< View or listen to a video version of this reflection offered by Campus Minister Paulina Thurmann. >

During Lent, as a school community, we are collecting funds to support the Becraft Scholars, a relationship-centered scholarship program.

There’s Room in the Pool for Everyone

by Religious Studies Teacher Jason Odem

“It’s so easy to laugh, it’s so easy to hate. It takes strength to be gentle and kind.” - Stephen Patrick Morrissey

Gospel Reading for Tuesday, March 21: John 5:1-16

There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate
a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes.
In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled.
One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
When Jesus saw him lying there
and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him,
"Do you want to be well?"
The sick man answered him,
"Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool
when the water is stirred up;
while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me."
Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your mat, and walk."
Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.

Now that day was a sabbath.
So the Jews said to the man who was cured,
"It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat."
He answered them, "The man who made me well told me,
'Take up your mat and walk.'"
They asked him,
"Who is the man who told you, 'Take it up and walk'?"
The man who was healed did not know who it was,
for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there.
After this Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him,
"Look, you are well; do not sin anymore,
so that nothing worse may happen to you."
The man went and told the Jews
that Jesus was the one who had made him well.
Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus
because he did this on a sabbath.

Lenten Reflection Week Four

While Jesus sometimes spoke in parables, he healed those on the periphery of society directly, in the flesh and in real-time. Today's Gospel tells of Jesus healing the paralyzed man at Bethesda on the Sabbath. It is not meant to be taken as a parable but rather literally. John is recounting a historical event at an archaeological site you can visit today. 

If you are ever in Jerusalem, you can visit the Muslim Quarter and find the Pool of Bethesda, a narrow passage among the beautiful, towering ruins of a Byzantine church built around two natural pools. Scholars believe this place served a religious and medical function for the Hebrews, the Greeks and the Romans. The Pool of Bethesda may have been an early Jewish ritual bath, or mikveh, to which the Christian sacrament of baptism is intimately connected. 

Healing on the Sabbath was "work" for Jesus and he could be essentially found guilty in the eyes of Jewish Law. Jesus had the option to remind the man paralyzed for thirty-eight years that he needed to return during regular business hours. But Jesus does not make this suffering man wait for healing.

Jesus heard and responded with healing grace in his mercy and great compassion.

Perhaps it is unsurprising that Bethesda means "house of mercy" in Hebrew. Jesus gives us the healing we need without excuses or deliberation.

Regardless of the history and archaeology, however, the practical point Jesus makes in today's Gospel is that healing is to occur in real-time, in real life and with real people. In this context, Jesus' healing on the Sabbath fulfills Jewish Law. As we saw earlier in Lent, Jesus had high regard for the law, and went so far as to encourage his Jewish followers to adhere carefully to the expansive Jewish legal codes. However, Jesus recognized that Jewish Law was to be interpreted and illuminated by the Spirit of the Living God. It is the spirit of the Law, or rather the Spirit, that animates the Law, with which Jesus was most concerned. Jesus made this painfully clear when he said that everything – all the Law and Prophets – depend upon the love of God and the love of neighbors as oneself.  

As Jesus illustrated in time, place and history, justice is not complete without moral agency and mercy. These qualities flow from the Spirit of God, who is unconditional love. So, when we use justice to heal others, we should remember what happened at Bethesda. There can't be true fulfillment of the Law until everyone is healed.

Earlier this month, thirty-five-year-old Sheldon Thomas, a black man from New York, was released after being wrongfully imprisoned for more than eighteen years. Mr. Thomas waited patiently for over half his life, much like the man who was healed at Bethesda. It might take a long, long time, but our hope is in a God who leads us to healing waters. In this wounded world, we'd do well to remember there's room in the pool for everyone. 

Let's pause for a few minutes to listen to God, a God of compassion who is always on the clock to heal our wounds. 

Let us remember that we are in the holy presence of God.
St. Francis of Assisi, pray for us.
Live Jesus in our hearts forever. 
Amen.

Questions for Reflection

• How do you resemble the person with paralysis at Bethesda? What wounds have you been carrying for years?
• When have you been self-righteous in judging others like the Pharisees?
• How can you go out of your way today to be like Jesus at Bethesda? How can you be a source of healing?

If you have questions about this post, please reach out to Religious Studies Teacher Jason Odem or Campus Minister Paulina Thurmann.