Daily Devotional • August 17
A Reading from John 5:1-18
1 After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Hebrew called Beth-za′tha, which has five porticoes. 3 In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed. 5 One man was there, who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him and knew that he had been lying there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” 7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is troubled, and while I am going another steps down before me.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your pallet, and walk.” 9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his pallet and walked.
Now that day was the sabbath. 10 So the Jews said to the man who was cured, “It is the sabbath, it is not lawful for you to carry your pallet.” 11 But he answered them, “The man who healed me said to me, ‘Take up your pallet, and walk.’” 12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your pallet, and walk’?” 13 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. 14 Afterward, Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse befall you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. 16 And this was why the Jews persecuted Jesus, because he did this on the sabbath. 17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working still, and I am working.” 18 This was why the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath but also called God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
Meditation
This man lying by the miraculous pool has been ill for 38 years. One must be the first to get into the water when an angel troubles the surface to receive healing; but someone else, either with better mobility or with a helper, gets in before him every time. A note on this passage elaborates, “other ancient authorities insert, ‘waiting for the moving of the water; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and troubled the water: whoever stepped in first after the troubling of the water was healed of whatever disease he had.’” But he is alone with no helper. Have you ever felt all alone with your illness, addiction or distress, even as it goes on and on for years?
Jesus chooses to speak to him out of all the other sick people lying nearby. He asks what seems an obvious question,“Do you want to be healed?” But actually, we can get used to our afflictions so that the thought of returning to the normal duties of life can be terrifying.
The first step in Alcoholics Anonymous is admitting that our lives have become unmanageable; the second step is coming to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. Jesus is asking him to take those steps: saying he wants to be healed and believing that this man, whom he does not know, can accomplish that. Jesus gives the command to rise, take up your pallet and walk. Once healed, he has to do the work of carrying his pallet away.
But now he is violating the Sabbath prohibition against work, just as Jesus has violated it by “working” as a physician. The Pharisees accosting Jesus are so enraged that he says he is working just as his Father is working, thus calling God his father, that they seek to kill him. They don’t care about the sick man or the miracle. That is their affliction.
The Rev. Dr. Jean McCurdy Meade is a retired priest of the Diocese of Louisiana, formerly the rector of Mount Olivet Church, New Orleans.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
The Diocese of Ife East – The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion)
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Beaufort, North Carolina