There is an intriguing bit in today’s reading. By way of background, John wrote: “There is a pool near the Sheep Gate,” (John 5:2). That would have been an odd thing for him to say, after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD. If he wrote his gospel after the city had been destroyed, he would presumably have said “There was this pool” or “there used to be a pool near the Sheep Gate.” His present-tense description points us toward an earlier date for the Gospel of John than many scholars propose: in the 60s, rather than the 90s.

At this pool many crippled people gathered, hoping for a cure. An early commentator added an explanation: an angel would come to stir the water and whoever first got into the pool would be cured of their illness. Some time later – probably during the fourth century – this explanation got copied into the text of several manuscripts, and the line would eventually be numbered as verse 4 in the King James Bible. It’s a reasonable explanation for why all those people were waiting at this pool; but we should know that it was not originally part of John’s gospel.

One paralyzed man had been there, day by day, for 38 years. Jesus asked him, “Do you want to be made well?” (5:6). Isn’t that an interesting question? The answer might seem obvious that if he’s been waiting at the side of the pool for 38 years, what else could it be? Yet the man began to make the excuse that he couldn’t move quickly when the water was stirred, so someone else always got into the pool before he did: a classic case of doing the same thing over and over and thinking this time you’ll get better results.

Jesus told him, “Get up and walk.” The man did it: and Jesus caused him to be healed, and that’s a miracle. But perhaps there’s another miracle here as well. The man had continued to follow the same futile pattern for 38 years, each time imagining that this time would be different: but this time the man did something different, just because Jesus told him to. Most of us can recognize that same pattern in ourselves: we keep on doing the thing that doesn’t work, and it’s only when we hear and follow Jesus’ command to do something different that we ever experience the change.

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You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my soul may praise you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever (Psalm 30:11-12).
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We get ourselves so stuck, Lord. We can see that what we’re doing doesn’t work, but we keep doing it, unable to see anything else to do. Speak to our souls, we pray; let us hear your question, “Do you want to get well?” and let us hear your command, to get up and get going.

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