In today's reading from John 5:1-18, Jesus asks a strange question to a man who has been ill for 38 years. "Do you want to be made well?" The man is lying near a pool purported to have healing powers when its waters become disturbed, but his condition (he is apparently lame or paralyzed) means that others always get to the waters ahead of him. When Jesus sees the man, he can tell that he has been there a long time, but still he asks, "Do you want to be made well?"
It seems an absurd question, and so I wonder why John bothers to record it. It has very little to do with the story. But there it is. Surely the man wanted to be made well.
In the churches I've been part of over the years, attempts were made to find out what people were looking for in adult Christian Education offerings. Over and over again the answer to questions about this was, "We don't know our Bibles well enough. We need some basic Bible studies." But when these churches offered such classes, the people who said they needed them didn't attend. Apparently they didn't want what they said they wanted.
"Do you want to be made well?" I have spiritual longings and hungers in my life, desires to grow closer to God and understand more fully what I am called to be and do. But sometimes these are a lot like the desires of those church members to know their Bibles better.
Sometimes it is a very good thing for Jesus to confront me and ask me a hard question. "Do you really want to follow me? Do you really want to be my disciple?" Surely that's an absurd question. Surely I do.
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