon completely abandoned his search for gold and spent the rest of his life looking for this miraculous spring which, of course, they called the “Fountain of Youth.” He never found it, and in 1521 he died from a poisoned arrow.
Well, we’re still looking for the fountain of youth, aren’t we. From Botox to liposuction, women and men alike try to turn back the effects of time. From tanning booths to hair implants, from Clairol to Viagra, as the baby boomers age we spend more money every year trying to look and feel younger than we are. And look how the press jumps on rumors of magical cures ... a few years it was the human genome project and genetic engineering; then it was stem cell research and cloning. The current just-around-the-corner miracle cure for cancer is a bio-engineered virus. Yeah, it would be great to have cures for diabetes and Parkinson’s disease... but even if we do, it looks like there’s no cure for just wearing out.
What do you think? Is immortality really just around the corner? And do we really want it to be?
Fifteen centuries before de Leon, Jesus showed up one day at the north end of the temple to visit a pool near the Sheep Gate. It had a reputation for healing; perhaps there were mineral springs underneath which fed the pool. In any case, it may have looked something like modern-day Lourdes, thronging with the blind and the sick and the lame, hoping for a miracle. Unlike the waters of Lourdes, though, this pool had a limited window of effectiveness.
People believed that only when the water stirred in the pool that healing would take place. Scripture doesn’t tell us what caused the water to move, perhaps pressure would periodically build up underground and cause it to bubble and fizz - maybe belch out an impressive odor of sulfur or other minerals - something like Old Faithful, but not as dramatic. Anyway, the tradition held that whoever got into the water first would be healed. So the competition was pretty fierce.
Jesus approaches a man lying near the pool on a pallet, which is something like a futon. This man had apparently been bedridden for 38 years. Unlike the man whose friends were so anxious to have Jesus heal their lame friend that they let him down through a hole in the roof, this man didn’t have anyone to help him. Obviously he could move a little, since he refers to “making his way” to the pool, and bemoaning the fact that he’s not fast enough to be the first into the water. We don’t know how he got to the pool, or whether he went home at night, or if anyone brought him food, or if he did anything at all with his time other than lie there waiting for a miracle. It may well be that the man was a beggar by profession, living off of what others gave him, and as Bible scholar Findlay writes, “An Eastern beggar often loses a good living by being cured.” This man’s life may not have been all that bad. He might very well have had mixed feelings about the possibility of a real cure. And of course since Jesus lived in that culture, He understood that ambivalence.
So Jesus stopped and asked him a question that surprises some people. “Do you want to be made well?” On the surface this is a ridiculous question. It would be like asking someone hungry if they want to eat, or a desert traveler if he would like a drink.
When Jesus asks the man if he wants to be made well, Jesus is not asking an idle question, like “wouldn’t it be nice to be well,” or an abstract question like “is being well a good thing?” It’s more like, “How badly do you want to be well?” Jesus is asking if this man wants to be well badly enough to act, badly enough to take a risk, badly enough maybe even to look like a fool. Does this man want to be well badly enough to face a total, radical, complete transformation of his life?
Think about it. Most of us have occasional fantasies about being as rich as Bill Gates or as beautiful as Helen of Troy, as famous as Princess Diana or as influential as Mark Zuckerberg. But if we were actually faced with the choice, would we stop and think again? Are we really prepared for the radical dislocation in our lives and worlds and relationships that it would entail? Most of us aren’t going to have to make that kind of decision. Our decisions are likely to be smaller, our choices less obviously life-changing, the forks in our roads less well-marked. But there is one decision that each one of us does has to make.
Because Jesus asks us the same question: “Do you want to be made well?” You may think that sounds crazy. Of course we want to be made well.
A man named Marshall Hayden wrote an article entitled, “Would Every Non Hurter Please Stand Up?” Most people come to church wearing their best clothes and their best smiles. In many churches it is not really safe to come in without your happy face on, to come in with real pain or real anxiety or real failure. And when the faces around us all look happy, we assume everyone else is okay and that we’re the only ones not cutting it. Even here where I think people are comfortable being real with one another, we all do make an effort to bring our best selves to worship.
We have people struggling with life-threatening diseases. We have people struggling to put food on the table from paycheck to paycheck. We have people grieving over lost children and broken relationships, raw with the wounds of a recent quarrel or struggling with an attraction to the wrong person. Some of these struggles and pains we know about, others we don’t. And usually the things that hurt the most are the hardest to share.
And then of course there are lesser hurts, things that are so small in the grand scheme of things that we are embarrassed even to confess that they are burdens. But the fact is they aren’t small to us: an unresponsive spouse, a boring job, a poor grade, a teething child... on and on go the stories. “The lonely, the discouraged, the exhausted, they’re all here.”
The good news is that Jesus knows exactly what we are like under our polished exteriors. And he says, “Come unto me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” [Mt 11:28-30]
Now I’m not trying to tell you he will fix all of our problems immediately - if we just have enough faith. You and I both know better than that. What I am saying is that most of the pain our troubles cause us comes not from the problem itself, but from what we tell ourselves about the meaning of the problem.
What do I mean by that?
Let’s imagine - just for a moment - that you’re struggling with an attraction to the wrong person. I know this has never happened to any of you, so bear with me. Maybe he’s married, maybe she works for you, maybe you’re married. What are some of the things you might tell yourself? You might say, “my wife is too wrapped up in the kids.” On the other hand you can say, “I better spend more time with my wife and kids. I’ve forgotten how important they are.” Another person might say, “My husband doesn’t appreciate me.” Wouldn’t it be more constructive to ask yourself, “Do I appreciate my husband?” And in our society it’s common to say, “This means I’m not in love any more, so we should get a divorce.” But wouldn’t it be more honorable to say, “I made a promise. I’d better work harder at keeping it.”
What we believe, what we tell ourselves, has far more impact on our health and happiness than most of us realize. Think about it. If you lose your job, do you tell yourself “I’m a failure” or do you tell yourself “This is tough but with God’s help we’ll get through it”? If you get sick, do you say, “Why me, God?” or do you say, “what is God going to do with this?”
We may say we want something, but when it comes right down to it, many of us really don’t want the things we’ve been wishing for. Because change requires effort, and effort requires faith. On a Judging Amy episode some years ago, Amy’s mother Maxine says, “We do what we want to do; everything else is just excuses.”
Have you experienced Jesus’ healing in any aspect of your life? It might be a physical healing, but more likely it is the healing of a habit, or an attitude, or a grief. . . . If you have been healed, what in your life had to change? How did it affect the way you approached your life after that?
Or have you wished for healing, or for an answer, and not gotten what you wanted?
We believe, and yet we don’t believe. We hear the promises, and they sound good and we say we believe those words like “abundant life” and “be anxious for nothing” and “I will give you rest.” And yet, some of us have been wondering when these marvelous promises were going to come true for far more than 38 years. And that is because Jesus doesn’t wave a magic wand. Jesus says, “stand up ... and walk.”
That standing, that walking, takes faith. It takes hope. And it takes courage. Because for many of us that place of healing is an unknown world. . . And even if we do take those first few halting steps in a new direction, it’s all too easy to fall back into old habits, and say, “the cure didn’t take.”
That’s why Jesus added one more piece to his commandment: he said, “pick up your bed.” The man is not to come back to the pool tomorrow and take up his old place there. He’s done with that piece of his life. His behavior is going to have to change.
What does it mean, when Jesus says, “Come unto me, and I will give you rest?” Does it mean we get to lie there waving feebly and Jesus will wave a wand and life will be a luxury cruise from now on?
No, it doesn’t. There’s a condition. Like the man Jesus cured, we have to get up and pick up our mat and walk.
Tony Campolo told a story about being in a church in Oregon where he was asked to pray for a man who had cancer. Campolo prayed boldly for the man’s healing. That next week he got a telephone call from the man’s wife. She said, “You prayed for my husband. He had cancer.” Campolo thought when he heard her use the past tense verb that his cancer had been eradicated! But before he could think much about it she said, “He died.” Compolo felt terrible.
But she continued, “Don’t feel bad. When he came into that church that Sunday he was filled with anger. He knew he was going to be dead in a short period of time, and he hated God. He was 58 years old, and he wanted to see his children and grandchildren grow up. He was angry that this all-powerful God didn’t take away his sickness and heal him. He would lie in bed and curse God. The more his anger grew towards God, the more miserable he was to everybody around him. It was an awful thing to be in his presence.”
But the lady told Compolo, “After you prayed for him, a peace came over him and a joy came into him. Tony, the last three days have been the best days of our lives. We’ve sung. We’ve laughed. We’ve read Scripture. We prayed. Oh, they’ve been wonderful days. And I called to thank you for laying your hands on him and praying for healing.”
And then she said something incredibly profound. She said, “He wasn’t cured, but he was healed.”
What do you want healed? It doesn’t even matter if you’re asking for the wrong thing, because if you stand up and walk, Jesus will guide you into the healing that is already planned and waiting for you. Get up. Go to Scripture. Go to prayer. And you will find Jesus, and you will be healed.
