Do You Want to be Made Well?

Devotional Reflection, Wednesday, March 19, 2025

The Week of the Second Sunday in Lent

The Rev. David W. Perkins,Th.D.

Key phrases for reflection from today’s Gospel reading:

5:1After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. 3In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. 4 5One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6When 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?’ . . . .

15The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. 16Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath.

You will find the full text of today’s Gospel reading at the end of this reflection.

Daily Office Lectionary Readings (BCP, 952)

AM Psalm 72; PM Psalm 119:73-96

Jer. 3:6-18; Rom. 1:28-2:11; John 5:1-18

Today we celebrate the Feast of Joseph. (See below.)

David's Reflections

One person counted thirty-seven miracles of Jesus recorded in the Gospels.  Most are miracles of healing.  Jesus cast out demons, healed fever, lameness, deafness and dumbness, skin diseases, deformity, hemorrhage.  Biblical scholarship, even some of the most radically skeptical, acknowledges that Jesus healed.  Unless you embrace some sort of dispensational view that God doesn't work in the world in those ways any more, then you are left with the conclusion that Jesus still heals. As my major prof in seminary, Malcolm Tolbert was wont to say, “All healing is divine.” That would include healing coming through medical science and through the activity of the Holy Spirit and the healing ministries of the Church.

In this Gospel, Jesus encountered a man who has suffered his entire life and whose feelings of powerlessness have him caught in his suffering.  The question "Do you want to be healed" provoked excuses as to why he had not been rather than a resilient YES.  Perhaps this man’s lameness had come to define his life.  What would he do without it?  Where would he find his identity apart from his infirmity? He would have to assume new responsibilities were he able to walk. Such a person today would be called “wound identified,” that is so identified with their wound that parting with the wound feels more threatening than living with it.

Jesus healed this man even though he actually had no faith.  His healing contrasts with the faith-filled response of the nobleman in yesterday's Gospel whose faith increased as a result of his son's healing.  Here the healed man reveals his lack of faith by becoming complicit with the religious leaders who are plotting to do away with Jesus. Jesus had broken tradition by healing on the Sabbath; the one healed reported the identity of his healer to them.  In contrast to the story in John 4, John’s Gospel makes no mention of his having faith before or after the healing.

If we are to be in step with what Jesus' Spirit is doing in the world around us, we will embrace the suffering of all people, whether they share our faith or not.  We will pray for them and we will take advantage of every opportunity to be involved in their healing. This story reveals to us that God’s healing activity is ongoing among all people, whether they exercise faith or not. To be in step with the Spirit we seek the healing of all people.

Healing can be spiritual, the experience of forgiveness and the love of God in Christ.  It can be inner, the healing of memories and wounds, which can come about through therapeutic means and by prayers for healing.  It can be physical, the deliverance from sickness by medical and spiritual means.  It can be generational, the healing of intergenerational wounds and patterns of behavior.  Or, it can be in the form of deliverance from the powers of evil.

Our faith can wane in the face of ongoing illness, whether ours or someone else’s. Could we dare believe that healing might come in spite of our lack of faith? It did for the lame man in today’s Gospel. If not the malady itself, then our relationship to it might be  healed. See Paul’s story in 2 Corinthians 12; he prayed three times for healing of what he called a thorn in the flesh, but it persisted. Through grace his relationship with that malady got healed and he came to see it as a way God deepened his spiritual life, as a conduit for grace to overflow in his life. As he put it, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor. 12:10)

Jesus’ question to the man by the pool comes to us as well, “Do you want to be made well?”

Collect of the Day, The Second Sunday in Lent

O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.  (BCP, 217)

Today we celebrate the Feast of Joseph, father of Jesus

http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/Joseph.htm

Collect of the Feast of Joseph

O God, who from the family of your servant David raised up Joseph to be the guardian of your incarnate Son and the spouse of his virgin mother: Give us grace to imitate his uprightness of life and his obedience to your commands; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Collect of the second Wednesday in Lent

O God, you so loved the world that you gave your only-begotten Son to reconcile earth with heaven: Grant that we, loving you above all things, may love our friends in you, and our enemies for your sake; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

(Weekday Eucharistic Propers, p. 24.)

A Collect for Grace

Lord God, almighty and everlasting Father, you have brought us in safety to this new day: Preserve us with your mighty power, that we may not fall into sin, nor be overcome by adversity; and in all we do, direct us to the fulfilling of your purpose; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 100)

For the Parish

Almighty and everliving God, ruler of all things in heaven and earth, hear our prayers for this parish family. Strengthen the faithful, arouse the careless, and restore the penitent. Grant us all things necessary for our common life, and bring us all to be of one heart and mind within your holy Church; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.  (BCP, 817)

A Prayer for Light

O Lord God Almighty, as you have taught us to call the evening, the morning, and the noonday one day; and have made the sun to know its going down: Dispel the darkness of our hearts, that by your brightness we may know you to be the true God and eternal light, living and reigning for ever and ever. Amen.  (BCP, 110)

A Collect for Mission

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen. (BCP, 101)

Daily Office Gospel, John 5:1-18

5:1After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. 3In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. 4 5One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6When 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?’ 7The 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.’ 8Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’ 9At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a sabbath. 10So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, ‘It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.’ 11But he answered them, ‘The man who made me well said to me, “Take up your mat and walk.”’ 12They asked him, ‘Who is the man who said to you, “Take it up and walk”?’ 13Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. 14Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, ‘See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.’ 15The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. 16Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath.

17 But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is still working, and I also am working.’ 18For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.

Daily Prayer Offices in The Book of Common Prayer

Morning Prayer, Rite 2, page 75, Book of Common Prayer

Noonday Prayer, p. 103, Book of Common Prayer

Order of Worship for Evening (Vespers), p. 109, Book of Common Prayer

Evening Prayer, Rite 2, page 115, Book of Common Prayer

Compline (Night Prayer), Page 127, Book of Common Prayer

Daily Devotionals, page 136, Book of Common Prayer