Shining Beacons of Light

Shining Beacons of Light

Sunday, May 26, 2019

Do You Want to be Healed?: An Easter Sermon After the Death of a Friend


After Jesus healed the son of the official in Capernaum, there was a festival of the Jews, 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 lay many invalids-- blind, lame, and paralyzed [waiting for the stirring of the water; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and stirred up the water; whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was made well from whatever disease that person had]. 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 am 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. Now that day was a sabbath.’ John 5:1-9

Every once in a while we have a choice for our scripture readings on a given Sunday. Usually the choice is with the Old Testament reading, or maybe the psalm. A choice of gospel, as we had today, is unusual. Earlier this week Julie asked me which to include in the leaflet and I picked the miracle story. It seemed more interesting somehow than Jesus’ farewell message to his friends. As the week has unfolded I’ve realize how significant that choice was. The story of the man healed at the pool of Beth-Zada has a lot to tell us.

The text doesn’t give us the diagnosis of his ailment, but seems to be a kind of paralysis, since he couldn’t get into the pool. There’s also missing portion of the gospel story as we heard it, which appears in some manuscripts: it says that an angel of the Lord is the one who stirs up the waters and gives them healing powers. That was omitted in our reading because not all early sources include it. And because it is a little fantastic. The place, though, was real. Archeologists found it in the 1960s. With five porticoes, to the northeast of the Temple. The idea of the pool—whether the water is stirred by an angel or some other source, perhaps a natural spring—is that only the first person who entered it after the waters were enlivened received the healing powers and was cured. Others had to wait until the next time.

Remember, this is in Jerusalem, just outside the Temple. And today’s event happens during a festival. You can imagine all sorts of pilgrims in search of healing (similar to Lourdes or Walsingham), likely a rush to get in first. And because this man was paralyzed and didn’t seem to have assistance, he always missed out—for as many as 38 years. One wonders whether he had family or friends who maybe could have helped him. Or maybe he lost them, spending all his time at the pool.

We might even wonder if he really wanted to be healed. In fact, Jesus asks him just that question: “Do you want to be healed?” The man doesn’t answer directly, but instead focuses on his inability to jump into the pool in time. The gospels rarely offer any psychological insights into the figures we meet. But we might conclude that he was stuck, paralyzed--physically, emotionally, spiritually. Why else spend so much time there at the pool? 38 years is a lot of life to lose, waiting for a miracle that might never come.

Like the man in the gospel story, sometimes we, too, get stuck. Even paralyzed. If not physically, then certainly emotionally, spiritually, mentally. Sometimes we cannot even imagine a different future for ourselves—whatever the problem is, a difficult job, a difficult relationship, a worry about our health, addictions, dark places and dark thoughts that hold us in their grip. We’d like to be healed or freed, but can’t figure out how to make it happen. Maybe, like the man in the gospel story, we feel that we don’t have anyone who can help us, or we are afraid to ask, or in some cases, we’ve become so turned in on ourselves that we’ve let the relationships that can give us life fall away.

Each of us has a different experience and reality, but the effect can be much the same. And like the man in the gospel story, we too are met by Christ, who asks us, as well, if we want to be healed. Do we truly want new life? Or, is it easier if we stay stuck, paralyzed, afraid? 

It’s interesting that when Jesus tells the man in the story that he should stand up and walk, the Greek word used can mean, simply, “stand up,” but it can also mean “resurrect.” I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Because I think Jesus is really telling this man, who had been so lost, so stuck, and so broken for so long, that he should be resurrected. He should live. He should be alive. The physical healing is important in the story. But far more, I think, is the spiritual healing—healing that leads to wholeness and new life. A life not spent waiting for a miracle by a pool, but instead lived in and with God, and hopefully in and with others.

Friday afternoon I learned of the unexpected death of our friend and parishioner Cathy Conboy when her husband Mark called. The news came as a shock to me, and to everyone I talked with on Friday. We’ve had more than our share of deaths of wonderful parishioners over the past 11 years, many of them proverbial pillars of the church, but something about Cathy’s seems different to me. She was younger, still active in her many ministries, looking forward to her daughter Alice’s high school graduation next week.

Cathy is someone who, like the man in the gospel, suffered with a sometimes debilitating physical condition. She lived with lupus for many years, and a long list of accompanying complications. Life wasn’t easy for Cathy. Sometimes it was very hard. It is not what she would have envisioned or chosen for herself—or for her family. And yet, unlike the man in this morning’s gospel story, Cathy did not put her life on hold while waiting for a miracle of physical healing. Instead, she chose to live. She chose to stand up and walk, when she could--to resurrect herself--drawing strength and courage from her family, her friends, and from her faith. Even in the darkest days, she showed us how to live and how to love. She showed us that physical limitations need not hold us back. She understood, probably better than those blessed with more robust health, that life has to be lived. Every day that we are alive is a day worth living.

It is astounding to think of all the ways that Cathy was engaged here at church, even as she struggled with her health: organizing our acolytes and serving on the worship committee for several years; serving on the mission commission—selling plants and flowers to support refugees and organizing a massive yard sale to support the people of war-torn Syria. She helped deliver carloads of backpacks and school supplies to Housing Families, and brought boxes of donated winter coats and joined a tour at Lazarus House in Lawrence. Cathy hosted coffee hours and often engaged in adult education sessions. She took watercolor classes and was active in a book group with her many friends. All the while she was raising her daughters, instilling in them faith and confidence, giving them the best foundation for life she could. When I visited her at Mass General two weeks before she died, she nearly glowed with joy when talking Mary and Alice. She was proud of their accomplishments, but even more for the people they are.

Cathy knew too well that life can be shorter than we’d like sometimes. And so we need to stand up and walk—not waiting for a miracle to happen to us and for us—but instead, grabbing hold of the full, wonderful, resurrection life that God offers each of us, even now, even when our bodies or spirits may not be as healthy or as strong as we would want.

“Do you want to be made well?” Jesus asked the man in the gospel. And he asks the same of us. The man in the gospel story didn’t really answer. But we can. Like our friend Cathy we can choose to be well, even in our limitations. We can choose resurrection. We can choose to pick up our mats, stand up and walk, into the future, into the life, that God has prepared for us.

To God be the glory: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

© The Rev. Matthew P. Cadwell PhD

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