“Do you want to be made well?”

If Jesus himself were to ask us this, and give us on of those looks, one of those maternal or paternal kind of looks, a “I love you and you better be honest” kind of looks, one of those come to Jesus kind of looks, how would we respond? 

“Do you want to be made well?”

Well, first, do I need to be made well? This question gives us the opportunity to be honest with ourselves and honest to God about the ways we may be unwell. 

Then, do I actually want to be made well? This question gives us the opportunity to be honest with ourselves and honest to God about whether we do indeed want to be made well. 

Then, why am I not yet well? 

This question also gives us the opportunity to be honest with ourselves and honest to God about what has gotten in our way from fulfilling that need to be made well. Maybe it is that we haven’t admitted how we are unwell. Maybe it is that we haven’t truly wanted to be made well.Mmaybe we have been looking for healing from the wrong places. Maybe it is that we have felt powerless to do anything about it; maybe forces beyond our control have blocked our way to receiving the healing we need, maybe we literally are powerless in the situation. 

“Do you want to be made well?”

When Jesus asks this question of the man lying near the healing pool at the house of grace in Jerusalem, the man does seem to be clear about how he is unwell. He also does seem to be clear that he does indeed want to be made well. His response is specifically about what has gotten in his way from being made well. (John 5:1-9)

He has been seeking healing from these healing waters at this house of grace. 

But this particular source of healing has all kinds of barriers around it. This house of grace may be in an open courtyard, but it has walls and gates, you could say, that only some can get through. This healing source works only for the lucky winners who get to it first in the magic and arbitrary window of time when an angel comes and stirs the water. That is impossible for this man. He keeps getting crowded out. His illness is clearly disabling, he seems to be socially isolated for whatever reasons, and no one has had compassion enough for him to help him struggle through his elbowing competitors.

This particular healthcare system, you could say, has all kinds of red tape. Very limited access, and unequal. It serves the privileged and shuts out those most in need, those who are sickest and poorest and most isolated. Nothing here that we could relate to in our enlightened age, right?!

Jesus operates according to an entirely different economy of grace, one that puts the least and the last and the lost at the center of a circle whose circumference is infinite.

For Jesus, the house of grace and its healing waters do not have gates or gatekeepers or steep steps that only the fit and privileged can race up while crowing out those most in need. For Jesus, the house of grace is wide open and available to all who ask. 

So, Jesus simply invites the man to arise, where he is, as he is, and discover to his surprise that he is whole and healed. 

“Do you want to be made well?”

How am I unwell? What does it mean to be well? 

This story, I think, is showing us something new about what true wellness means. It has to do with more than only physical ability or disability – as important as that is. Physical health is important, and access to physical healthcare is important. It’s no mistake that the first hospital was created by a Jesus-follower – Basil of Caesarea, in what is now Turkey, whose life overlapped with St Nicholas of Christmas gift fame in the 4th century. Basil cared so deeply for those who are poor and cast off that he built basically a city for providing free professional medical care to all comers. 

The wellspring of this kind of vision is an understanding of wellness that is, you could say, truly wholistic. 

True wellness involves dimensions of ourselves as spiritual beings no one can limit access to, no one can crowd you out of, no one can confine to just one part of ourselves or of our society. The source of everyone’s true well-being is the source of everyone’s being itself, the Holy One, our Creator, our God, in whose eternal spirit we all live and move and have our being, whose boundless, universal grace we find fully embodied in Christ.   

What does this mean for healing? 

  Let me quote from the book about healing prayer that some of you are now discussing in our adult spiritual formation class:

“Stretch out your hand: Exploring Healing Ministry” by Tilda Norberg & Robert Webber (pg. 26-27)

            “Christian healing is a process that involves the totality of our being – body, mind, emotion, spirit, and our social context – and that directs us toward becoming the person God is calling us to be at every stage of our living and our dying. Whenever we are truly open to God, some kind of healing takes place, because God yearns to bring us to wholeness. Through prayer and the laying on of hands, through confession, anointing, the sacraments, and other means of grace, Jesus meets us in our brokenness and pain and there loves, transforms, forgives, redeems, resurrects, and heals. Jesus does this in God’s way, in God’s time, and according to God’s loving purpose for each person. 

“Because the Holy Spirit is continually at work in each of us, pushing us toward wholeness, the process of healing is like removing sticks and leaves from a stream until the water runs clear. If we simply get out of the way of the Lord’s work in us, we can trust that we are being led to the particular kind of wholeness God wills for us.”

So, what is that particular kind of wholeness that God wills for you? What is the particular kind of wholeness that God wills for us as a community of faith? What is the particular kind of wholeness that God wills for all of us in our society? Within our ecosystem? Throughout our world? 

What are the barriers? How can we remove them? How can we get out of the way? 

What would it be like to know that the house of grace has no walls or gates, that it’s healing waters are stretched out across the world, for those who have eyes to see and hearts to receive? 

“Do you want to be made well?”

Thanks be to God.      

(Delivered Sunday February 5, 2023, by Rev. Nathaniel Mahlberg, at the United Church of Christ at Valley Forge)