I’m always intrigued by the questions Jesus asked. They sound simple but almost never are. Some seem to have such obvious answers they almost seem not worth the asking.
If we think our kids were inquisitive, what must Mary and Joseph have thought? We know that when Jesus got lost at twelve years old, they found him in the temple “confounding” the PhD’s in theology and scripture by his questions. And he never stopped asking questions that “confound”. As simple as they seem, his questions tell the story of his ministry on earth.
--Who touched me?
--Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?
--How much bread and fish do you have?
--Do you see these great buildings?
--Who do you say that I am?
--Can you not watch with me for one hour?
--Do you put a lighted candle under a basket?
--How long do I have to put up with you?
--Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?
The story of the pool of Bethesda and its surroundings provoke the most interesting question and instruction Jesus ever asked, and they reverberate to this day to our 21st Century ears.
The man Jesus singled out was there among scores of other disabled people, crowded under the porches held up by five huge pillars surrounding the pool. The expectation was that for whatever reason (angels? spirits? wind?) the water in the pool would ripple as if stirred by some force. The first person to get into the water while it was “troubled” would be healed. The obvious problem was that if one were blind, deaf, crippled, or too weak to get up, it would be nearly impossible to get to the pool at all, let alone first, unless there was a 24/7 helper.
The man Jesus zeroed in on was paralyzed and had been waiting by the pool for thirty-seven years. What a mess he must have been by the time Jesus showed up! It was at this moment that Jesus asked either a stupid or very profound question: “Do you want to be well?”
The man’s bewildered answer was that he had no one to help him get to the pool before someone else did or the pool quieted down. Jesus’s solution was simple. “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”
The question Jesus asked gets to the bottom of our own universal problem. Do we really want to be well and start behaving like a well person with no excuses and no one to blame? Or are we so addicted to our illnesses that they have become our comfort zone?
But that is not the end of the story that still echoes down across the generations. The now walking man goes to the temple, as was the law, to have his healing verified by the righteous authorities there. But the righteous weren’t excited for this 38-year invalid, nor did they share his rejoicing for the beauty of his fresh ability to walk. No, it was the Sabbath, and they came down on him for “working on the Sabbath” by carrying around his mat on his way home as Jesus had commanded.
Okay. Let’s just stop there. That gives legalism the ugly connotation it deserves. And if the poor guy had known who healed him, they’d have gone after Jesus, too, for healing on the Sabbath.
So let’s go on. The man had no idea who Jesus was so wasn’t able to out him to the legalists. But later on Jesus found the man at the temple and said an even stranger thing than the original question: “See, you’re well again. Now stop sinning or something worse will happen to you.”
How could a cripple, lying on his mat for thirty-eight years, have been sinning, according to most people’s definition? He didn’t drink or smoke or hurt anybody. He didn’t carouse or go with wild women. He didn’t rob anyone on the road or beat up his wife.
Oh, but no one saw (except Jesus) what had been going on in his mind--maybe all of the above and more. Hatred, anger, resentment, lust, avarice, greed.... These don’t need legs. But given legs, there was no telling where this man’s mind might have taken him. Jesus knew that, too.
Then the man went and told everyone it was Jesus. Yes, only Jesus....
