Do you want to be healed?

The following is a sermon delivered by the Rev. Jacob Rogers, ‘23, on March 22, 2023. The Gospel reading is John 5:1-18.

“Do you want to be healed?”

This is what Jesus asked the man beside the pool.

It’s kind of an odd question, isn’t it? If I were the man and some stranger asked me this, I might have sassed a little and said something like:

“Um, yeah … I’d love to be healed, obviously … you weirdo.”  

But the man is better than me and explains that he just can’t get down to the water when it is troubled. This is because he doesn’t have anyone to help him get to it, and other people get there first every time.

“So sure, I’d like to be healed, but I’ve been doing this for 38 years, and I’m kind of used to it now.”

But Jesus isn’t asking, “Why aren’t you healed already?” Jesus is asking, “Do you want to be healed?”

It’s a valid question. Yes, I’m sure he’d love to be healed, but think about it from his perspective for a minute. Wouldn’t that also be terrifying? What would that entail? Wouldn’t everything have to change? He’s been laying on a mat for 38 years. Half of us in this room aren’t even that old yet.

Think about the day you moved out of your parents house. Weren’t you scared? Think about the day you got married. Weren’t you scared? Think about the day you quit your job to move to a weird seminary in Wisconsin. Weren’t you scared?

What big change isn’t scary?

And now think about our friend on the mat. He’s got a life! It may not be what we would call a good life, but it’s the one he knows. All he knows is this 3-by-6-foot mat, and he generally stays in one place most, if not all, of the time.

He’s got his regular donors. He knows who will give him a coin for bread each week. And he knows who to send for that bread. He has his neighbors in the portico. He knows who talks and who brings the best news. He knows how to shake down the pilgrims and tourists. He has a system of survival all set up. It’s all very familiar. Comfortable even.

So then the new guy standing next to him asks “Do you want to be healed?” And notice this: he doesn’t actually say “yes.” Instead he hems and haws about how it would be nice, but really it’s too hard. No. It’s much too difficult. And again, if he were healed, what would he do with his life from then on?

In our own way, we agree with the man on the mat. It’s really just too hard to be healed. If it were up to us, we would probably avoid it as long as we could. And we do. We do. We avoid being healed.

St. Augustine knew the cost when he said, “Lord, make me chaste, but not yet!” And we agree.

Often we sit opposed to the will of God for us: the plain, clear, but seemingly impossible thing we know God is asking us to do. We all have something we are avoiding. And we think, if we just keep our heads down, we’ll be fine. But Jesus looks at us and says, “Do you want to be healed?”

Think back to C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce. Do you remember the Angel talking to the man with the red lizard on his shoulder?The lizard is the man’s lust. And the lizard desperately does not want to die. But the Angel asks the man over and over again, “Shall I kill it? May I kill it?” And so the lizard frantically whispers to the man of the dangers of the Angel. It whispers how much the man will lose if the Angel kills it and how much it will hurt. The man is in torment because he does not want to give up this pet he loves who promises so sweetly not to be a nuisance anymore.

But the Angel closes in, and his burning hands come nearer and nearer. And he asks again, saying, “I cannot kill it against your will. It is impossible. Have I your permission?”

And even now Jesus comes to us and asks us “Do you want to be healed?”

Jacob Rogers is a transitional Deacon in the ACNA's Jurisdiction of Armed Forces and Chaplaincy. Jacob and his wife, April, hail from Greenville, South Carolina. After graduation, they will be heading down to Charleston, South Carolina, where they will begin their next chapter. Jacob will be serving as Curate for Family Ministry at Old St. Andrew's Parish Church. They have two lovely daughters, Zoe (8) and Lydia (6).