Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent
At this point in the season of Lent, I often find myself wishing for a little bit of encouragement. I find myself asking, why am I going through this? What purpose is it serving? How much longer is it going to be before life can return to ‘normal’? The scriptures for today, especially the gospel reading, provide some of this needed encouragement.
The gospel reading tells the story of a man who encounters Jesus and who is transformed through the experience. According to the scripture passage, there are many people next to the pool of Bethesda waiting to be healed. One man, who has been ill for thirty eight years, is also sitting there. The man has been sitting for a long time next to the pool, waiting for the chance to be healed. However, the healing that the man has sought after has not arrived. Jesus asks the man whether he wants to be healed. Jesus’ voice here has a note of challenge in it, but it is not an accusation. The man replies that he wants to be healed but he has no one to put him into the water when it is stirred up. Upon hearing this, Jesus heals the man, and commands him to take up his mat and walk.
It seems to me that this story represents the encounter that Jesus has with many of his disciples during Lent. To be healed of our spiritual infirmities and illnesses is a process in which God works and acts, but we also must do something to allow this to happen. We must receive the gift of God’s healing. The healing that Jesus offers to the man beside the pool is a free gift, and yet Jesus saw that the man eagerly desired to be healed and that he was willing to receive healing if it came to him. To the man’s credit, when Jesus healed him he did gratefully received this gift. So there is a way in which the man cooperates with Jesus to allow himself to be healed.
During Lent, it seems that Jesus is asking us whether we really want to be healed. I often find that my own motives are not so clear. Like the man in the story, I sometimes find myself desiring healing but I am either unsure how to achieve it or I find in myself some doubt whether, in the end, I really want to be healed.
When confronting this passage and its teachings for me today, I find myself asking myself some weighty questions. Are there times when I could do more to allow the healing work of into my life? Do I resist the work of the Spirit in my life? Do I put up excuses for not making progress in faith and becoming a more faithful disciple of Christ? Do I have a good reason for not doing more to follow Jesus? I hope that reflecting on these questions can help carry me through the rest of the Lenten season this year.
- Joel Schickel