Do You Wish to Be Made Whole?
By: David Breeden
Tags: Unitarian Universalist, Miracles, Jesus, Healing, Humanism

Photo by Hector Falcon on Unsplash

“Do you want your problem fixed?” It seems like an obvious question with an obvious answer. Heck, yea!

The Gospel of John 5:2–9 reports that Jesus asked this question of a man who had been ill for 38 years. The answer, however, is often more complicated than it at first appears.

Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me. Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked . . .

In our rapidly-secularizing society many may not know why there are so many “Bethesda” hospitals around. Bethesda is a King James Version mistranslation of “Beth-zatha.”

This place is described as having “five porches,” so it’s a large building. And this building is filled with the “blind, halt, withered” — “halt” meaning lame and “withered” meaning paralyzed. The people are gathered there because they believe an angel comes down at certain times and “troubles the water.” Whoever gets to the pool first is immediately healed.

John focuses in on one person there, a man who has had an infirmity for thirty-eight years. Jesus asks the man, “Wilt thou be made whole?” — “Do you wish to be made whole?”

Rather than answering with a strong “You bet!” the man instead lodges a complaint: Because he can’t afford a personal attendant and because he doesn’t have any family or friends, someone else always beats him to the troubled water.

The lodged complaint is important to the story: The man wants to get well, but he doesn’t have anybody to help him do the necessary task.

Now, from whatever source that question comes down to us, “Do you wish to be made whole?” reveals a lot more about what is happening in the story than is at first glance apparent: The question elicits the response of “Heck, yeah! Nobody even sees me.”

And whatever the source of this narrative, I think it reveals something else: A vague understanding, even among the early Christians, that this miracle isn’t miraculous in any breaking-the-rules-of-science sort of way.

Notice a couple of details in the story: this huge building is full of “impotent folk.” They have lost that “potency,” their life force. Also notice the most glaring detail: If Jesus is such a great healer, how come he doesn’t heal the whole lot of them, and clear the place out with shouts of joy?

Why would a great and compassionate miracle worker do such a thing?

No, he walks up to one guy and asks his question. One guy. And the way he asks the question tells us what’s going on: “Do you wish to be made whole?” My suspicion is that Jesus has “read the room,” and he has seen the one person who needs only one thing: to be noticed. The man needs to be validated. Then, they guy is fine. He “takes up his bed and walks.”

It’s good ‘ol fashioned psychology: this particular person was ready, willing, and able to be whole — he already was “whole” actually — he merely needed someone to inform him of the fact. The man needed to be noticed. To be validated.

And there’s one more thing: Yes, he did wish to “be made whole.” He revealed that fact in his response. He was willing to let go of his self-identification as a sick person.

Because many of us are not. Rather, we have fallen in love with our brokenness. Or what we see as our brokenness. When that happens . . . no healer will come walking by.

FirstUnitarian.org

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