GOSPEL: John 5:1-9

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;… (Read the whole passage)

Six Sundays into Easter we are coming to the end of the great party of the resurrection. Sure, things have been winding down for a few weeks already, but now is the time when the hosts are letting everyone know that the kitchen is only open a few more minutes, its last call before hitting the road. We are close to being ejected from this celebratory season into the next thing. But the coming end of Easter isn’t just about moving to the next thing. Easter wraps up the first half of the church year where we tell the story of Jesus’ life, from birth to death to resurrection. On Pentecost Sunday we mark the beginning of the Church, the Body of Christ, of Jesus’ presence in the world in a new way and we follow that with about 25 Sundays of green where we hear the teachings of Jesus.

And so it is curious, that coming to the end of the portion of the church year where we tell the story of Jesus’ life we skip back to a moment earlier on. A scene from early on in Jesus’ ministry not long after his baptism and early miracles. In the light of Easter, this moment takes on different connotations than it might have before.

Jesus is making his way through Jerusalem and comes near the Sheep Gate and the pool of Bethzatha. It was believed that this particular pool was periodically visited by an angel who would stir up the waters, after it would heal those who bathed in it – the sick, blind and lame.

Laying there is a sick man who had been there for 38 years. Jesus sees this man and asks him a question, “Do you want to be made well?”

The man tells Jesus that there is no one to bring him to the waters when they are stirred up, and he cannot make it in time on his own.

At this point, the conversation should be feeling a little off. It is like when someone responds to a question that isn’t actually an answer to the question. We have all had these kinds conversations. “What time is it?” “Oh, well we haven’t had lunch yet.” Or “How do you get to the grocery store from here.?” “That’s a long ways, you will need to drive.”

Jesus asks a fairly straight forward question and the man answers a completely different one. And in fact, there are a lot of different answers that the man could have given that would have been closer to answering Jesus’ question. He could have said ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ he could have told the story of how he lost the use of his legs or became sick, he could have asked for mercy and help. But the man doesn’t respond in any of those ways…

Instead the man begins, “Sir, I have no one…”

The man begins with relationships or his lack there of. He has no one, no one in his community has been willing to help him for 38 years. But the man also claims no agency, he believes that his problem is that he has no one, and no one will make way for him.

And maybe after 38 years that makes sense in the man’s mind. He neither sees nor imagines any kind of alternate future. This is his life, the sheep gate with all the others in his community like him, just a few steps from healing, yet completely unattainable.

The man has also completely avoided Jesus’ initial question. “Do you want to be made well?” And that is significant.

It’s significant because it is the same kind of thing we do as well. The conversation that Jesus and the man have could have just as easily been one in our homes or work places, churches or neighbourhoods. It feels unimaginable that no one would have helped this many in nearly 40 years. Yet, how many of us live with pain and discomfort, frustrations or grudges for years upon years? How often when faced with the prospect of doing something about the problems we bear, we look around and say, “There is no one here to do the work needed to do.” As a community and society, how often do we simply accept or even encourage the suffering of an unfortunate few? “If only they could help themselves, if they did’t make the choices they did, what could I do about a problem so big and so hard?”

Our problem is that we find it so hard to imagine any kind of different future than our present. The man has become his story. He has no one to take him to the pool and when he tries to make it on his own, someone steps in his way.

And so too we become our stories…

I am too old to start over,

too set in my ways to learn,

too far gone to be be saved.

We are dying because there is no one to step up and do the work,

we are declining because sports and shopping on Sunday morning,

people just don’t care enough to give of their time and resources like folks did in the past.

Climate change is too big a problem.

Sexism, racism, and inequality are other people’s problems.

I didn’t do those awful things, why should I have to pay for the sins of my ancestors.

We too cannot imagine a future different than our present. It isn’t that we don’t want to be made well or not… its that we don’t know what being well even looks like. We believe that we are what we are.

Yet, Jesus shows up and asks anyways. “Do you want to be made well?”

And you see, before the man even answers, Jesus has invalidated the man’s story of himself. “Sir, I have no one…”

Except the One who has seen him and reached out to him and asked him if he want to be made well.

And even when the man cannot see it, even when he still does not realize that Jesus has broken through his isolation and solitude, and that Jesus has seen him not for his problems but for his humanity…. even when the man cannot see all that… Jesus stays present.

“Stand up, take your mat and walk.”

It isn’t that Jesus has fixed the man’s legs, or taken away his sickness. It’s that even when the man cannot recognize Jesus’ breaking through with a new future and a new story… Jesus hears the man.

It is as if Jesus is saying, “So you think your problem is that you cannot make it to the pool and no one will help you there?… Okay, how about now?” And the man has help, the man can get to the pool.

Jesus meets this man, see him for who he is, and hears who the man believes himself to be…. and Jesus breaks through it all. Jesus makes the man well with a future that only God could have imagined.

And for all the ways in which we cannot imagine any other future, in which we believe that our present is our future… God has a new future and new story in mind for us.

Each time we gather as the assembly, God greets us with a new story about us.

Forgiveness for sinners,

Healing for suffering,

Reconciliation for the conflicted,

Intimacy for the isolated,

Welcome for the marginalized,

Community for outsider,

Hope for the despairing,

Peace for the tormented,

Life for the dying,

Resurrection for the dead.

God greets us and this world with a Word that changes our present, and opens us up to a future we cannot conceive of or imagine.

And even when we cannot see what Jesus is doing, Jesus sees who we truly are in the waters of baptism, the new identity that we are washed and cleansed with in the waters.

And even when we cannot imagine what being well looks for us, when we cannot answer Jesus’ question for us, Jesus greets us at the table, welcomes us into God’s future, into healing relationship and community found in the Body of Christ.

It is as if Jesus hears all the stories about ourselves that we bring here, that we bring to this assembly, and Jesus says to us, “Okay, so you think that that is your story, that this is your future? Okay, how about now?” And we are forgiven and healed and reconciled and brought to new life.

Jesus meets us over and over again, from Christmas, to Lent, to Good Friday, to Easter and beyond. And Jesus keeps on asking,

“Do you want to be made well?”

And thankfully, our answer to this question doesn’t matter… because Jesus has already seen us, already sought us out and already has set us into God’s future.

And Jesus’ answer to us is, “Stand up, take your mats and walk.”