Is Jesus serious here? Honestly, what kind of question is that? “Do you desire to become whole?” The guy’s been sick for thirty-plus years. We’re not told how old he is, but if that’s not all his life it’s certainly most of it. And day after day after day he sits there by the pool. Week after week, no one lends him a helping hand into the waters since they’re all trying to get themselves or their loved one in first. Month after month people step over his struggles. I’d expected the man to say, “Are you kidding?”
When you think about it, though, the man by the pool never answered that question, did he? Jesus asked what he wanted, what he wished, what he desired. This was a big moment. Here’s someone asking him for his heart’s desire. Say yes, I want to scream, say yes!
But he doesn’t say yes. He doesn’t even say no. He seems to avoid the question all together. Rather than answering what desire has filled his prayers, he responds with a complaint. What do you want? “Ah, well. You see I’ve got no one to help me into this pool. And every day when the waters start to bubble, I try really hard to get to the water but no one helps me. They just step over me (and sometimes on me) and I’m left waiting another day.”
In mysteries, which I happen to enjoy, you always pay attention when someone dances around a question by changing the subject. “Don’t you think it’s odd that you didn’t notice the missing vase,” the detective asks. “Oh, would you like some coffee,” the other person answers. Immediately we’re tipped off that there’s something this person doesn’t want to talk about. There’s something they’re hiding. They probably aren’t guilty, but there’s some piece of important information to which the questioner got too close.
But that doesn’t apply here, does it? What could he possibly have wanted to avoid in Jesus’ question? What could have possibly made him uncomfortable? He did want to be made whole. Didn’t he?
Of course, I suppose being broken had become a part of this man’s identity. We’re never told what his illness was. My first thought was that it was physical. But what if it wasn’t?
Maybe this man was scared of giving up what kept him from wholeness. Maybe he realized that he’d lose a part of who he thought he was, and he might have to discover who he’d been created to be.
Maybe Jesus asked because the answer to that question isn’t as obvious as I first thought. How would you answer it?
God you came among us to make whole our hearts and souls. Forgive me when I’ve resisted that work to protect the identity with which I’ve become so familiar. And when you ask, help me to answer “yes.”
I thought this was wonderful! How many of us are really scared to become whole, and we don't realize it!