Jesus’ movement in John 4 & 5 from the woman at the well to the cripple man beside the Pool of Bethesda is intentional. It has a rhythm. In a sense, John 3-5 is a net cast by Christ, wide enough to grip and drag each of us (kicking and screaming, if need be) into the Kingdom of God. Perhaps we have a hard time identifying with the pious religiosity of Nicodemus or the wanton immorality of the Samaritan woman. If this is the case, we will certainly find our place atop a worn and dusty poolside mat beside Bethesda.
This past summer I celebrated the 10th anniversary of my baptism. It was an early August evening in rural Minnesota. The water was calm and inviting as a multitude of shiny souls lined the shore of Lake Sagatagan. None of us had any idea what we were getting ourselves into. Paul tells us that we are buried with Christ in baptism. There’s a violence in such imagery that doesn’t seem to match what I felt that night. Falling into the waters was easy, it was the expected thing to do. Only after, in the years that followed my “burial”, did I begin to feel the full sting of death. I had no idea how deep the stain of sin that marred my heart went. Compulsions, involuntary reactions, lusts and insecurities began to gnaw away at my soul and reach into my consciousness. The last two years of my college career were grounded in a indescribable haze of depression. As a leader in a student-led campus ministry, I felt the weight of the expectations and perceptions that I had the Christian life all figured out. I didn’t. My faith was running through my fingers like dry sand on a windy day. I was tired of pretense and facades, but had no idea how to let go. Because in truth, I liked the attention, enjoyed the illusion of perfection I had created.
I attended a conference. We sang songs and everyone lifted their hands. I felt nothing, pushed back tears and threw my hands in the air, hoping no one would notice what to me was clear–I didn’t belong. After the session was over, a new friend asked if we could chat for a while. I had just met this guy, he had no idea how lost I felt. His questions violently tore at my soul, “Bryan, why do you lift your hands in worship? Why do you dance around? Is that what you really feel?” These were the questions I was too afraid to ask myself. In truth I felt out of place because I had imposed upon God a posture of disappointment, assuming that He had already given up on me. I believed the people around me had a right to lift their hands. Their smiles spoke to me of their perfection, of the vast chasm separating their level of sanctification from my blackened heart.
Two roads are available to those who know themselves to be both saved by grace and yet the most violent sinner in the room. The first leads to a poolside view of Bethesda.
Rain water runs across the top of the watershed ridge from the hill country of Ephraim and Benjamin before eventually making its way into Jerusalem. The massive Pool of Bethesda is a gathering point for this runoff water. During the time of Jesus, geological insight was at a minimum and many believed that the only explanation for the movement of the water into Bethesda was the activity of a mysterious god. Water pouring into the pools, “stirring the waters”, became a cue for afflicted people to race into the waters and claim their healing. Legend held that the water-stirring god would heal the first person to reach the water as it began to stir. No good Jew would dare to visit this pool, it was a gathering point for Roman pagans, a place where their mysterious god was reverenced. Jesus, of course, has a habit of showing up in broken-hearted places (like a Samaritan well). At Bethesda he meets a Jewish man who had been waiting for 38 years for his healing. His condition kept him from worshiping in the Temple (which sat directly adjacent to Bethesda). Day after day the man hopelessly waited for someone to carry him into the waters as they moved. No one ever came. Caught between a pagan promise of healing, a Jewish religious system which kept him from crying out to the true God, and a condition that completely immobilized him, I can only imagine the internal battles this man faced–a child of Israel with a broken body and hungry heart.
Two roads are available to those who know themselves to be both saved by grace and yet the most violent sinner in the room. The second is found as we expose our conditions to the careful hands of Christ without fear of how the watching world might respond.
I see it on every youth retreat l lead. There comes a point during the week or weekend when emotions come to a head. Good youth directors provide prayer-soaked contexts in which these emotions can be expressed and responded to with grace. Students gather amid silence. Everyone has something deep within them that they want to share. Philo of Alexandra, a first century B.C. Jew warns, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” These retreats provide safe spaces to speak of such battles, inviting others to join in the fight. At first everyone is silent and everyone wonders, “What if nobody says anything? Will we be here all night in silence?” But the Spirit possesses a potency that renders such fears baseless. A tiny voice inevitably cuts through the night, someone’s bleeding heart grants permission for everyone else to be honest. Confessions collide and lives are healed. It’s as if we are all, in that moment, sitting beside Bethesda, caught in between an invitation into authenticity and the willingness to settle for little gods who can only stir water but can’t really heal us. It’s as if Jesus is asking, “Do you want to be well?”
