“Why wait for spring, do it now”

By Rev. Michael Stonhouse

Meditation – Friday, December 31, 2021

John 5:1-18 (Forward, p. 63) CEV p. 1105

This musical jingle, written by Canadian veteran and writer George Blackburn, was featured in the 1960’s Canadian government winter works promotion. The idea behind it was to encourage homeowners to get home improvements done during the winter months. Its message, however, could be seen as having a much wider application, namely that of not procrastinating and making use of seemingly slack, even seemingly, difficult, times to get important things done.

That, to me, would also be a central message to today’s account—for two reasons. Firstly, because it was the Sabbath Day the authorities would have been quite adamant—and quite right, according to the way they had construed the Sabbath regulations—that Jesus should have waited until after the Sabbath to conduct this healing. After all, it was not really necessary, not really life-threatening or anything like that! It wasn’t really the most propitious time, like spring, for best to put it off.

The second reason is that for Jesus suffering of any sort was foreign or abhorrent to the will of God. The man had already been crippled for some thirty-eight years, and Jesus decided that it was long enough, time to end this physical impairment, this pain and suffering, and this humiliation and allow the man to return to a normal life. So, for Jesus, ‘why wait for spring’, (why wait for the Sabbath to end) meant that He should do it now.

That action on the part of Jesus seems totally and utterly appropriate for this last day of the year. There are many things, many actions, many resolves, that we put off, that we procrastinate about. Many of these have as a basis the well-being of others—or ourselves—at their heart. So, maybe, following Jesus’ lead, we should pledge ourselves to not waiting, not waiting until spring as it were, but doing it right now. The great thing is that Jesus is there to guide, encourage and help us in this. Amen.

Forward notes: “When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’” (verse 6)

“Nothing more powerful to me than a good question. Perhaps it’s the wannabe therapist in me, but I know that a good question cuts to the chase and gets to the real heart of the matter. Whether I’m the one asking or the one being asked, the ability to ask a question that needs to be asked is nothing short of pure gift.

“Jesus, of course, is the ultimate question-asker, throwing back questions to questions asked of him, further infuriating those in his path. But the Son of Man knows how to ask a good question, and when he meets an invalid who has been lying beside the pool of Bethesda for thirty-eight years, he knows exactly what to ask.

“He doesn’t ask the man, ‘How’s your day going?’ nor does he jest, ‘Do you like green eggs and ham?’ Instead, he asks the only question that the man needs posed: ‘Do you want to be made well?’ Knowing this same God desires wholeness and justice for each one of us, I don’t think Jesus’s question is any different now.”

MOVING FORWARD: “Find a cozy spot, close your eyes, and be with God for the next five minutes. Then, sit with the question, ‘Do you want to be made well?’

A concluding note: the paradox of this question, its sticking point, is that sometimes we do not want to be made well. Sometimes people glory in their affliction and bask in it, enjoying both the sympathy it affords and the excuse it provides not to have to do anything about it. This is sometimes true of people with addictions or physical impairments, and certainly with those people who are caregivers and enablers of people with these maladies. Such can be their lives that they are tied up so invisibly and tightly with the particular affliction that they wouldn’t know what to do, how to function without it. Sometimes they are quite upset, even angry, when the person gets well. So, the question from Jesus is quite appropriate, for them, and for us. “Do you want to be made well, do you really want it or do you just go through the motions?”