Do we WANT to be well?

Healing water, the idea of life-giving waters coming out of Jerusalem, are central to our readings this morning. First we have the Prophet Ezekiel’s vision of life-giving water flowing out from the Temple, the center of the Old Covenant for the Jewish people, bringing new life into the desert. Those life-giving waters change everything they touch from wasteland to paradise — a marvelous vision and analogy for the waters of salvation offered us through the New Covenant, our Risen Savior.

Our Gospel brings us to the pool at Bethesda in Jerusalem, and Jesus healing a crippled man lying there. Periodically this pool became stirred up, and people believed that its waters had miraculous healing powers, if they could bathe in them when the waters came alive. So the pool was surrounded by lots of broken, lame, and crippled people, longing to be cured of their ailments.

Into this scene Jesus comes to seek out this cripple, a man who’s been at the pool for 38 years, longing for a cure. And what’s the first thing Jesus does? He asks him a question: “Do you WANT to be well?” You have to wonder what the man thought when he heard that question. “I’m here, aren’t I?” I mean, he’s been lying there for almost 40 years! But here’s the thing. He wasn’t healed because he got into the pool. He was made well because he looked into the eyes of Jesus and saw his salvation there. He BELIEVED – and he was made well.

Maybe that’s us. Sitting here, going through our rituals, reciting our prayers, week after week, year after year, and waiting for something to change. But that’s not enough. If we truly WANT to be made well, to be healed of our afflictions, we need to look to the Source. Like the crippled man, too often we look to things we can see, the things we can touch, hoping to find an answer in the familiar around us.

But that’s not enough. The waters of our salvation are there for us. But they aren’t within our earthly reach. We know the source of our salvation. He’s right there in front of us, asking, “Do we truly WANT to be healed?” But we’re afraid to put ourselves out there and ASK.

That’s what Lent’s all about. We have to actively seek true healing, the healing that can only come from Christ. We need to turn to Jesus in our infirmities — to ASK to be made well. And we have to TRUST that, even when it seems impossible, our Risen Christ can and willmake us whole. May our Lenten journey be fruitful and lead us back to Christ.