That Jesus.  He was always asking difficult, impertinent, direct, even impolite questions.  I think of the way he questioned the Pharisees’ in their strict interpretations of the Law.  I think of the way he questioned Martha in her distracted worrying.  I think of the way he questioned his own disciples over and over again… asking them “why are you so afraid?”

But the question he asks in the Gospel today may be the one that takes the cake – certainly it is the one that catches my attention and gives me the most pause:  Do you want to be healed?  Jesus asks this of a man who has been lying on a mat, sick, unable to move about or to experience a full life, a man seemingly without companions and a man without hope.  He finds him in Jerusalem, near a pool by the Sheep’s Gate.  Rumor has it that some divine force visits this pool from time to time, stirring the water and giving it the power to heal.  Not to heal everybody, mind you – but only the first person to step into the water when it bubbles and roils.  So Jesus goes to this pool, sees this man, and cuts right to the chase.  There is no introduction, no small talk, no sermon even… just that one question, Do you want to be made well?

That is an interesting question for us today as we worship separately together.  It is an interesting question as we are caught in the grip of a global pandemic, as we practice “social distancing” by not being social at all.  Imagine Jesus coming into this time and asking us that question today.  Would it make you uncomfortable?  Would it maybe even make you mad?

Do you hear that question and think who is Jesus to imply this fear we face, this uncertainty we experience, this unwelcome interruption in what we had come to think of as “normal” life… is somehow at least partially our fault?!  He is suggesting we are invested in our own brokenness, or that our identity is somehow wrapped up in our weakness?  Is he saying that all of us – whether we are young or old, strong or vulnerable – are stuck in a dead end of despair?

When Jesus looks at the man languishing by the pool for thirty-eight years, I think he sees more than sickness.  I think he sees resignation and defeat. He sees disintegration; he sees someone whose hope has been depleted, whose spirit has stagnated, whose imagination has shriveled so far that he cannot even tell what he wants for his body, his soul, his future.

What about us?  What does Jesus see when he looks at us this morning?  How many times have you or I said we wanted to be whole, and yet we have clung to our own brokenness because it is what we have known for so long?  We know what it’s like to benefit from the very things that cause us harm.  We know what it’s like to assume that everyone else has their life put together in a nice, neat package… and that we will forever be lying at the edge of the pool longing for the healing to come.

I came across a sort of parable that seems to fit today…

It seems one day a man went into a bus station in Athens, Georgia, to buy a ticket to Greenville, South Carolina.  The ticket clerk told the man that the bus was running late, so…to pass the time, the man walked around the terminal.

He came upon a machine with a sign claiming it could tell your name, age, hometown, and so on. 

Curious, the man put a quarter into the machine, and instantly a ticket popped out that read, “Your name is Bill Jones.  You are 35 years old.  You live in Athens, Georgia, and you are waiting for a bus to Greenville, South Carolina.  The bus is late.”

The man was dumbfounded.  How did this machine know such facts?  He reached into his pocket, pulled out another quarter and inserted it into the machine.  Another ticket came out that read, “Your name is still Bill Jones.  You are still 35 years old.  You still live in Athens, Georgia, and you are still waiting for a bus to Greenville, South Carolina.  But it is behind schedule.”

Now the man was astounded.  How could this be?  He decided to try to fool the machine.

He walked across the street into a dime store and bought a pair of Groucho Marx glasses with an exaggerated nose and moustache.  He also bought a pair of fake ears, a funny hat and a cane.  Wearing his silly disguise and walking with a limp, the man returned to the terminal and approached the machine.  He feebly inserted a quarter and waited for the response.

Out it came and this time it read:  “Your name is still Bill Jones.  You are still 35 years old.  You are still from Athens, Georgia, and you are waiting for a bus to Greenville, South Carolina. 

While you were fooling around, the bus came and left and you missed it!” 

I hope that is not what the machine – or for that matter, Jesus – might say to us today.

I hope we have not been “fooling around” with our worries, our warts, our worldliness, even our wealth, to the point of missing the bus to our own wholeness.  I hope we would not spend all our time trying to disguise ourselves or trying in vain to dress up our dreams, and miss the chance to be who we really are.

Someone else commented on the Gospel we read today, saying:

It is a miracle that the man is able to take up his mat and walk after being incapacitated for 38 relentless years.  It is also a miracle that Jesus invites him to see the impossible and to participate in his own healing and renewal.

My friends, it doesn’t matter how much time has passed for you.  It doesn’t matter if the barriers to your wholeness are real or only imagined.  Jesus is still asking and will keep on asking you to see the impossible, to participate in your own healing, because God wants you to be whole.

To be whole in Christ is to align our inner life with our outer life.  It is to orient our lives, and to order our actions wholly in response to God’s love for us.  At the end of the 23^rd Psalm we find these words…

          Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life…

Theologian and Biblical scholar Walter Brueggeman reflects upon that promise and gives us a deeper understanding of it when he writes:

          God’s friendliness and kindness will run after me and chase me down,

          grab me and hold me. The verb “follow” is a powerful, active verb.

          We are being chased by God’s powerful love.  We run from it. 

          We try to escape.  We fear that goodness, because then we are no longer

          in control.  We do not trust such a generosity, and we think our own best

          efforts are better than God’s mercy.

If we have learned nothing from the Coronavirus epidemic, we surely must be learning that we have not as much control as we think we do.  We are also learning, maybe even reluctantly, that we are in this life together… what I do impacts you, and vice versa.  Brueggeman goes on:

          This is a time to quit running, to let ourselves be caught and embraced

          in love, like a sheep with safe pasture.

          Our life is not willed by God to be an endless anxiety.  It is rather meant

          to be an embrace… but that entails being caught by God.

Do you want to be made whole?  Let God catch you, let God embrace you, let God hold you in love.  For surely, God’s promise in Christ is a promise of wholeness and peace and hope.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.