Getting Better

Getting Better

John 5:1-9

Jesus heals on the sabbath 

5:1 After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

5:2 Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Bethesda, which has five porticoes.

5:3 In these lay many ill, blind, lame, and paralyzed people.

5:5 One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.

5:6 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?"

5:7 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."

5:8 Jesus said to him, "Stand up, take your mat and walk."

5:9 At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a Sabbath.

If I had been a bit more creative, I would have called this sermon, “Everybody in the Pool!” As I said in last week’s sermon, when it comes to salvation, II Peter 3:9 tells us that God wishes that NONE should perish, meaning that God wants all to be reconciled to Godself. However, as we know, God created us with a free will and the privilege of self-determinism, so God will not “force” anyone to accept God’s full pardon, nor will God “demand” that everyone join in what we have come to know as our “heavenly reward.” As a wise preacher once told me, “There isn’t going to be anyone in heaven who doesn’t want to be there.” It is a much more debated theological question as to whether there will be people “excluded” from heaven who DO want to be there. I have come to believe that no, because of what Jesus Christ has birthed into our world, no one who WANTS to be with God in heaven will be left out. The advantage to giving one’s life to Christ openly in this life is not just the witness of it, but the forming and shaping the life of a growing disciple begins to walk, something that prepares her/him/they for the “life to come.” There will certainly be a lot of folk in God’s heaven that WE may not expect to see there, and many of them will find the early days in this eternity quite challenging, if they did not first engage the life of faith here, first. 

 

But this sermon is about another aspect of the God-life: “getting well,” or in a more medical vernacular, “healing.” If you’re waiting for me to share some elucidating secret as to why, when, and if God chooses to heal persons, forget it, as I don’t have a clue. I can tell wonderful healing stories all day long, but my list of persons I know who did not experience healing—either of the miraculous variety, or at the hands of competent practitioners of modern medicine—is just as long, if not longer. There are people I know who have died, whose deaths still make me angry, and many whose earthly demise make me cry, when I think about them. A young woman I once dated for over a year, and who subsequently married and had a family, died at age 47, a victim of Multiple Sclerosis. She was a person of deep faith, and I’m sure had a church family—as well as her own family—praying diligently for her healing. It didn’t happen. I also have known some very bitter, even “evil” people, who have successfully warded off illness after illness, disease after disease—many of their own causing—and just kept living. In sharing these “categories,” I am stepping close to the question of “theodicy,” or “Why do bad things happen to good people, while the evil prosper?” The fact is, there is no answer to these questions, a frustration with which has chased many marginal “believers” to other religious views that seem more palatable, such as the Eastern view of “Karma.” [At the risk of going down the proverbial “rabbit trail,” I would mention that one of my favorite, quirky TV shows was “My Name is Earl.” Earl was a man who experiences “Karma,” and what he believes is it playing out begins to transform him. Unfortunately, he comes from such a dissipated and corrupted lifestyle, he has too far to come and not enough time, as it were. Still, it was entertaining.] Don’t we all want to believe that, in an ideal world, the “good guys” always get rewarded, while the “evil” get punished? If you really want to delve into the most interesting parable in the whole Bible, read the Book of Job, for Job is a guy whose story tells us once and for all that the answer to the questions of theodicy are WAY beyond our comprehension. One might even say that they are beyond GOD’S comprehension, an assertion that will make my evangelical friends’ heads explode.

 

Today’s story from John 5 is about a healing that occurs around the Pool of Bethesda. When Dara and I were in the Holy Land back in 2011, we visited the site where they were just excavating what they believed to be the Pool of Bethesda. Like the spring water modern Catholics dip in and bring home from Lourdes, the Pool of Bethesda was a body of water believed to have divine healing blessings associated with it. The infirmed would camp around the pool, and when the waters were “stirred up,” they would either lower themselves into it, or have the help of a friend to do so. The superstition of that day was that these times when the water of the pool was “stirred up” or disturbed was when an angel of God was the agency of it. It was at these “active” times that healing could occur. The lame man in the story kept missing out on being dipped at the right times, because others beat him to the punch, and he apparently had no one to help him queue up in time, before the waters calmed. If you want to use this account as an example of patience and determination, it works well, as the text tells us this guy had been ill for THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS, and yet, here he was, still coming daily to the Pool of Bethesda, believing his time would come! Unbelievable. A modern-day Job, he was! Rather than “curse God and die,” putting himself out of his misery, he still literally waited on God, and didn’t waver in his belief.

 

We must pause a minute here and say that the Bible doesn’t really give us the story of either the Pool of Siloam mentioned as a “healing pond” in another story, nor this Pool of Bethesda. I’m possibly jumping the gun to say that the prevailing belief was that God was behind either the stirred waters OR the alleged healings that had occurred when people dipped in the pool. Just like we see today, people can believe ALL KINDS of things, when it comes to loved ones (including oneself), illness, and our desire for healing. We are no less superstitious about it today than they were in Jesus’ day. I’ve already mentioned Lourdes as one famous place where people will spend LOTS of money to go to, in search of healing, especially if they are fighting incurable or “mystery” diseases. WAY too often we eschew actual medical treatments and progress toward better ones, in favor of nostrums and “snake oil” cures. Why do we do this? Again, the culprit is the temptation to believe that some “magical cure” exists, and that complex problems—in this case, our health—must have simple solutions. If science and logic has taught us anything, it is that complex problems will also require complex solutions to “solve,” and not all complex problems can be “solved” or “cured.” Sometimes, such as in the case of certain diseases, or weather pattern anomalies caused by climate change, you just have to live with them and find ways to cope. No one likes to hear this latter assessment, so when someone comes along with an allegedly simple “cure,” we are often too quick to buy it. Look at some of the insanity being introduced to our nation’s healthcare scene by Robert Kennedy, Jr., our Secretary of Health and Human Services: autism is caused by impurities in vaccines; there are nutritional remedies for viruses like the measles; and that Lyme disease was a biological weapon that got loose from a military lab. Again, we buy these pieces of misinformation and “conspiracy theories” because they give us a simple solution, and in many cases, someone to blame. In a sermon about “getting better,” we must address these ridiculous claims, for part of getting better is looking in the right places for help in healing, and they are not to be found among this falderal.

 

Religion is not without its contribution to the “snake oil” set. While the Bible does legitimately recommend “calling on the elders of the church” to lay hands on the sick and to pray for them, it doesn’t advocate building a whole ministry around this practice, or believing that a person’s “gift of healing” means they have the magic touch that sends people “out in the spirit” and imparts a miraculous healing right on the spot. We have all seen these “healers.” Are they real? Do they work? The sad truth is that often, people believe they do, go to great expense to attend a “healing crusade,” and then find some relief that may very well be due to a rush of adrenaline imparted by the drama, the hype, or just the experience, only later to find that their presenting symptoms return, along with a new tinge of doubt. Have I ever seen or heard of a legitimate “miracle” healing? Yes, and I do believe that God can just decide to do so for one of God’s children, but I don’t believe God leaves this “power” in the hands of a person, or at least not one specific person with “the gift.” Instead, I am reminded that in the Book of Job, we are told that “God has God’s reasons for doing what God does,” most of which is “beyond the human ability to understand.” 

 

I most certainly believe in praying for healing, and have often offered to lay hands on persons in a “healing service,” and even anoint them with oil. I do not expect a miraculous healing to result, especially right on the spot, but in my mind, we come together as caring believers to support one another, pray for one another, and this includes praying for persons in need of healing. Petitioning God on their behalf, or more properly along WITH them, is the loving thing to do. Suggesting that “if they have enough faith” they will be healed, or that they are NOT healed “because they do not believe,” has nothing to do with love. These are cruel assertions born of power and control, not faith and love. Prayers for healing must always be acts of love, support, and caring, and providing encouragement to the ailing individual. I have also found that the most profound effects of such healing prayers have occurred when they were requested by the individual her or himself, instead of being initiated by another. This is not to say that one believer can’t say to another upon hearing of their need, “I will be praying for you,” for this is a loving, caring offer. “Here, let me lay hands on you and pray for you” may often not be, especially if it makes the other feel uncomfortable or threatened, in any way.

 

Healing is often not about physical issues. As a pastor, I have seen so many more folk struggling with mental health issues, relationship difficulties or failures, domestic safety issues, unexpected unemployment, family turmoil, or even crises of faith, than I have folk who turned to the church for help with physical healing. If we were to take an actual accounting of things for which folk need healing, it would be a very long list. Prayers of the faithful on their behalf are always welcome, and from the pastoral perspective, counsel—including referrals to counseling professionals—is often the best recourse. I have learned only too well from hours in the pastoral counseling room that my ability to help persons toward ultimate wholeness is quite limited. Oh sure, there are folk who just need a good ear and a chance to air their grievances, along with a few encouraging words (which may or may not include scripture), and they are able to right themselves and get on with it. But like those with physical maladies, the emotionally hurting souls so often should see a medical/psychological professional. “Getting better,” for most of us, is a journey and a process, not a one-stop-shop.

 

While I believe that ultimate wholeness may be an impossible goal without addressing the spirituality of an individual, I also eschew the temptation to pronounce the various demons we may face as “simply” a “spiritual problem.” My home pastor used to say about Christian financial stewardship, “We don’t have a financial problem, we have a spiritual problem,” and about giving, he may have been right. But people aren’t “sick” just because they don’t pray enough, nor are they poor or unemployed because they have somehow “disobeyed” God. Nor are their marriages falling apart just because they have been skipping church. Our spiritual life should be something that edifies us and helps us prioritize and approach our “healing needs” reasonably, maturely, and directly. When our spiritual life and our relationship with the divine is used as an excuse—or even leveled at us as an accusation—as to why we are experiencing these difficulties, then this is heinously in error. If we believe “God is love,” then how can we endorse such a harmful use of one’s spirituality? This was the “sin” of Job’s friends in that wonderful parable. They are looking for the quick, easy “diagnosis” for a complex and devastating thing that happened to Job, and what they came up with was “Why don’t you just curse God and die?” Not quite the same as what Jesus said in this story: “Stand up, take up your mat, and walk.”

 

The lame man in the story had sought healing according to the superstitions of his age, either because he had tried everything else, to no avail, or because it is all he knew. Jesus literally offered him a lifeline, which is what God will always do. However, not all “healings” are what we are initially looking for or hoping for. If I am sick, I want to be well, and as soon as possible. My illness playing out, which may include my encountering others along the way, may prove to be important for us—or them. And what of those faithful people who do not experience a healing? Perhaps their healing—which may be their passing on from this life, “crossing over” into the arms of God—IS the ultimate healing for them. My home pastor often referred to a Christian’s death as “the ultimate healing.” None of us wants to rush that along, but it should be a comfort to us that the sting of death has been removed by our Lord Jesus Christ!

 

Finally, in terms of our own “getting better,” there are times when we just need to “take up our mat and walk.” Might this mean carrying on, despite some chronic illness or persistent emotional challenge? It was for the Apostle Paul, who lived an amazing life with his “thorn in the flesh,” which, despite the humorous assertion, was most likely NOT his mother-in-law. The scriptures tell us, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Notice it says BEAR, not “bare”—we church folk sometimes love to play “can you top this” with stories about our own suffering, or the suffering of others. Nope--take up your mat and walk! One final note: the lame man mentioned others who had friends to help them into the Pool at Bethesda, and he did not. How many others are out there who need encouragement or a “little help” to have their spirits lifted or assistance with their healing journey? This is what is meant by “bearing one another’s burdens,” I believe, and it may be one of the most wonderful things about a caring faith community, and a great witness to the reality of God to the world. To the glory of God, may the church be about “getting better,” and helping others do so, as well. Amen.