Tuesday in the Fourth Week

Ezekiel 47:1-9,12; Psalm 46:1-8; John 5:1-18

First, today, I’d like you to read the beautiful Ezekiel passage.  Soak in the water of life.  Feel your bones (likely cold if you live in the Northern Hemisphere) relax, feel your skin drink in the moisture.  Feel the Spirit breathe on the water, and know that God is flowing through this water, through you.  Just take it in.  This water flows from God, is God.  It’s for you.

How did that feel?  Could you take it in?  Could you really relax into the promise?

Jesus asks the man by the pool if he wants to be made well.  It has always struck me that we never get an answer.  The man has spent thirty-eight years by this pool, and he’s never made it.  By now, he’s not expecting to get in.  He can’t even seem to hope enough to say he wants it anymore.  He’s resigned.  And when Jesus does heal his body, his mind is still numb.  He’s still a victim.  When he’s challenged about carrying his mat he doesn’t stand up to his critics - he doesn’t say, “A miracle has happened, and you’re worrying about my mat?”  No, he blames Jesus for healing him and “making” him carry the mat.  And later he turns on Jesus.  His body is healed, but his mind is still lying by that pool.

I won’t ask if you’ve ever laid by the pool, by the river of life, and been unable to get in.  I’ll ask you how often, how recently.  We all have those times.  Some of us have been traumatized so early and so often that we’ve lived our lives - thirty-eight years or more - waiting for someone to pick us up, no longer believing that anyone will, no longer believing we can.  Sometimes, even when we start to heal, it can take a long time to see it and claim it.

Fortunately for us, Jesus doesn’t always depend on our answer.  Jesus doesn’t heal us only when we ask, and doesn’t take it back if we don’t give him credit.  Jesus heals because that’s what God does.  God heals because God heals.

Still, it matters whether we get on board.  This man’s body was healed, but we don’t hear any joy from him.  We don’t hear that his life will be different.  If we want all that God is offering, we have to participate.  We have to notice, we have to claim our desire to be healed, we have to move out of resignation into the space of hope - which is the space of desire, the space where we notice what we lack while we envision fulfillment.  We have to endure the waiting, and watch for the signs.  If we do that, we are on the lookout for miracles.

The water is already flowing around you, if you can let yourself feel it.  Claim your desire, find your joy.  Stand up, take up your mat and walk.