This morning we are beginning a new series, that will take us through the summer, in which we will explore different encounters that people had with Jesus in different places. This morning we are reading from John’s eye witness account of the good news of Jesus. The place is the Pool of Bethesda, just inside the Sheep Gate in the wall of Jerusalem. This was an ancient part of the city, as is witnessed by the reading from Nehemiah describing it’s rebuilding on the return of the people of God from exile in Babylon.
Now, why is it important that this encounter took place there? Well, if you look carefully at your Bibles you will see that the main text jumps straight from verse 3 to verse 5. There is no verse 4, just a little 4 in brackets. Then just before verse 5 starts there’s a little b in italics indicating a foot note. At the bottom of the page we get the footnote telling us that in some of the ancient copies of this book there is a verse 4 added in, but that it isn’t in the oldest and most reliable copies. So, the editors have put it in a footnote, because it does tell us something useful, but it was probably not in the original that John wrote. So what does it tell us?
It tells us that there was a belief that when the waters of the pool stirred because an angel had been sent from heaven, the first one in the pool got healed. The number of people gathered round the pool suggests that either the people were completely desperate, or there was some foundation of real experience in the belief, or a mixture of both.
Either way, Jesus ends up there on one of his visits to Jerusalem, and sees a man who has been there a long time, and goes up to speak to him. I wonder how you imagine Jesus’ tone of voice in his parts of the conversation…
“Do you want to get well?”
“Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”
“See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”
Now, when I caricature it like that, I hope that very few of us would imagine that Jesus would speak in the second way. Having, said that, I wonder if some of us struggle to imagine Jesus speaking in the first way to us. I know that I do sometimes.
Nowadays we hear a lot about the importance of being kind to ourselves, and I understand where that is coming from, but I wonder if it is not actually more important to believe in and receive God’s kindness. As a bit of a sidebar, it seems to me that that applies to forgiveness, acceptance, and love as well. In the long run it is more healing and restorative to truly receive God’s forgiveness, acceptance, and love – than it is to forgive, accept, or love ourselves.
In my daily bible readings at the moment, I am reading through the Psalms in a translation by a Hebrew scholar called Robert Altar, whose translation sticks very closely to the poetic forms of the Hebrew. On Tuesday I was reading Psalm 26, and verse 3 struck me:
“For your kindness is before my eyes and I shall walk in your truth”.
I love the way that it captures the whole of life in the arms of God’s kindness and God’s truth. We focus on God’s kindness and walk in God’s truth, and all will be well, whatever comes our way. As I reflected further on this, these words started echoing in my thoughts,
“God’s kindness is true, and God’s truth is kind.”
“God’s kindness is true, and God’s truth is kind.”
I know that there are times at which I struggle to believe this. I’ve imagined God as harsh and condemning. I’ve felt like God’s kindness has let me down, it hasn’t been reliable. I haven’t always believed, I don’t always believe, that God likes me. I wonder if there’s anyone else here like that. If there is, then I invite you to allow this truth to minister to you.
“God’s kindness is true, and God’s truth is kind.”
Why is this important as we read this passage? Well, it comes back to this tone of voice thing. How do we think that Jesus spoke to the man? How do we hear God speaking to us?
If it is true that “God’s kindness is true, and God’s truth is kind” then there is no room for that harshness that I suggested was a possibility a little while ago.
I believe that Jesus spoke to the man kindly and gently, and I believe that is the way that God speaks to us now.
Holding that in mind, let’s go back to the first thing that Jesus said to the man, and let’s play with that a bit more.
“Do you want to get well?”
We’ve talked about tone of voice, but what about emphasis? That can change the meaning of a sentence as well, can’t it.
“DO you want to get well?”
“Do YOU want to get well?”
“Do you WANT to get well?”
“Do you want to GET WELL?”
We can’t know from the text which of these, or even another, was the way that Jesus said it. There are suggestions in most of the commentaries that the fact that the man had been there such a long time might indicate that he had either given up hope of being healed, or wasn’t actually making that much effort to get to the water, but was really there for the begging opportunities it provided. I’m not convinced that we can make that judgement from the text, which is pretty sparse.
What thinking about the emphasis can do, however, is to give us different perspectives to explore this conversation from.
The first one I’d like to open up is that of the personal nature of the question. “Do YOU want to get well?”
Jesus asks him as an individual – face to face, person to person. It reminds me of another conversation Jesus had with a blind man who came to him for healing, when Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” I believe that Jesus asks the same questions of us now.
Sometimes I’ll go for a pastoral visit, and I’ll offer to pray with someone and ask how I can pray for them, and they will tell me all the other people that they would like me to pray for, but nothing for themselves. Some of us have very disciplined prayer lives interceding and praying for others, and rarely, if ever, pray for ourselves. This shows great love for others, and those of us who mostly pray for ourselves could learn a lot from this, but it is not enough. We also need to pray for ourselves, to be honest with God about our struggles and desires. Because God’s truth is kind and God’s kindness is true.
It seems to me that we can also learn from Jesus in this about how we pray for others. Jesus asks the question, he doesn’t assume. It’s a good model to use when we’re praying for others. Ask what they want in a situation, sometimes it might not be what we were expecting.
The second perspective I’d like to open up is that of “wanting to get well.”
On Monday of this week I met with a staff worker from a local charity that supports people living with addiction to alcohol or drugs. We had a useful conversation about the various services they provide, and how referrals can be made, all the practical stuff. We also talked about supporting people into the first stage of recovery. I was aware that “wanting to get well” is really important in recovery, and I asked about how we can support people to “want to get well.” Lucy suggested to me that it is about helping people to imagine and understand that recovery is a possibility for them. It isn’t until people believe that something is possible and accessible to them, that they can truly invest in desiring it.
It seems to me that this is what Jesus does. He invites the man he is talking with to consider that something he had come to believe was not possible for him was actually possible.
For those of us who live with chronic illness or disability, or care for those who live with them, this can be a bitter sweet reading. At times verses like this have been used to bash us over the head, “well if you wanted to get well, then you would.” But I don’t believe that this is the way that Jesus asks this question. I believe that Jesus asks it with true kindness and kind truth. I believe that Jesus asks it in order to encourage us to hold on to the possibility of healing, whilst accepting that it might not come in this life time. After all, John tells us that there were many ill around that pool, but Jesus only healed one of them.
As we continue through this series, exploring different encounters with Jesus, I encourage you to listen out for that tone in Jesus’ voice, and where you imagine the emphasis in his conversations, and to ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you through that. Most of all, though, let’s rest and rejoice in the fact that God’s kindness is true and God’s truth is kind.